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PARADISE GARDEN
_THE SATIRICAL NARRATIVE
OF A GREAT EXPERIMENT_
BY
GEORGE GIBBS
AUTHOR OF THE YELLOW DOVE, ETC.
_I have considered well his loss of time
And how he cannot be a perfect man
Not being tried and tutored in the world._
--TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
ILLUSTRATED BY WILLIAM A. HOTTINGER
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Printed in the United States of America
[Illustration: "'Love!' he sneered ... 'I thought you'd say that.'"]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE GREAT EXPERIMENT
II. JERRY
III. JERRY GROWS
IV. ENTER EVE
V. THE MINX RETURNS
VI. THE CABIN
VII. JACK BALLARD TAKES CHARGE
VIII. JERRY EMERGES
IX. FOOT-WORK
X. MARCIA
XI. THE SIREN
XII. INTRODUCING JIM ROBINSON
XIII. UNA
XIV. JERRY GOES INTO TRAINING
XV. THE UNKNOWN UNMASKED
XVI. THE FIGHT
XVII. MARCIA RECANTS
XVIII. TWO EMBASSIES
XIX. THE PATH IN THE WOODS
XX. REVOLT
XXI. JERRY ASKS QUESTIONS
XXII. THE CHIPMUNK
XXIII. THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY
XXIV. FEET OF CLAY
XXV. THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
XXVI. DRYAD AND SATYR
XXVII. REVELATIONS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"'Love!' he sneered ... 'I thought you'd say that.'"
"In the evenings sometimes I read while Jerry whittled"
"This then was Jerry's house-party--!"
"'Have pity, Jerry,' she whimpered"
PARADISE GARDEN
CHAPTER I
THE GREAT EXPERIMENT
It might be better if Jerry Benham wrote his own memoir, for no matter
how veracious, this history must be more or less colored by the point
of view of one irrevocably committed to an ideal, a point of view
which Jerry at least would insist was warped by scholarship and stodgy
by habit. But Jerry, of course, would not write it and couldn't if he
would, for no man, unless lacking in sensibility, can write a true
autobiography, and least of all could Jerry do it. To commit him to
such a task would be much like asking an artist to paint himself into
his own landscape. Jerry could have painted nothing but impressions of
externals, leaving out perforce the portrait of himself which is the
only thing that matters. So I, Roger Canby, bookworm, pedagogue and
student of philosophy, now recite the history of the Great Experiment
and what came of it.
It is said that Solomon and Job have best spoken of the misery of man,
the former the most fortunate, the latter the most unfortunate of
creatures. And yet it seems strange to me that John Benham, the
millionaire, Jerry's father, cynic and misogynist, and Roger Canby,
bookworm and pauper, should each have arrived, through different
mental processes, at the same ideal and philosophy of life. We both
disliked women, not only disliked but feared and distrusted them,
seeing in the changed social order a menace to the peace of the State
and the home. The difference between us was merely one of condition;
for while I kept my philosophy secret, being by nature reticent and
unassertive, John Benham had both the means and the courage to put his
idealism into practice.
Life seldom makes rapid adjustments to provide for its mistakes, and
surely only the happiest kind of accident could have thrown me into
the breach when old John Benham died, for I take little credit to
myself in saying that there are few persons who could have fitted so
admirably into a difficult situation.
Curiously enough this happy accident had come from the most unexpected
source. I had tried and failed at many things since leaving the
University. I had corrected proofs in a publishing office, I had
prepared backward youths for their exams, and after attempting life in
a broker's office downtown, for which I was as little fitted as I
should have been for the conquest of the Polar regions, I found myself
one fine morning down to my last few dollars, walking the streets with
an imminent prospect of speedy starvation. The fact of death, as an
alternative to the apparently actual, did not disconcert me. I
shouldn't have minded dying in the least, were it not for the fact
that I had hoped before that event to have expounded for modern
consumption certain theories of mine upon the dialectics of Hegel. As
my money dwindled I was reduced to quite necessary economies, and
while not what may be called a heavy eater, I am willing to admit
that there were times when I felt distinctly empty. Curiously enough,
my philosophy did little to relieve me of that physical condition, for
as someone has said, "Philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an
arrant jade on a journey."
But it seems that the journeying of my jade was near its ending. For
upon this morning, fortune threw me into the way of a fellow who had
been in my class at the University, who was to be my _deus ex
machina_. No two persons in the world could have been more dissimilar
than "Jack" Ballard and I, and yet, perhaps for that reason, there had
always been a kind of affinity between us. He was one of the
wealthiest men in my class and was now, as he gleefully informed me,
busily engaged clipping coupons in his father's office, "with office
hours from two to three some Thursdays." Of course, that was his idea
of a joke, for it seems quite obvious that a person who gave so little
time to his business had better have kept no hours at all. He greeted
me warmly and led me into his club, which happened to be near by,
where over the lunch table he finally succeeded in eliciting the fact
that I was down to my last dollar with prospects far from encouraging.
"Good old Pope!" he cried, clapping me on the back. "Pope" was my
pseudonym at the University, conferred in a jocular moment by Ballard
himself on account of a fancied resemblance to Urban the Eighth. "Just
the man! Wonder why I didn't think of you before!" And while I
wondered what he was coming at, "How would, you like to make a neat
five thousand a year?"
I laughed him off, not sure that this wasn't a sample of the Ballard
humor.
"Anything," I said, trying to smile, "short of murder--"
"Oh, I am not joking!" he went on with an encouraging flash of
seriousness. "Five thousand a year cool, and no expenses--livin' on
the fat of the land, with nothin' to do but--"
He broke off suddenly and grasped me by the arm.
"Did you ever hear of old John Benham, the multi-millionaire?" he
asked. I remarked that my acquaintance with millionaires, until that
moment, had not been large.
"Oh, of course," he laughed, "if I had mentioned Xenophon, you'd have
pricked up your ears like an old war horse. But John Benham, as a name
to conjure with, means nothing to you. You must know then that John
Benham was for years the man of mystery of Wall Street. Queer old
bird! Friend of the governor's, or at least as much of a friend of the
governor's as he ever was of anybody. Made a pot of money in
railroads. Millions! Of course, if you've never heard of Benham you've
never heard of the Wall."
I hadn't.
"Well, the Benham Wall in Greene County is one of the wonders of the
age. It's nine feet high, built of solid masonry and encloses five
thousand acres of land."
Figures meant nothing to me and I told him so.
"The strange thing about it is that there's no mystery at all. The old
man had no secrets except in business and no past that anybody could
care about. But he was a cold-blooded proposition. No man ever had
his confidence, no woman ever had his affection except his wife, and
when she died all that was human in him was centered on his son, the
sole heir to twenty millions. Lucky little beggar. What?"
"I'm not so sure," I put in slowly.
"Now this is where you come in," Ballard went on quickly. "It seems
that inside his crusty shell old Benham was an idealist of sorts with
queer ideas about the raising of children. His will is a wonder. He
directs his executors (the governor's one of six, you know) to bring
up his boy inside that stone wall at Horsham Manor, with no knowledge
of the world except what can be gotten from an expurgated edition of
the classics. He wants him brought to manhood as nearly as can be
made, a perfect specimen of the human male animal without one thought
of sex. It's a weird experiment, but I don't see why it shouldn't be
interesting."
"Interesting!" I muttered, trying to conceal my amazement and delight.
"The executors must proceed at once. The boy is still under the care
of a governess. On the twelfth of December he will be ten years of
age. The woman is to go and a man takes her place. I think I can put
you in. Will you take it?"
"I?" I said, a little bewildered. "What makes you think I'm qualified
for such an undertaking?"
"Because you were the best scholar in the class, and because you're a
blessed philosopher with leanings toward altruism. A poor helpless
little millionaire with no one to lean on must certainly excite your
pity. You're just the man for the job, I tell you. And if you said
you'd do it, you'd put it over."
"And if I couldn't put it over?" I laughed. "A growing youth isn't a
fifteen-pound shot or a football, Ballard."
"You could if you wanted to. Five thousand a year isn't to be sneezed
at."
"I assure you that I've never felt less like sneezing in my life,
but--"
"Think, man," he urged, "all expenses paid, a fine house, horses,
motors, the life of a country gentleman. In short, your own rooms,
time to read yourself stodgy if you like, and a fine young cub to
build in your own image."
"Mine?" I gasped.
He laughed.
"Good Lord, Pope! You always did hate 'em, you know."
"Hate? Who?"
"Women."
I felt myself frowning.
"Women! No, I do not love women and I have some reasons for believing
that women do not love me. I have never had any money and my
particular kind of pulchritude doesn't appeal to them. Hence their
indifference. Hence mine. Like begets like, Jack."
He laughed.
"I have reasons for believing the antipathy is deeper than that."
I shrugged the matter off. It is one which I find little pleasure in
discussing.
"You may draw whatever inference you please," I finished dryly.
He lighted a cigarette and inhaled it jubilantly.
"Don't you see," he said, "that it all goes to show that you're
precisely the man the governor's looking for? What do you say?"
I hesitated, though every dictate of inclination urged. Here was an
opportunity to put to the test a most important theory of the old
Socratic doctrine, that true knowledge is to be elicited from within
and is to be sought for in ideas and not in particulars of sense. What
a chance! A growing youth in seclusion. Such a magnificent seclusion!
Where I could try him in my own alembic! Still I hesitated. The
imminence of such good fortune made me doubt my own efficiency.
"Suppose I was the wrong man," I quibbled for want of something better
to say.
"The executors will have to take their chance on that," he said,
rising with the air of a man who has rounded out a discussion. "Come!
Let's settle the thing."
Ballard had always had a way with him, a way as foreign to my own as
the day from night. From my own point of view I had always held Jack
lightly, and yet I had never disliked him--nor did I now--for there
was little doubt of his friendliness and sincerity. So I rose and
followed him, my docility the philosophy of a full stomach plus the
chance of testing the theory of probabilities; for to a man who for
six years had reckoned life by four walls of a room and a shelf of
books this was indeed an adventure. I was already meshed in the loom
of destiny. He led me to a large automobile of an atrocious red color
which was standing at the curb, and in this we were presently hurled
through the crowded middle city to the lower part of the town, which,
it is unnecessary for me to say, I cordially detested, and brought up
before a building, the entire lower floor of which was given over to
the opulent offices of Ballard, Wrenn and Halloway.
Ballard the elder was tall like his son, but here the resemblance
ceased, for while Ballard the younger was round of visage and jovial,
the banker was thin of face and repressive. He had a long, accipitrine
nose which imbedded itself in his bristling white mustache, and he
spoke in crisp staccato notes as though each intonation and breath
were carefully measured by their monetary value. He paid out to me in
cash a half an hour, during which he questioned and I replied while
Jack grinned in the background. And at the end of that period of time
the banker rose and dismissed me with much the air of one who has
perused a document and filed it in the predestined pigeonhole. I felt
that I had been rubber-stamped, docketed and passed into oblivion.
What he actually said was:
"Thanks, I'll write. Good afternoon."
The vision of the Great Experiment which had been flitting in
rose-color before my eyes, was as dim as the outer corridor where I
was suddenly aware of Jack Ballard's voice at my ear and his friendly
clutch upon my elbow.
"You'll do," he laughed. "I was positive of it."
"I can't imagine how you reach that conclusion," I put in rather
tartly, still reminiscent of the rubber stamp.
"Oh," he said, his eye twinkling, "simplest thing in the world. The
governor's rather brief with those he doesn't like."
"Brief! I feel as though I'd just emerged from a glacial douche."
"Oh, he's nippy. But he never misses a trick, and he got your number
all O.K."
As we reached the street I took his hand.
"Thanks, Ballard," I said warmly. "It's been fine of you, but I'm
sorry that I can't share your hopes."
"Rot! The thing's as good as done. There's another executor or two to
be consulted, but they'll be glad enough to take the governor's
judgment. You'll hear from him tomorrow. In the meanwhile," and he
thrust a paper into my hands, "read this. It's interesting. It's John
Benham's brief for masculine purity with a few remarks (not taken from
Hegel) upon the education and training of the child."
We had reached the corner of the street when he stopped and took out
his watch.
"Unfortunately this is the Thursday that I work," he laughed, "and
it's past two o'clock, so good-by. I'll stop in for you tomorrow," and
with a flourish of the hand he left me.
Still dubious as to the whole matter, which had left me rather
bewildered, when I reached my shabby room I took out the envelope
which Ballard had handed me and read the curious paper that it
contained.
As I began reading this remarkable document (neatly typed and
evidently copied from the original in John Benham's own hand) I
recognized some of the marks of the Platonic philosophy and read with
immediate attention. Before I had gone very far it was quite clear to
me that the pedagogue who took upon himself the rearing of the infant
Benham, must himself be a creature of infinite wisdom and discretion.
As far as these necessary qualifications were concerned, I saw no
reason why I should refuse. The old man's obvious seriousness of
purpose interested me.
"It is my desire that my boy, Jeremiah, be taught simple religious
truths and then simple moral truths, learning thereby insensibly the
lessons of good manners and good taste. In his reading of Homer and
Hesiod the tricks and treacheries of the gods are to be banished, the
terrors of the world below to be dispelled, and the misbehavior of the
Homeric heroes are to be censured.
"If there is such a thing as original sin--and this I beg leave to
doubt, having looked into the eyes of my boy and failed to find it
there--then teaching can eradicate it, especially teaching under such
conditions as those which I now impose. The person who will be chosen
by my executors for the training of my boy will be first of all a man
of the strictest probity. He will assume this task with a grave sense
of his responsibility to me and to his Maker. If after a proper period
of time he does not discover in his own heart a sincere affection for
my child, he will be honest enough to confess the truth, and be
discharged of the obligation. For it is clear that without love, such
an experiment is foredoomed to failure. To a man such as my mind has
pictured, affection here will not be difficult, for nature has favored
Jerry with gifts of mind and body."
Everywhere in John Benham's instructions there were signs of a deep
and corroding cynicism which no amount of worldly success had been
able to dispel. Everywhere could be discovered a hatred of modern
social forms and a repugnance for the modern woman, against whom he
warns the prospective tutor in language which is as unmistakable as
the Benham Wall. It pleased me to find at least one wise man who
agreed with me in this particular. Until the age of twenty-one, woman
was to be taboo for Jerry Benham, not only her substance, but her
essence. Like the mention of hell to ears polite, she was forbidden at
Horsham Manor. No woman was to be permitted to come upon the estate in
any capacity. The gardeners, grooms, gamekeepers, cooks, house
servants--all were to be men at good wages chosen for their discretion
in this excellent conspiracy. The penalty for infraction of this rule
of silence was summary dismissal.
I read the pages through until the end, and then sat for a long while
thinking, the wonderful possibilities of the plan taking a firmer hold
upon me. The Perfect Man! And I, Roger Canby, should make him.