once began to discuss some plans for relieving the family. Bess
volunteered to give up half her room to one of the children, whilst
Alice outlined a plan which immediately appeared to her father
businesslike and feasible. In the midst of this discussion dinner was
announced, and they sat down.
"Where is George?" asked Mr. Hardy. Ordinarily he would have gone on
with the meal without any reference to the boy, because he was so often
absent from the table. To-night he felt an irresistible longing to
have all his children with him.
"He said he was invited out to dinner with the Bramleys," said Clara.
Mr. Hardy received the announcement in silence. He felt the bitterness
of such indifference on the part of his older son. "What!" he said to
himself, "when he knows I had such a little while left, could he not be
at home?" Then almost immediately flashed into him the self-reproach
even stronger than his condemnation of his boy: "How much have I done
for him these last ten years to win his love and protect him from evil?"
After supper Mr. Hardy sat down by his wife, and in the very act he
blushed with shame at the thought that he could not recall when he had
spent an evening thus. He looked into her face and asked gently:
"Mary, what do you want me to do? Shall I read as we used to in the
old days?"
"No; let us talk together," replied Mrs. Hardy, bravely driving back
her tears. "I cannot realise what it all means. I have been praying
all day. Do you still have the impression you had this morning?"
"Mary, I am, if anything, even more convinced that God has spoken to
me. The impression has been deepening with me all day. When I looked
into poor Scoville's face, the terrible nature of my past selfish life
almost overwhelmed me. Oh, why have I abused God's goodness to me so
awfully?"
There was silence a moment. Then Mr. Hardy grew more calm. He began
to discuss what he would do the second day. He related more fully the
interview with the men in the shop and his visits to the injured. He
drew Clara to him and began to inquire into her troubles in such a
tender, loving way, that Clara's proud, passionate, wilful nature broke
down, and she sobbed out her story to him as she had to her mother the
night before.
Mr. Hardy promised Clara that he would see James the next day. It was
true that James Caxton had only a week before approached Mr. Hardy and
told him in very manful fashion of his love for his daughter; but Mr.
Hardy had treated it as a child's affair, and, in accordance with his
usual policy in family matters, had simply told Clara and Bess to
discontinue their visits at the old neighbour's. But now that he heard
the story from the lips of his own daughter, he saw the seriousness of
it, and crowding back all his former pride and hatred of the elder
Caxton, he promised Clara to see James the next day.
Clara clung to her father in loving surprise. She was bewildered, as
were all the rest, by the strange event that had happened to her
father; but she never had so felt his love before, and forgetting for a
while the significance of his wonderful dream, she felt happy in his
presence and in his affection for her.
The evening had sped on with surprising rapidity while all these
matters were being discussed, and as it drew near to midnight again
Robert Hardy felt almost happy in the atmosphere of that home and the
thought that he could still for a little while create joy for those who
loved him. Suddenly he spoke of his other son:
"I wish George would come in. Then our family circle would be
complete. But it is bedtime for you, Bess, and all of us, for that
matter."
It was just then that steps were heard on the front porch, and voices
were heard as if talking in whispers. The bell rang. Mr. Hardy rose
to go to the door. His wife clung to him terrified.
"Oh, don't go, Robert! I am afraid for you."
"Why, Mary, it cannot be anything to harm me. Don't be alarmed."
Nevertheless he was a little startled. The day had been a trying one
for him. He went to the door, his wife and the children following him
close behind. He threw it wide open, and there, supported by two of
his companions, one of them the young man Mr. Hardy had seen in the
hotel lobby at noon, was his son George, too drunk to stand alone! He
leered into the face of his father and mother with a drunken look that
froze their souls with despair, as the blaze of the hall lamp fell upon
him reeling there.
So the first of Robert Hardy's seven days came to an end.
TUESDAY--THE SECOND DAY.
Mr. Hardy was a man of great will power, but this scene with his
drunken son crushed him for a moment, and seemed to take the very soul
out of him. Mrs. Hardy at first uttered a wild cry and then ran
forward, and, seizing her elder boy, almost dragged him into the house,
while Mr. Hardy, recovering from his first shock, looked sternly at the
companions of the boy and then shut the door. That night was a night
of sorrow in that family. The sorrow of death is not to be compared
with it.
But morning came, as it comes alike to the condemned criminal and to
the pure-hearted child on a holiday, and after a brief and troubled
rest Mr. Hardy awoke to his second day, the memory of the night coming
to him at first as an ugly dream, but afterwards as a terrible reality.
His boy drunk! He could not make it seem possible. Yet there in the
next room he lay, in a drunken stupor, sleeping off the effects of his
debauch of the night before. Mr. Hardy fell on his knees and prayed
for mercy, again repeating the words, "Almighty God, help me to use the
remaining days in the wisest and best manner." Then calming himself by
a tremendous effort, he rose and faced the day's work as bravely as any
man could under such circumstances.
After a family council, in which all of them, on account of their
troubles, were drawn nearer together than ever before, Mr. Hardy
outlined the day's work something as follows:
First, he would go and see James Caxton and talk over the affair
between him and Clara. Then he would go down to the office and arrange
some necessary details of his business. If possible, he would come
home to lunch. In the afternoon he would go to poor Scoville's
funeral, which had been arranged for two o'clock. Mrs. Hardy announced
her intention to go also. Then Mr. Hardy thought he would have a visit
with George and spend the evening at home, arranging matters with
reference to his own death. With this programme in mind he went away,
after an affectionate leave-taking with his wife and children.
George slept heavily until the middle of the forenoon, and then awoke
with a raging headache. Bess had several times during the morning
stolen into the room to see if her brother were awake. When he did
finally turn over and open his eyes, he saw the young girl standing by
the bedside. He groaned as he recalled the night and his mother's
look, and Bess said timidly as she laid her hand on his forehead:
"George, I'm so sorry for you! Don't you feel well?"
"I feel as if my head would split open. It aches as if someone were
chopping wood inside of it."
"What makes you feel so?" asked Bess innocently. "Did you eat too much
supper at the Bramleys'?"
Bess had never seen anyone drunk before, and when George was helped to
bed the night before by his father and mother, she did not understand
his condition. She had always adored her big brother. It was not
strange she had no idea of his habits.
George looked at his sister curiously; then, under an impulse he could
not explain, he drew her nearer to him and said:
"Bess, I'm a bad fellow. I was drunk last night! Drunk!--do you
understand? And I've nearly killed mother!"
Bess was aghast at the confession. She put out her hand again.
"Oh, no, George!" Then with a swift revulsion of feeling she drew back
and said: "How _could_ you, with father feeling as he does?"
And little Bess, who was a creature of very impulsive emotions, sat
down crying on what she supposed was a cushion, but which was George's
tall hat, accidentally covered with one end of a comforter which had
slipped off the bed. Bess was a very plump little creature, and as she
picked herself up and held up the hat, George angrily exclaimed:
"You're always smashing my things!" But the next minute he was sorry
for the words.
Bess retreated toward the door, quivering under the injustice of the
charge. At the door she halted. She had something of Clara's
passionate temper, and once in a while she let even her adored brother
George feel it, small as she was.
"George Hardy, if you think more of your old stovepipe hat than you do
of your sister, all right! You'll never get any more of my month's
allowance. And if I do smash your things, I don't come home drunk at
night and break mother's heart. That's what she's crying about this
morning--that, and father's queer ways. Oh, dear! I don't want to
live; life is so full of trouble!" And little twelve-year-old Bess
sobbed in genuine sorrow.
George forgot his headache for a minute.
"Come, Bess, come, let's kiss and make up. Honest, now, I didn't mean
it. I was bad to say what I did. I'll buy a dozen hats and let you
sit on them for fun. Don't go away angry; I'm so miserable!"
He lay down and groaned, and Bess went to him immediately, all her
anger vanished.
"Oh, let me get you something to drive away your headache; and I'll
bring you up something nice to eat. Mother had Norah save something
for you--didn't you, mother?"
Bessie asked the question just as her mother came in.
Mrs. Hardy said "Yes," and going up to George sat down by him and laid
her hand on his head as his sister had done.
The boy moved uneasily. He saw the marks of great suffering on his
mother's face, but he said nothing to express sorrow for his disgrace.
"Bess, will you go and get George his breakfast?" asked Mrs. Hardy; and
the minute she was gone the mother turned to her son and said:
"George, do you love me?"
George had been expecting something different. He looked at his mother
as the tears fell over her face, and all that was still good in him
rose up in rebellion against the animal part. He seized his mother's
hand and carried it to his lips, kissed it reverently, and said in a
low tone:--
"Mother, I am unworthy. If you knew--"
He checked himself as if on the verge of confession. His mother waited
anxiously, and then asked:
"Won't you tell me all?"
"No; I can't!"
George shuddered, and at that moment Bess came in, bearing a tray with
toast and eggs and coffee. Mrs. Hardy left Bess to look after her
brother, and went out of the room almost abruptly. George looked
ashamed, and, after eating a little, told Bess to take the things away.
She looked grieved, and he said:
"Can't help it; I'm not hungry. Besides, I don't deserve all this
attention. Say, Bess, is father still acting under his impression, or
dream, or whatever it was?"
"Yes, he is," replied Bessie, with much seriousness; "and he is ever so
good now, and kisses mother and all of us good-bye in the morning; and
he is kind and ever so good. I don't believe he is in his right mind.
Will said yesterday he thought father was _non campus meant us_; and
then he wouldn't tell me what it meant; but I guess he doesn't think
father is just right intellectually."
Now and then Bess got hold of a big word and used it for all it would
bear. She said "intellectually" over twice, and George laughed a
little; but it was a bitter laugh, not such as a boy of his age has any
business to possess. He lay down and appeared to be thinking, and,
after a while, said aloud:
"I wonder if he wouldn't let me have some money while he's feeling that
way?"
"Who?" queried Bess. "Father?"
"What! you here still, Curiosity? Better take these things downstairs!"
George spoke with his "headache tone," as Clara called it, and Bess,
without reply, gathered up the tray things and went out, while George
continued to figure out in his hardly yet sober brain the possibility
of his father letting him have more money with which to gamble.
In the very next room Mrs. Hardy kneeled in an agony of petition for
that firstborn son, crying out of her heart, "O God, it is more than I
can bear! To see him growing away from me so! Dear Lord, be Thou
merciful to me. Bring him back again to the life he used to live! How
proud I was of him! What a joy he was to me! And now, and now! O
gracious Father, if Thou art truly compassionate, hear me! Has not
this foul demon of drink done harm enough? And yet it still comes, and
even into my home! Ah, I have been indifferent to the cries of other
women, but now it strikes me! Spare me, great and powerful Almighty!
My boy! my heart's hunger is for him! I would rather see him dead than
see him as I saw him last night. Spare me, spare me, O God!" Thus the
mother prayed, dry-eyed and almost despairing, while he for whom she
prayed that heart-broken prayer calculated, with growing coldness of
mind, the chances of getting more money from his father to use in drink
and at the gaming table.
O appetite, and thou spirit of gambling, ye are twin demons with whom
many a fair-browed young soul to-day is marching arm in arm down the
dread pavement of hell's vestibule, lined with grinning skeletons of
past victims! Yet men gravely discuss the probability of evil, and
think there is no special danger in a little speculation now and then.
Parents say, "Oh, _my_ boy wouldn't do such a thing!" But how many
know what their boy is really doing, and how many of the young men
would dare reveal to their mothers or fathers the places where they
have been, and the amusements they have tasted, and the things for
which they have spent their money?
Mr. Hardy went at once to his neighbours, the Caxtons, who lived only a
block away. He had not been on speaking terms with the family for some
time, and he dreaded the interview with the sensitiveness of a very
proud and stern-willed man. But two days had made a great change in
him. He was a new man in Christ Jesus; and as he rang the bell he
prayed for wisdom and humility.
James himself came to the door with his overcoat on and hat in hand,
evidently just ready to go down town. He started back at seeing Mr.
Hardy.
"Are you going down town? I will not come in then, but walk along with
you," said Mr. Hardy quietly.
So James came out, and the two walked along together. There was an
awkward pause for a minute, then Mr. Hardy said:
"James, is it true that you and Clara are engaged?"
"No, sir; that--is--not exactly what you might call engaged. We would
like to be." Mr. Hardy smiled in spite of himself; and James added in
a quickened tone: "We would like to be, with your consent, sir."
Mr. Hardy walked on thoughtfully, and then glanced at the young man at
his side. He was six feet tall, not very handsome, as Bessie had
frankly said, but he had a good face, a steady, clear blue eye, and a
resolute air, as of one who was willing to work hard to get what he
wanted. Mr. Hardy could not help contrasting him with his own
prematurely broken down son George, and he groaned inwardly as he
thought of the foolish pride that would bar the doors of his family to
a young man like James Caxton simply because he was poor and because
his father had won in a contested election in which the two older men
were candidates for the same office.
It did not take long to think all this. Then he said, looking again at
the young man with a businesslike look:
"Supposing you had my permission, what are your prospects for
supporting my daughter? She has always had everything she wanted.
What could you give her?"
The question might have seemed cold and businesslike. The tone was
thoughtful and serious.
A light flashed into James' eyes, but he said simply: "I am in a
position to make a thousand dollars a year next spring. I earn
something extra with my pen at home."
Mr. Hardy did not reply to this. He said: "Do you know what a wilful,
quick-tempered girl Clara is?"
"I have known her from a little child, Mr. Hardy. I feel as if I know
her about as well as you do."
"Perhaps you know her better than I do; I do not know my child as I
should."
The tone was not bitter but intensely sad. The young man had, of
course, been greatly wondering at this talk from Mr. Hardy, and had
observed the change in his manner and his speech. He looked at him now
and noted his pale, almost haggard face and his extremely thoughtful
appearance.
"Mr. Hardy," said James frankly, "you are in trouble. I wish I could"--
"Thank you; no, you can't help me in this--except," continued Mr. Hardy
with a faint smile, "except you solve this trouble between you and my
daughter."
"There is no trouble between us, sir," replied James simply. "You know
I love her and have loved her for a long time, and I believe I am able
to support her and make her happy. Won't you give your consent, sir?
We are not children. We know our minds."
James spoke very earnestly. He was beginning to hope that the stern,
proud man who had so curtly dismissed him a little while before would
in some unaccountable manner relent and give him his heart's desire.
Mr. Hardy walked along in silence a little way. Then he said almost
abruptly:
"James, do you drink?"
"No, sir!"
"Or gamble?"
"You forget my mother, Mr. Hardy." The reply was almost stern.
Mrs. Caxton's younger brother had been ruined by gambling. He had come
to the house one night, and in a fit of anger because his sister would
not give him money to carry on his speculations, he had threatened her
life. James had interposed, and at the risk of his own life had
probably saved his mother's. Mrs. Caxton had been so unnerved by the
scene that her health had suffered from it seriously. All this had
happened when James was growing out of boyhood. But not a day had
passed that the young man did not see a sad result of that great
gambling passion in his own mother's face and bearing. He loathed the
thought of a vice so debasing that it ignored all the tender ties of
kindred and was ready to stop at nothing in order to get means for its
exercise.
Mr. Hardy knew the story, and he exclaimed: "Forgive me, James, I did
not think!" Then, after a pause, "Are you a Christian? I mean, do you
have a faith in the revelation of God to men through Jesus Christ, and
do you try to live according to His teachings, with a supreme love for
God controlling your life? Do you live every day as if it might be the
last you would have to live?"
James started. Was Mr. Hardy out of his mind? He had never heard him
talk like this before. The idea of Mr. Hardy caring about his
religious character in the event of his becoming a son-in-law was an
idea too remote for occurrence. He could see, however, that some very
powerful change had taken place in Mr. Hardy's usual demeanour. His
words also produced a strong effect upon the young man. He was like
thousands of young men--temperate, honest, industrious, free from
vices, strictly moral, but without any decided religious faith. "Am I
a Christian?" he asked himself, echoing Mr. Hardy's question. No; he
could not say that he was. He had, in fact, never been confronted with
the question before. So he replied to Mr. Hardy:
"No, sir; I don't think I am what would be called a Christian. As for
living as if every day were to be my last--do you think that is
possible, sir?"
Mr. Hardy did not answer. He walked along thoughtfully. In the course
of the conversation they had reached the corner where the young man
turned down to his office, and the two paused.
"I want to have another talk with you," Mr. Hardy said. "To-day is
Tuesday; say to-morrow evening. I want to see your father also,
and"--Mr. Hardy was on the point of saying that he wanted to ask the
elder Caxton's forgiveness, but for some reason he stopped without
doing so.
James exclaimed eagerly as Mr. Hardy turned to go:
"Then you don't forbid my entertaining some hope of your good will in
the matter of my love for Clara?" He lowered his voice and spoke very
strongly. "You don't forget your own youth, and the way in which you
yourself began your home?"
Mr. Hardy answered never a word to this appeal, but looked into the
young man's face with a gaze he did not forget all day, then wrung his
hand and turned on his heel abruptly and walked rapidly down the street.
James looked after him as he disappeared among the crowds of people
going to their business, and then turned to his own tasks. But
something in him gave him hope. Another something appealed all day to
his inner nature, and he could not shake off the impression of Mr.
Hardy's question--"Are you a Christian?" Even when he went home at
night that question pursued him more strenuously than any other, and
would not give him peace.
Robert Hardy reached his office just in time to see Burns, the foreman,
go out of a side door and cross the yard. The manager followed him and
entered the machine shop in time to see him stop at a machine at the
farthest end of the shop and speak to the man at work there. The man
was a Norwegian, Herman by name. He was running what is called a
planer, a machine for trimming pieces of cold metal just from the
foundry or the casting room. He was at work this morning on one of the
eccentric bars of a locomotive, and it was of such a character that he
could leave the machine for several minutes to do the planing. Burns
talked with this man for a while, and then moved across the floor to
another workman, a small-boned, nervous little fellow, who was in
charge of a boring machine which drove a steel drill through heavy
plates of iron fastened into the frame.
Mr. Hardy came up just as Burns turned away from this man, and touched
him on the shoulder. The foreman started and turned about, surprised
to see the manager.
"Well, Burns, how goes everything this morning?" asked Robert.
"The men here are grumbling because they don't have a holiday, same as
the men in Scoville's department."
"But we can't shut down the whole business, can we?" asked Mr. Hardy,
with a momentary touch of his old-time feeling. "The men are
unreasonable."
"I'm afraid there'll be trouble, sir. I can feel it in the air,"
replied Burns.
Mr. Hardy made no reply in words, but looked about him. Within the
blackened area of the great shop about two hundred men were at work.
The whirl of machinery was constant. The grind of steel on iron was
blended with the rattle of chains and the rolling of the metal
carriages in their tracks. The Genius of Railroading seemed present in
the grim strength and rapidity of several machines which moved almost
as if instinct with intelligence, and played with the most unyielding
substances as if they were soft and pliable clay. In the midst of all
the smashing of matter against matter, through the smoke and din and
dust and revolution of the place, Mr. Hardy was more than usually alive
this morning to the human aspect of the case. His mind easily went
back to the time when he himself stood at one of these planers and did
just such work as that big Norwegian was doing, only the machines were
vastly better and improved now. Mr. Hardy was not ashamed of having
come along through the ranks of manual labour. In fact, he always
spoke with pride of the work he used to do in that very shop, and he
considered himself able to run all by himself any piece of machinery in
the shops. But he could not help envying these men this morning.
"Why," he said, "probably not one of them but has at least seven weeks
to live, and most of them seven months or years, while I-- Why should
these men complain because they are not released from toil? Isn't toil
sweet when there is a strong body and a loving wife and a happy home?
O God!" he continued to think, "I would give all my wealth if I might
change places with any one of these men, and know that I would probably
have more than a week to live."
Mr. Hardy walked back to his office, leaving the foreman in a condition
of wondering astonishment.
"Something wrong in his works, I guess," muttered Burns.
Mr. Hardy sat down to his desk and wrote an order, releasing all the
men who desired to attend Scoville's funeral in the afternoon. He did
not have it in his power to do more, and yet he felt that this was the
least he could do under the circumstances. The more he thought of
Scoville's death the more he felt the cruel injustice of it. The
injuries were clearly accidental; but they might have been avoided
with proper care for human life. Robert Hardy was just beginning to
understand the value of humanity.