Shortly after Bob's return in the early spring, George Pollock rode to
Auntie Belle's in some disorder to say that the little girl, now about a
year old, had been taken sick.
"Jenny has a notion it's something catching," said he, "so she won't let
Jim send Mary over. There's too many young-uns in that family to run any
risks."
"How does she seem?" called Auntie Belle from the bedroom where she was
preparing for departure.
"She's got a fever, and is restless, and won't eat," said George
anxiously. "She looks awful sick to me."
"They all do at that age," said Auntie Belle comfortably; "don't you
worry a mite."
Nevertheless Auntie Belle did not return that day, nor the next, nor the
next. When finally she appeared, it was only to obtain certain supplies
and clothes. These she caused to be brought out and laid down where she
could get them. She would allow nobody to come near her.
"It's scarlet fever," she said, "and Lord knows where the child got it.
But we won't scatter it, so you-all stay away. I'll do what I can. I've
been through it enough times, Lord knows."
Three days later she appeared again, very quietly.
"How's the baby?" asked Bob. "Better, I hope?"
"The poor little thing is dead," said Auntie Belle shortly, "and I want
you or somebody to ride down for the minister."
The community attended the funeral in a body. It was held in the open
air, under a white oak tree, for Auntie Belle, with unusual caution and
knowledge for the mountains, refused to permit even a chance of
spreading the contagion. The mother appeared dazed. She sat through the
services without apparent consciousness of what was going on; she
suffered herself to be led to the tiny enclosure where all the Pollocks
of other generations had been buried; she allowed herself to be led away
again. There was in the brief and pathetic ceremony no meaning and no
pain for her. The father, on the other hand, seemed crushed. So broken
was his figure that, after the services, Bob was impelled to lay his
hand on the man's shoulder and mutter a few incoherent but encouraging
words. The mountaineer looked up dully, but sharpened to comprehension
and gratitude as his eyes met those of the tall, vigorous young man
leaning over him.
"I mean it," said Bob; "any time--any place."
On the way back to Sycamore Flats Auntie Belle expressed her mind to the
young man.
"Nobody realizes how things are going with those Pollocks," said she.
"George sold his spurs and that Cruces bit of his to get medicine. He
wouldn't take anything from me. They're proud folks, and nobody'd have a
chance to suspect anything. I tell you," said the good lady solemnly,
"it don't matter where that child got the fever; it's Henry Plant, the
old, fat scoundrel, that killed her just as plain as if he'd stuck a gun
to her head. He has a good deal to answer for. There's lots of folks
eating their own beef cattle right now; and that's ruinous. I suppose
Washington ain't going to do anything. We might have known it. I don't
suppose you heard anything outside about it?"
"Only that Thorne had resigned."
"That so!" Auntie Belle ruminated on this a moment. "Well, I'm right
glad to hear it. I'd hate to think I was fooled on him. Reckon 'resign'
means fired for daring to say anything about His High-and-mightiness?"
she guessed.
Bob shook his head. "Couldn't say," said he.
The busy season was beginning. Every day laden teams crawled up the
road bringing supplies for the summer work. Woodsmen came in twos, in
threes, in bunches of a dozen or more. Bob was very busy arranging the
distribution and forwarding, putting into shape the great machinery of
handling, so that when, a few weeks later, the bundles of sawn lumber
should begin to shoot down the flume, they would fall automatically into
a systematic scheme of further transportation. He had done this twice
before, and he knew all the steps of it, and exactly what would be
required of him. Certain complications were likely to arise, requiring
each their individual treatments, but as Bob's experience grew these
were becoming fewer and of lesser importance. The creative necessity was
steadily lessening as the work became more familiar. Often Bob found his
eagerness sinking to a blank; his attention economizing itself to the
bare needs of the occasion. He caught himself at times slipping away
from the closest interest in what he had to do. His spirit, although he
did not know it, was beginning once more to shake itself restlessly, to
demand, as it had always demanded in the past from the time of his toy
printing press in his earliest boyhood, fresh food for the creative
instinct that was his. Bobby Orde, the child, had been thorough. No
superficial knowledge of a subject sufficed. He had worked away at the
mechanical difficulties of the cheap toy press after Johnny English, his
partner in enterprise, had given up in disgust. By worrying the problem
like a terrier, Bobby had shaken it into shape. Then when the commercial
possibilities of job printing for parents had drawn Johnny back ablaze
with enthusiasm, Bobby had, to his partner's amazement, lost completely
all interest in printing presses. The subject had been exhausted; he had
no desire for repetitions.
So it had gone. One after another he had with the utmost fervour taken
up photography, sailing, carpentry, metal working--a dozen and one
occupations--only to drop them as suddenly. This restlessness of
childhood came to be considered a defect in young manhood. It indicated
instability of character. Only his mother, wiser in her quiet way, saw
the thoroughness with which he ransacked each subject. Bobby would read
and absorb a dozen technical books in a week, reaching eagerly for the
vital principles of his subject. She alone realized, although but dimly,
that the boy did not relinquish his subject until he had grasped those
vital principles.
"He's learning all the time," she ventured.
"'Jack of all trades: master of none,'" quoted Orde doubtfully.
The danger being recognized, little Bobby's teaching was carefully
directed. He was not discouraged in his varied activities; but the
bigger practical principles of American life were inculcated. These may
be very briefly stated. An American must not idle; he must direct his
energies toward success; success means making one's way in life; nine
times out of ten, for ninety-nine men out of a hundred, that means the
business world. To seize the business opportunity; to develop that
opportunity through the business virtues of attention to detail,
industry, economy, persistence, and enthusiasm--these represented the
plain and manifest duty of every citizen who intended to "be somebody."
Now Bob realized perfectly well that here he was more fortunate than
most. A great many of his friends had to begin on small salaries in
indoor positions of humdrum and mechanical duty. He had started on a
congenial out-of-door occupation of great interest and picturesqueness,
one suited to his abilities and promising a great future. Nevertheless,
he had now been in the business five years. He was beginning to see
through and around it. As yet he had not lost one iota of his enthusiasm
for the game; but here and there, once in a while, some of the necessary
delays and slow, long repetitions of entirely mechanical processes left
him leisure to feel irked, to look above him, beyond the affairs that
surrounded him. At such times the old blank, doped feeling fell across
his mind. It had always been so definite a symptom in his childhood of
that state wherein he simply could not drag himself to blow up the
embers of his extinguished enthusiasm, that he recoiled from himself in
alarm. He felt his whole stability of character on trial. If he could
not "make good" here, what excuse could there be for him; what was there
left for him save the profitless and honourless life of the dilettante
and idler? He had caught on to a big business remarkably well, and it
was worse than childish to lose his interest in the game even for the
fraction of a second. Of course, it amounted to nothing but that. He
never did his work better than that spring.
A week after the burial of the Pollock baby, Mrs. Pollock was reported
seriously ill. Bob rode up a number of times to inquire, and kept
himself fully informed. The doctor came twice from White Oaks, but then
ceased his visits. Bob did not know that such visits cost fifty dollars
apiece. Mary, Jim's wife, shared the care of the sick woman with George.
She was reported very weak, but getting on. The baby's death, together
with the other anxieties of the last two years, had naturally pulled her
down.