think a great deal of your business judgment and it is great to
have a son who has good business judgment even though he cannot
make the team. In that respect it is better than making the team,
because you can help me in my problems away off here just as I help
you with your problems up there at school.
He enjoyed writing that one, but when he became the reader of it, that
last sentence made him cry. And the worst of it was, at that point
Blackie came in.
“What are you writing?”
“Just some stuff for the mag.”
“You’re always writing for the mag. Get your racket and come on.”
“Oh, get out of here and quit interrupting my literary work.” Junior had
not cared to turn his telltale face toward his roommate.
* * * * *
The school year was closing, and Junior was packing to leave the next
day. The last time he had gone to town he learned at the office that his
father was returning soon. They did not know which steamer. They never
did. The secret letters had all been kept carefully locked in his trunk,
and now Junior was taking them out to put neatly folded trousers in the
bottom. Blackie was playing tennis. None of the boys had learned the
truth, though in secret Blackie felt pretty sure of it now, but was so
loyal that he had a fight with Smithy for daring to say in public that
Junior’s letters were a damn fake.
Mr. Fielding came in. He did not notice the letters lying there on the
table, and he seemed very friendly. The housemaster knew how fine and
sensitive this boy was and that the only way to handle him was by
encouragement. “We are all much pleased with your classroom work,
Junior; but as for the mag, you’re a rotten speller, but a good writer,
and I don’t mind telling you a secret: You have been elected to be one
of the editors next year.”
“Oh, Mr. Fielding! Are you sure?” This had been his ambition for a year.
That settled it for life. A great writer like W. H. Hudson, who loved
both nature and art, but nature more.
“Of course your appointment has to be confirmed by the faculty, but
there’ll be no trouble with a boy of your standing. All you have to do
is straighten out that little matter with your father. Naturally, an
editor has got to have a clean literary record.”
This was not meant entirely as punishment for Junior. The master thought
it would be salutary for Phil to know. It might wake him up.
“You mean I can’t make the mag unless I tell him what I did?”
“Do you want me to tell him?”
“If you do I’ll run away and I’ll never come back.”
“Can’t you get up your courage to do it, Junior? I know you didn’t mean
to do wrong. Your father will, too, when he understands.”
Junior was shaking his head.
“It isn’t a matter of courage,” he said, straightening up. “He’d think I
was knocking him out for not writing to me.
“Well, if you won’t talk to him about it I must. He’ll be here in a few
minutes.”
“A few minutes! Here? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He landed yesterday. The papers ran an interview with him this morning.
I telegraphed him to come at once.” Mr. Fielding looked at his watch.
“Why, his train must be coming in now. Excuse me. I said I’d meet him
at the station.”
A mental earthquake turned Junior’s universe upside down. His father was
coming at last! Why? His offense must have been pretty serious to bring
his father. Why, of course! Mr. Fielding had sent for him. The most
honourable gentleman in the world was going to find out in a few minutes
that his own son and namesake was a liar, a plagiarist, and a forger.
Junior could not face it. He rushed from the room and out by the back
stairs. His father was coming, the thing he planned and longed for ever
since he had been a member of the school, and he was running away from
him.
He went out into the woods by the river, where he had spent so many
happy hours with Blackie and the birds. He could never face Blackie
again, nor the school, no, nor his father. Life was empty and horrible.
“Why not end it all in the river?” He had read that phrase, but the
impulse was genuine.
“The hell of it is,” he heard himself saying, “I’m such a good swimmer.”
But he could load his coat with stones and bind his feet with his
trousers. He began picking out the stones.
* * * * *
“Well, what’s it?” said Phil to the housemaster, trying to hide his
paternal eagerness. The boy was in trouble, the old man would get him
out. Good! Needed at last. “Has my young hopeful been getting tight?”
“Oh, nothing as serious as that. He’s a finely organized, highly evolved
youngster, and so he has a rather vivid imagination.”
“Speak up, Aleck! You haven’t caught him in a lie? That’s a good deal
more serious than getting tight.”
“Well, it’s a likable lie.”
“It’s a lie all the same, and I’ll give him the devil.”
“Oh, no, you won’t. The kid lied for you, old man; perjured himself like
a gentleman. Now you go and get it out of him. It’ll do you both good.”
They had arrived at the house.
“Where is the little cuss?” Phil was trying without success to seem calm
and casual.
“He’s no longer little. You won’t know him. He’s come into his heritage
of good looks at last.”
“For God’s sake, shut up and tell me where to find him.”
Fielding laughed. “Upstairs, second door on the left. I won’t butt in on
this business. It’s up to you now.” But Phil did not wait to hear all
that.
Not finding his namesake and glancing about at the intimate possessions
of his little-known son, Phil was surprised to see a sheath of letters
on the table, bearing his own engraved stamp at the top.
“That’s odd,” he thought. “Who’s been writing to him on my paper?” He
had forgotten the presentation box of stationery. His eye was caught by
these words neatly typed, “My beloved son,” At the bottom of the page he
saw, “Your faithful friend and father.” He picked the letter up and read
it.
As I told you in my last, I am counting the days until we get
together again and go up to Canada on another canoe trip, just you
and I alone this time without any guide. You have become such a
good camper now that we don’t want any greasy Indian guides around.
I am glad that you are a good camper. I don’t care what you say,
I’d rather go to the woods with you than Billy Norton or anybody
because you and I are not like ordinary father and sons; we are
congenial friends. Of course you are pretty young to be a friend of
mine and you may be an ugly and unattractive kid, but you are mine
all the same, and I’m just crazy about you. They say I neglect you,
but you know better. All these letters prove it. Your faithful
friend and father.
Junior’s father picked up the rest of the letters and, with the
strangest sensations a father ever had, read them all.
* * * * *
Perhaps it was telepathy. Junior suddenly remembered that he had left
the letters exposed upon the table. His father would go upstairs after
the talk with Mr. Fielding, to disown him. He would find those
incriminating letters. Then when they found his body his father would
know that his son was not only a liar and a forger but a coward and a
quitter. In all his life his father had never been afraid of anything.
If his father were in his place what would he do?
That saved him. He dumped out the stones and ran back to the room. He
would face it.
Phil was aware that a tall slender youth with a quick elastic stride had
entered the room and had stopped abruptly by the door, staring at him.
There were reasons why he preferred not to raise his face at present,
but this boy’s figure was unrecognizably tall and strong, and Phil was
in no mood to let a young stranger come in upon him now.
“What do you want?” he asked gruffly, still seated still holding the
letters.
There was no answer. Junior had never seen a Father disown a son, but he
guessed that was the way it was done. He saw the letters in his father’s
hands. Certainly, this was being disowned.
The boy took a step forward. “Well, anyway,” he said, maintaining a
defiant dignity in his disgrace, “no one else has seen those letters, so
you won’t be compromised, Father.” The boy was a great reader, and had
often heard of compromising letters.
Phil sprang up from his chair, dropped the letters and gazed into the
fine sensitive face, a beautiful face, it seemed to him now, quivering,
but held bravely up to meet his sentence like a soldier.
Junior could now see that his father’s strong face was also quivering,
but misunderstood the reason for his emotion. There was a silence while
Phil gained control of his voice. Then he said, still gazing at the boy,
“But how did you know I felt that way about you?”
“What way?”
“Those letters. I’ve read them. I wish to God I’d written them.”
Junior, usually so quick, still could not get it right. “You mean,
you’re going to forgive me for lying about you?”
“Lying about me! Why, boy, you’ve told the truth about me. I didn’t know
how. Can you forgive me for that?”
Now Junior was getting it. His face was lighting up. “Why, Father,” he
began, and faltered. “Why, Father--why, Father--you really like me!”
Junior felt strong hands gripping his shoulders and once more the vivid
recollection of the street boys and the big man who comforted him. “You
know what one of those letters says, Junior--I’m just crazy about you.”
“Oh, Father, why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Well, what’s the use of having a great writer in the family anyway!”
They laughed and looked at each other and found that the strange thing
that kept them apart was gone for ever. In the future they might differ,
quarrel even, but the veil between them was torn asunder at last.
The rest of the boys had finished dinner when Junior came down, leading
in his tall bronzed father with the perfectly fitting clothes and the
romantic scar on his handsome face.
“Say, fellows, wait a minute. I want you to know my father.” He did it
quite as if accustomed to it, but Mrs. Fielding down at the end of the
table could see that father and son were reeking with pride. “He’s my
son; I’m his father.”
“So this is Blackie?” said Phil. “Did you give him that message in my
last letter?” Even his father could lie when he wanted to.
“Sorry, I forgot.”
Phil turned and gave his old classmate a shameless wink. “I can’t really
blame the kid. I write him such awfully long letters.”
“Father just landed from South America yesterday,” Junior was explaining
to Smithy. “So he hurried right up here.”
“You see we’re starting for the Canadian Rockies to-morrow,” said Phil.
“This fellow’s got an impudent idea that he can out-cast the old man
now, but I’ll show him his place.”
Mr. Fielding took the floor. “Junior ought to get some good material for
the magazine up there,” he said. “Boys, he’s going to be one of the
editors next year.”
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[A] In the United States, written by citizens of the United States.
[B] Modern advertising needs many media. Mark Sullivan, at the
Author’s League Dinner, Hotel Plaza, 1916, attributed the increase
in short stories to the invention of the gasolene engine. Periodical
literature, if in part literature only by courtesy, meets the taste and
intelligence of all classes.
[C] June, 1850.
[D] January-June, 1887.
[E] “Short Story Writing,” N. Bryllion Fagin, Thomas Seltzer, 1923, p.
98.
[F] _New York Times Book Review_, December 23, 1923. Article by Rose C.
Feld.
[G] “Yet Again,” by Max Beerbohm, Alfred Knopf, 1923.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
done so with orginality=> done so with originality {pg xvi}
became almost ununbearable=> became almost unbearable {pg 7}
said to Naopleon=> said to Napoleon {pg 22}
he came to Naopleon=> he came to Napoleon {pg 23}
thick atmsophere=> thick atmosphere {pg 31}
I want someobdy=> I want somebody {pg 48}
was appproaching=> was approaching {pg 80}
charged with an electricty=> charged with an electricity {pg 82}
calesa and tood refuge=> calesa and took refuge {pg 90}
two fliers appeard=> two fliers appeared {pg 96}
his horny plams=> his horny palms {pg 104}
the men lengthenend=> the men lengthened {pg 113}
stood one one side=> stood on one side {pg 117}
commites a murder=> commits a murder {pg 137}
faces oppposite her=> faces opposite her {pg 159}
with Wallie=> with Wally {pg 160}
tilted you head back=> tilted your head back {pg 171}
could he commmunicate=> could he communicate {pg 185}
predatory keeness=> predatory keenness {pg 203}
“What’s this?” he sked.=> “What’s this?” he asked. {pg 220}
been accumstomed=> been accustomed {pg 249}
on on reading=> on on reading {pg 259}
that kept tham apart=> that kept them apart {pg 277}