I
September 10, 1900.
Judith dearest: Christopher, I think, is going to sell Q 2 Ranch. It
seems odd and perhaps not right that a private disaster like this
should completely overshadow, for us, the terrible disaster in
Galveston day before yesterday. But it has. I think that Christopher
gave us credit for more altruism, and so told us yesterday when we
were all so troubled over the Galveston sufferers. I think that he
thought our own trouble would diminish by comparison. It has not.
When all the mortgages are paid, Christopher will have about $9,000
left over. If he and Irene take half, that will leave $4,500 for
Grandfather, Father, Olympe, Uncle Phineas, Aunt Gracia, you, Greg,
Neal, and me.
Christopher says that we can buy a pleasant Willamette Valley farm for
less than half of that, and start free and clear. That will be much
better, he says, since this place is too large for Father and Neal to
handle, especially since Father’s health is so uncertain.
Indeed, Christopher declares, Father’s health is one of his chief
reasons for selling. He thinks it is not fair to expect Father to
carry on this struggle under a load of debt. Aside from the sentiment
attached to the place, Christopher says, a smaller place, clear of
debt, would be better for everyone. However, he says he will not act
hastily, nor counter to our wishes in the matter. The offer is open
for sixty days.
No one says anything. No one will say anything. I mean, not anything
at all. I mean, not one single word. Not, “Yes, Christopher,” or, “No,
Christopher.” I believe that Uncle Phineas might talk, if he were
here. Uncle Phineas is lost.
Neal and I are the only ones who know this. After Christopher broke
the news to us yesterday morning, Neal and I rode to Quilterville. We
sent a telegram to Uncle Phineas, in care of Dr. Joe. Neal had to tell
me what he was going to do because he had to borrow my pocket money,
to put with his money, to send the telegram. We stayed in Quilterville
several hours waiting for the reply. When it came it was from Dr. Joe.
It said: “Phineas not here. Mum’s the word. No occasion for worry. He
is O. K. Joe.”
We had no money to answer that telegram. Neal says he thinks that
Uncle Phineas has gone on another prospecting trip. It is odd, because
Olympe got a letter from him this morning, written in Portland and
mailed from there. I picked up the envelope and looked to see the
postmark.
Neal thinks that Uncle Phineas wrote several letters, and left them
for Dr. Joe to mail in regular order. It would not be unlike Uncle
Phineas. The fact that Olympe had sent him her garnet set to be
cleaned, and that he did not mention it in this letter, might seem to
prove Neal right. Olympe has written, now, to have him sell the set
instead.
Aunt Gracia is going to sell Great-great-great-grandmother’s silver
tea set. It is hers, you know. Olympe says the Turkey carpets belong
to Uncle Phineas and have ever since he settled the estate in
Virginia. She is going to have him sell them. The amount should keep
you and Greg in comparative comfort for a long time, she thinks. Aunt
Gracia is hoping for a teacher’s position. She is hunting out old
books to bone up for the examinations. Neal plans to stay right here
and work for his board only, if necessary. Grandfather will apply for
his pension after all these years. It will be about seventeen dollars
a month.
Aunt Gracia has asked me to come and help her now, so I must go. Dear,
I love you and Greg very, very much.—Lucy.
II
September 21, 1900.
Dearest, dearest Judy-pudy: If you have worked out, in your philosophy
for living, any special thing to say or to do to prepare you for a
shock, it would be wise to say or do it right now. I have very bad
news to tell you.
The stress and worry of the last several months, combined with darling
Father’s ill health and the final news that Q 2 is to be sold, has
unhinged his mind. Just a little bit, Judy dear. Not enough so that
any of us had noticed it. Truly, truly. We had no idea of such a
thing, before the blow fell. And, if the blow had not fallen, we would
not know it now. He seems just the same as always. Truly he does,
Judy. Perhaps a little sweeter and kinder—but really just the same.
So, when you think of dear, darling Father, think of him as acting
just as he acted when you and Greg left home in March. If you were to
walk right into the room this minute, you would not see a bit of
difference in Father’s mentality. Truly, truly you wouldn’t, Judy.
But, dear, the truth is that Father is now a baptized Siloamite. But
remember quickly, Judy, before this makes you ill or anything: _Father
is just the same wonderful man._
Wednesday those two pleasant young missionaries, Mr. Cordinger and Mr.
Withmore, came to the house. Since they knew nothing about our
troubles, and were jolly and interesting, it was almost a blessing to
have them. If they had not unhinged dear, darling Father’s mind, it
would still be better than not to have them here. They are staying on,
in the attic room, for a week or so. You know they never force their
religious views on anyone, or even ask anyone to join their church; so
how it could have happened that they unhinged Father’s mind, I cannot
understand.
To-day, when they and Aunt Gracia and darling Father started to drive
to Quilter River, we had no idea that Father was not in a normal
state. Judith, when they got to Quilter River, Father allowed himself
to be baptized in it. They all came home and deliberately told us.
Knowing Father as we know him, and knowing his opinions of even less
ornamental nonconformist religions, of course such an act can mean but
one thing. I have not found courage yet to discuss the matter with
anyone except Neal, not even with Grandfather.
Neal says that he thinks there is some dark, sinister meaning behind
it, like blackmail. Neal says that Christopher thinks so, too. If
Christopher does think this, it seems odd that he has now ridden to
Quilterville to mail a letter asking Dr. Joe to come to Father.
I do not believe that it was blackmail. Those two young missionaries
are the sort that Grandfather calls clean, wholesome chaps. And, if
they were wicked, how could they blackmail a man like darling Father
who has led a perfect life?
Judith, dear, I think I am not able to write more now. If I had found
any consolation for myself, I would give it to you. But I have found
none. I have nothing to give to you but my love.—Lucy.
III
September 22, 1900.
Dearest Judy dear: If only I had not sent that letter to you
yesterday! Or if only I had not spent all my money with Neal’s
telegraphing to Uncle Phineas, and could telegraph to you now to
disregard letter, as Christopher did that time in the university when
he planned to commit suicide, and wrote to us about it, and then
changed his mind.
Neal and I have discovered that Father is not, and never was for one
moment, insane. I can write that word now. I could not write it
yesterday.
Last night Neal decided to go straight to Father and ask him why he
had been baptized. I advised against it, fearing that it might make
Father worse again. Neal, fortunately this time, paid no more
attention to my advice than he usually does.
Neal was excited and frightened, though he denied it. He went rushing
upstairs and followed his own quick knock straight into Irene and
Christopher’s room. Christopher had forgotten, again, to lock their
door. Irene had her hair done up in kid curlers. Neal apologized and
pretended not to see. Irene had a slight heart attack. I think because
she has assumed, without actually saying it, that her hair waved
naturally. It was unlike Neal to tell about the kid curlers. He would
not have told a month ago. Sometimes it seems as if Christopher were
selling more of the Quilters than just their family estate. Yesterday,
I thought, he had sold darling Father’s sanity. That is not true,
because this is what Father told Neal.
He said that he liked to pay his debts. He said that the accident had
frightened Aunt Gracia and had started her to worrying, again, about
his immortal soul. She thought that if he had died not in a state of
grace, as she calls it, he would have been doomed to whatever Avernus
the Siloamites had manufactured. He did not have their conception of
it clearly in his mind, but he was sure that it was shockingly
unpleasant. He said that Aunt Gracia had been a mother to us children,
and had stood with him, shoulder to shoulder, all his life. He said
she had enough to trouble her, just now, without being troubled about
him. And for him to allow himself to be dipped, once, into Quilter
River seemed to him a very small payment to make to her.
Neal told Father that he could not go with him in that argument. Neal
said that he thought hypocrisy was never justified. Father said he had
tried to foil his conscience with the same casuistry, but that he
could not. Father said kindness was its own justification. He said
that the sacrifice he had made to please Gracia and to set her mind at
ease was so genuine that it cancelled hypocrisy. Neal said that he did
not believe in sacrifice. Father said, “Neither does Christopher.”
Neal had to admit, of course, that it always depended upon the
sacrifice and who made it. Neal could not understand why Aunt Gracia
should have worried about Father, in particular. Neal said he had
never heard of her worrying about any other Quilter’s immortal soul.
Father told him why. Father said that we children were old enough to
know, and that he had meant, for some time, to tell us.
Judy, a few months before Neal was born, a man who lived in these
parts then was courting Aunt Gracia. Aunt Gracia was infatuated with
him. Mother never did like him, and she had once complained to Father
that the man stared at her. But Father said Mother was so very
beautiful that he could not blame anyone for looking at her. Still,
Father kept an eye on the man; but he soon succeeded in convincing
Father that he was interested only in Aunt Gracia.
One evening, when Father knew that the man was on our place, Father
stopped work a bit early. He did not distrust the man in the least, or
he would not have allowed him to be courting Aunt Gracia. So he
doesn’t know why he stopped work early that evening—he just did so.
And, as he was coming through the oak grove, he heard Mother scream.
Father spurred his Cayuse, and got there just in time to shoot and
kill the man before he had harmed Mother.
Father went straight to the sheriff. In a few days they had a trial.
The jury acquitted Father without leaving the courtroom. And the judge
apologized to Father for having bothered him with the affair.
None of this has ever troubled Father’s conscience at all. He said
there was but one thing to do, and he did it. But he says that, since
Aunt Gracia deep in her own heart has never truly forgiven him, she
thinks the Lord has not forgiven him either. She even thinks that the
Lord would not forgive Father, unless Father made some special kowtow
in his direction. So Father made the kowtow to gratify Aunt Gracia.
Not long after the trouble, Father said, the missionaries of the
Siloamites came to the house, and Aunt Gracia became a convert to
their faith. The religion turned Aunt Gracia from a hard, bitter,
broken person into a useful, serene, lovable woman again. Because of
this, Father said, he felt that he also owed a certain debt to the
Siloamites—a debt that he was glad to pay.
Father said he told Aunt Gracia that he could not say her religious
beliefs were true, because he did not know. He could not say that they
were false, because he did not know. He knew nothing. But, since her
religion was a beautiful, kind, and just religion, he hoped that it
might be true. And that, if with nothing stronger for a foundation
than hope, his baptism would mean anything to her, he was willing to
go through with the ceremony. She told him that it would mean
everything to her. He was baptized.
Neal asked Father why Aunt Gracia’s foolish happiness meant more to
him than the humiliation of the rest of the family, particularly
yours, Judy, and Neal’s and mine.
Father answered that if an act, which was both kind and useful, could
humiliate his children, then he was sorry.
Since you have asked for it twice, I will send you my poem about God.
Grandfather says that it has a thought in it; but he says that he
thinks my medium will prove to be the stately splendour of English
prose. He named my poem for me.
Omnipotence
God was sad, and he sighed,
“How little the earth men know,
They think I am satisfied
With my work down there below.
So they blame me for blunders of hand,
And they scorn me for tasks ill done.
Why can’t they understand
That I have only begun?
Do they think I am unaware
That much I have wrought has been wrong?
My burdens are heavy to bear.
Why won’t they help me along?”
IV
A knock, demand nicely moderated by deference, tapped on the glass of
Lynn MacDonald’s office door.
Her secretary said, “Shall I have your car brought around, Miss
MacDonald, or shall I order your dinner sent up to you?”
Lynn MacDonald added the last page of Lucy’s final letter to the pile
of pages in front of her and smoothed it flat with her palms. Near the
telephone were Neal Quilter’s letters, a package of neatly taped
temptation.
“Neither just now, Miss Kingsbury. I think I shall stay here for half
an hour or so longer. But you must go straight home. I thought you had
gone some time ago.”
“I can’t help you?”
“Not now, thank you.”
The tape untied easily. From the envelope with the blue figure 1 on it
she took Neal Quilter’s first letter, and shook the thick folded pages
free from their creases.