POP

I

They made a handsome family group, with just the one necessary element

of contrast.

Father was the contrast.

They were convened within and about the big three-walled divan which,

according to the fashion, was backed up against a long library-table in

what they now called the living-room. It had once been the sitting-room

and had contained a what-isn't-it and a sofa like an enormous bald

caterpillar, crowded against the wall so that you could fall off only

one side of it.

It was a family reunion and unexpected. Father was not convened with the

rest, but sat off in the shadow and counted the feet sticking out from

the divan and protruding from the chairs. He counted fourteen feet,

including his wife's and excluding his own. All the feet were

expensively shod except his own.

Three of the children had come home for a visit, and father, glad as he

was to see them, had a vague feeling that they had been brought in by

some other motive than their loudly proclaimed homesickness. He was

willing to wait until they disclosed it, for he had an idea what it was

and he was always glad to postpone a payment. It meant so much less

interest to lose. Father was a business man.

Father was also dismally computing the addition to the grocery bills,

the butchery bills, and livery bills, and the others. He was figuring

out the added expense of the dinner, with roast beef now costing as much

as peacocks' tongues. He had raised a large family and there was not a

dyspeptic in the lot--not even a banter.

They had been photographed together the day before and the proof had

just come home. Father was not in the picture. It was a handsome

picture. They admitted it themselves. They had urged father to come

along, but he had pleaded his business, as usual. As they studied the

picture they would glance across at father and realize how little the

picture lost by his absence. It lost nothing but the contrast.

While they were engaged each in that most fascinating of

employments--studying one's own photograph--they were all waiting for

the dining-room maid to appear like a black-and-white sketch and crisply

announce that dinner was served. They had not arrived yet at having a

man. Indeed, that room could still remember when a frowsy, blowsy hired

girl was wont to stick her head in and groan, "Supper's ready!"

In fact, mother had never been able to live down a memory of the time

when she used to put her own head in at a humbler dining-room door and

call with all the anger that cooks up in a cook: "Come on! What we got's

on the table!" But mother had entirely forgotten the first few months of

her married life, when she would sing out to father: "Oh, honey, help me

set the table, will you? I've a surprise for you--something you like!"

This family had evolved along the cycles so many families go

through--from pin feathers to paradise plumes--only, the male bird had

failed to improve his feathers or his song, though he never failed to

bring up the food and keep the nest thatched.

The history of an American family can often be traced by its monuments

in the names the children call the mother. Mrs. Grout had begun as--just

one Ma. Eventually they doubled that and progressed from the accent on

the first to the accent on the second ma. Years later one of the

inarticulate brats had come home as a collegian in a funny hat, and Mama

had become Mater. This had lasted until one of the brattines came home

as a collegienne with a swagger and a funny sweater. And then her Latin

title was Frenchified to _Mere_--which always gave father a shock; for

father had been raised on a farm, where only horses' wives were called

by that name.

Father had been dubbed Pop at an early date. Efforts to change this

title had been as futile as the terrific endeavors to keep him from

propping his knife against his plate. He had been browbeaten out of

using the blade for transportation purposes, but at that point he had

simply ceased to develop.

Names like Pappah, Pater, and _Pere_ would not cling to him; they fell

off at once. Pop he was always called to his face, whether he were

referred to abroad as "the old man," "the governor," or "our dear

father."

The evolution of the Grout family could be traced still more clearly in

the names the parents had given the children. The eldest was a daughter,

though when she grew up she dropped back in the line and became ever so

much younger than her next younger brothers. She might have fallen still

farther to the rear if she had not run up against another daughter who

had her own age to keep down.

The eldest daughter, born in the grim days of early penury, had been

grimly entitled Julia. The following child, a son, was soberly called by

his father's given and his mother's maiden names--John Pennock Grout, or

Jno. P., as his father wrote it.

A year or two later there appeared another hostage. Labeling him was a

matter of deep concern. John urged his own father's name, William; but

the mother wafted this away with a gesture of airy disgust. There was a

hired girl in the kitchen now and mother was reading a good many novels

between stitches. She debated long and hard while the child waited

anonymous. At length she ventured on Gerald. She changed that two or

three times and the boy had a narrow escape from Sylvester. He came

perilously near to carrying Abelard through an amused world; but she

harked back to Gerald--which he spelled Jerrold at times.

Then two daughters entered the family in succession and were stamped

Beatrice--pronounced Bay-ah-treat-she by those who had the time and the

energy--and Consuelo, which Pop would call Counser-eller.

By this time Julia had grown up and was beginning at finishing-school.

She soon saw that Julia would never do--never! She had started with a

handicap, but she caught up with the rest and passed them gracefully by

ingeniously altering the final _a_ to an _e_, and pronouncing it

Zheelee.

Her father never could get within hailing distance of the French _j_ and

_u_, and teetered awkwardly between Jilly and Jelly. He was apt to relax

sickeningly into plain Julia--especially before folks, when he was

nervous anyway. Only they did not say "before folks" now; the Grouts

never said "before folks" now--they said, "In the presence of guests."

By the time the next son came the mother was shamelessly literary enough

to name him Ethelwolf, which his school companions joyously abbreviated

to Ethel, overlooking the wolf.

Ethelwolf was the last of the visitors. For by this time _Mere_ had

accumulated so many absolutely unforgivable grievances against her

absolutely impossible husband that she felt qualified for that crown of

comfortable martyrhood, that womanly ideal, "a wife in name only"--and

only that "for the sake of the children."

By this time the children, too, had acquired grievances against Pop. The

more refined they grew the coarser-grained he seemed. They could not

pulverize him in the coffee-mill of criticism. He was as hopeless in

ideas as in language. It was impossible to make him realize that the

best is always the cheapest; that fine clothes make fine people; that

petty economies are death to "the larger flights of the soul"; and that

parents have no right to have children unless they can give them what

other people's children have.

If John Grout complained that he was not a millionaire the younger

Grouts retorted that this was not their fault, but their misfortune; and

it was "up to Pop" to do the best he could during what _Mere_ was now

calling their "formative years." The children had liberal ideas,

artistic and refined ideals; but Pop was forever talking poor, always

splitting pennies, always dolefully reiterating, "I don't know where the

money is coming from!"

It was so foolish of him, too--for it always came from somewhere. The

children went to the best schools, traveled in Europe, wore as good

clothes as anybody--though they did not admit this, of course, within

father's hearing, lest it put false notions into his head; and the sons

made investments that had not yet begun to turn out right.

Parents cannot fool their children long, and the Grout youngsters had

learned at an early date that Pop always forked over when he was nagged

into it. Any of the children in trouble could always write or telegraph

home a "must have," and it was always forthcoming. There usually

followed a querulous note about "Sorry you have to have so much, but I

suppose it costs a lot where you are. Make it go as far as you can, for

I'm a little pinched just now." But this was taken as a mere detail--an

unfortunate paternal habit.

That was Pop's vice--his only one and about the least attractive of

vices. It was harrowing to be the children of a miser--for he must have

a lot hoarded away. His poor talk, his allusions to notes at the bank

and mortgages and drafts to meet, were just bogies to frighten them with

and to keep them down.

It was most humiliating for high-spirited children to be so

misunderstood. Pop lacked refined tastes. It was a harsh thing to say of

one's parent, but when you came right down to it Pop was a hopeless

plebeian.

Pop noticed the difference himself. He would have doubted that these

magnificent youngsters could be his own if that had not implied a

criticism of his unimpeachable wife. So he gave her all the credit. For

_Mere_ was different. She was well read; she entertained charmingly; she

loved good clothes, up-to-the-minute hats; she knew who was who and

what was what. She was ambitious, progressive. She nearly took up French

once.

But Pop was shabby. Pop always wore a suit until it glistened and his

children ridiculed him into a new one. As for wearing evening dress, in

the words of Gerald they "had to blindfold him and back him into his

soup-and-fish, even on the night the Italian Opera Company came to

town."

Pop never could take them anywhere. A vacation was a thing of horror to

him. It was almost impossible to drag him to a lake or the sea, and it

was quite impossible to keep him there more than a few days. His

business always called him home.

And such a business! Dry-goods!--and in a small town.

And such a town, with such a name! To the children who knew their Paris

and their London, their New York and their Washington, a visit home was

like a sentence to jail. It was humiliating to make a good impression on

acquaintances of importance and then have to confess to a home town

named Waupoos.

People either said, "I beg your pardon!" as if they had not heard it

right, or they laughed and said, "Honestly?"

The children had tried again and again to pry Pop out of Waupoos, but he

clung to it like a limpet. He had had opportunities, too, to move his

business to big cities, but he was afraid to venture. He was fairly sure

of sustenance in Waupoos so long as he nursed every penny; but he could

never find the courage to transplant himself to another place.

The worst of his cowardice was that he blamed the children--at least, he

said he dared not face a year or two of possible loss lest they might

need something. So he stayed in Waupoos and managed somehow to keep the

family afloat and the store open.

When _Mere_ revolted and longed for a glimpse of the outer world he

always advised her to take a trip and have a good time. He always said

he could afford that much, and he took an interest in seeing that she

had funds to buy some city clothes with; but he never had funds enough

to go along.

That was one of mother's grievances. Pop bored her to death at home and

she wanted to scream every time he mentioned his business--it was so

selfish of him to talk of that at night when she had so much to tell him

of the misbehavior of the servants. But, greatly as he annoyed her round

the house, she cherished an illusion that she would like him in a hotel.

She had tried to get him to read a certain novel--a wonderful book

mercilessly exposing the curse of modern America; which is the men's

habit of sticking to their business so closely that they give their poor

wives no companionship. They leave their poor wives to languish at home

or to go shopping or gossiping, while they indulge themselves in the

luxuries of vibration between creditor and debtor.

In this novel, and in several others she could have named, the poor

wife naturally fell a prey to the fascinations of a handsome devil with

dark eyes, a motor or two, and no office hours.

_Mere_ often wondered why she herself had not taken up with some

handsome devil fully equipped for the entertainment of neglected wives.

If she had not been a member of that stanch American womanhood to which

the glory of the country and its progress are really due, she might have

startled her husband into realizing too late, as the too-late husbands

in the novels realized, that a man's business is a side issue and that

the perpetuation of romance is the main task. Her self-respect was all

that held _Mere_ to the home; that and--whisper!--the fact that no

handsome devil with any kind of eyes ever tried to lure her away.

When she reproached Pop and threatened him he refused to be scared. He

paid his wife that most odious of tributes--a monotonous trust in her

loyalty and an insulting immunity to jealousy. Almost worse was his

monotonous loyalty to her and his failure to give her jealousy any

excuse.

They quarreled incessantly, but the wrangles were not gorgeously

dramatic charges of intrigue with handsome men or painted women,

followed by rapturous make-ups. They were quarrels over expenditures,

extravagances, and voyages.

_Mere_ charged Pop with parsimony and he charged her with recklessness.

She accused him of trying to tie them down to a village; he accused her

of trying to drive him to bankruptcy. She demanded to know whether he

wanted his children to be like children of their neighbors--clerks in

small stores, starveling tradespeople and wives of little merchants. He

answered that she was breeding a pack of snobs that despised their

father and had no mercy on him--and no use for him except as a lemon to

squeeze dry. She answered with a laugh of scorn that lemon was a good

word; and he threw up his hands and returned to the shop if the war

broke out at noon, or slunk up to bed if it followed dinner.

This was the pattern of their daily life. Every night there was a new

theme, but the duet they built on it ran along the same formulas.

The children sided with _Mere_, of course. In the first place, she was a

poor, downtrodden woman; in the second, she was their broker. Her job

was to get them things. They gave her the credit for what she got them.

They gave Pop no praise for yielding--no credit for extracting somehow

from the dry-soil of an arid town the money they extracted from him.

They knew nothing of the myriad little agonies, the ingenuity, the

tireless attention to detail, the exquisite finesse that make success

possible in the melee of competition. Their souls were above trade and

its petty nigglings.

Jno. P., who was now known as J. Pennock, was aiming at a million

dollars in New York, and his mother was sure that he would get it next

time if Pop would only raise him a little more money to meet an

irritating obligation or seize a glittering opportunity. Pop always

raised the money and J. Pennock always lost it. Yet Pennock was a

financier and Pop was a village merchant. And now Pen had come home

unexpectedly. He was showing a great interest in Pop's affairs.

Gerald was home also unexpectedly. He was an artist of the most

wonderful promise. None of his promises was more wonderful than those he

made his father to repay just one more loan--to tide him over until he

sold his next picture; but it never sold, or it sold for a mere song.

Gerald solaced himself and _Mere_ solaced him for being ahead of his

time, unappreciated, too good for the public. She thanked Heaven that

Gerald was a genius, not a salesman. One salesman in the family was

enough!

And Gerald had beaten Pen home by one train. He had greeted Pen somewhat

coldly--as if Pen were a trespasser on his side of the street. And when

it was learned that Julie had telegraphed that she would arrive the next

day, both the brothers had frowned.

Pop had sighed. He was glad to see his wonderful offspring, but he had

already put off the grocer and the butcher--and even his life-insurance

premium--because he had an opportunity by a quick use of cash to obtain

the bankrupt stock of a rival dealer who had not nursed his pennies as

Pop had. It was by such purchases that Pop had managed to keep his store

alive and his brilliant children in funds.

He had temporarily drawn his bank account down to the irreducible

minimum and borrowed on his securities up to the insurmountable maximum.

It was a bad time for his children to tap him. But here they were--Jno.

P., Jerry, and Julia--all very unctuous over the home-coming, and yet

all of them evidently cherishing an ulterior idea.

He watched them lounging in fashionable awkwardness. They were brilliant

children. And he was as proud of them as he was afraid of them--and for

them.