_"To thine own self be true."_ Shakespeare.
There had been a bright side for Griffith in all this change, too. New
and warm friends had been made. He had watched with a feeling of joy
the enervating influence of slave ownership drop from Beverly's young
shoulders--and upon the other boys he felt that it had never cast its
blight with a power that would outlast early youth. It filled him with
pleasure to find his sons surrounded in the academy and college with the
mental atmosphere and influence of freedom, only. He encouraged them
to join the debating societies and Greek letter orders which admitted
discussion of such topics. Beverly was now in his Sophomore year and was
an ardent student of free-soil doctrines. He read and absorbed like a
fresh young sponge the political literature of the time. He was always
ready and eager to enter the debates of his class upon the ever pregnant
and always recurring slavery extension and compromise bills. The young
fellows had numerous hot arguments over the position of the different
statesmen of the time, and Stephen A. Douglas furnished Beverly with
many a hard hour's thinking. Mr. Davenport adhered to Douglas; but
Beverly inclined to persistently oppose his point of view. When, at
last, Douglas had taken the side of repeal in that famous measure--the
Missouri Compromise Bill, which had been at once the hope and the
despair of all the great northwest,--Beverly no longer hesitated. He and
his father took different sides, finally and forever, in their political
opinions. At commencement time, year after year, the governor of the
State was made the feature of the college exercises, and he had several
times been the guest of Mr. Davenport. This had served to draw to the
house many politicians whose talks had given both stimulus and material
to Beverly's already ardent political nature, which was so fast leading
him outside the bounds reached by his father. The scope and class of
his reading often troubled his mother sorely. One day she had gone to
Griffith in dismay. It was so seldom that she felt obliged to criticise
this eldest son of hers, upon whom she looked with a pride almost beyond
words to express, that Griffith was astonished.
"I wish, Griffith, that you would tell Beverly not to read this book.
It is the second time I have told him and he is determined. I burned the
first copy and he has bought another. He says he will buy fifty if I
burn them before he has read it all. He is that determined to read it. I
hated to tell you, but------"
Griffith held out his hand for the obnoxious book. Then he exclaimed in
surprise: "The 'Age of Reason'! Paine's book! Where did he happen to get
that?" He looked over the title page.
"I see, I see! 'Rights of Man'--he quoted from that in his last essay
at college. It was good, too--excellent. I've never read either one,
but--oh, tut, tut, mother, why not let him read it? I wouldn't wony over
it. Beverly is all right. He has got a better mind than you have--a far
better one than I have--why not let him use it? Let him read anything
he wants to. We can't judge for him. He'll be all right anyhow. You know
that. He and I differ in politics now. He is going the radical road and
I'm staying by the old line whigs; but--oh, tut, tut, Katherine! let's
not hamper the boy's mind with our notions to the extent of forcing them
on him. It won't do a bit of good if we try it either. That's not the
kind of a mind Beverly has got--and suppose it was, what right have we
to warp and limit its action?" He was turning over the leaves. "I've
never read this myself." Then looking up suddenly: "Have you?"
"No, of course not! But my father forbade our boys reading it. He said
it was a fearful book--infidel--" She broke off, but stammered something
about Beverly's salvation. Griffith drew her down on his knee.
"Madam Kath'rine," he said, quizzically, "if I had followed my father's
conscience instead of my own, I never would have"--he was going to say
seen her, but he recognized in time that that might hurt her--"I never
would have done a good many things that have seemed right to me--_the_
only right things for my soul. So long as Beverly is open and frank and
true to himself--and he has always been that--I mean to let him alone.
I am sure that I found a good deal better way for myself than my father
had marked out for me. Perhaps Beverly will. Suppose we trust him.
He has been such a good son--such a frank fellow; don't let us make a
pretender of him. Let him read what he does openly. You may be very sure
if it looks wrong to him he won't _want_ to be open with it. I don't
want to hurt Beverly as my father, dear soul, hurt me--intending it for
my own good, of course; but--but--can't you trust Beverly, Katherine? I
can. And maybe, after all, people have not understood this book. Leave
it here. I believe I'll read it myself." Katherine was astonished,
but the little talk rested and helped her. That night the book was on
Beverly's table again and nothing was said of it. Beverly had joined
his father's church when he was a little fellow, but since he entered
college he had seemed to take slight interest in it. He was always
present at family prayers, but said nothing about his religious views of
late. A year ago he had been reprimanded, in company with others, by the
local preacher for attending a social dance. That night he said to Roy:
"The first time a dancing teacher comes to this town I am going to take
lessons. Look at those Louisville boys in my class and in yours, too.
They are twice as easy in their manners as any of the rest of us. It is
their dancing that did it. They told me so."
"Mr. Brooks will turn you out of the church if you do," said Roy.
"Father wouldn't," replied Beverly, whistling--"and father is good
enough for me."
But, since there had been no opportunity to fulfill the threat, the
little matter of the social dance had blown over, and Beverly was still,
nominally, a member of the Methodist Church.
The days passed. The political crash was upon the country. Men met only
to talk of free-soil and slave extension, of union and disunion, of
repeal, and even, in some quarters, of abolition. Young men's blood
boiled. In Legislature and Congress feeling ran to blows. The air was
thick and heavy with threats of--no one knew what. Old friendships were
broken and new ones strained into real enmity. Brothers took different
sides. Fathers and sons became bitter. Neighbor looked with suspicion
upon neighbor. College fraternities lapsed into political clubs. It was
now Beverly's last year. His favorite professor died. Griffith noticed
that the boy was restless and abstracted. One day he came to his father.
"Father," he said, abruptly, "I don't feel as if I ought to waste any
more time at college. There is a tremendous upheaval just ahead of us.
Could you--would you just as soon I should?--I've got an offer with two
of the other fellows, and I--"
Mr. Davenport recognized in the boy's unusual hesitancy of speech an
unaccustomed quality of unrest and uncertainty. He looked over his
gold-bowed glasses.
"Why, what is it, son? Out with it," he said, smiling.
"Well, it's like this: You remember Shapleigh, of the class last year?
Well, you know his father owns that little free-soil paper out in
Missouri that I get every once in a while. It's democratic, you know,
but free-soil."
Griffith nodded. "Very good little paper, too. Don't fully agree with
those last editorials--too fiery--but a very decent little sheet."
Beverly was evidently pleased.
"Well, the old gentleman is tired of the fight, and Shap wrote me that
if Donaldson and I will each put in $1,500, his father will turn the
paper over to the three of us. Shap knows how to run the business end of
the concern. That's what he has done since he was graduated. Shap wants
me for political editor, mostly. He's a red-hot free-soiler, and he
knows I am. I sent him my last two speeches and he used 'em in the
paper. He says they took like wildfire; his constituents liked 'em
first-class. You know, I've always thought I'd like to be a newspaper
man. Think so more than ever now. Times are so hot, and there is such a
lot to be said. They need new blood to the front, and--"
Griffith was laughing gently and looking quizzically, with lips pursed
up, at this ambitious son of his; but the boy went on:
"The fact is, father, I've worried over it all this term. I hated to
ask you if you could let me have the money. It is such a splendid
chance--one of a lifetime, I think. I do wish you'd let me."
At last he had fallen into his boyish form of speech, and Griffith
laughed aloud.
"_Let_ you? _Let_ you be an editor of a fiery free-soil paper out in
Missouri, hey? The fellow that edits a paper out there just now can't
be made out of very meek stuff, Bev. It won't be a nest of roses for any
three young birds that try it, I reckon. D'yeh see that account in the
_Gazette_, yesterday, of the mob out there near Kansas City?"
"Yes, I did; and that's the very thing that decided me to ask you
to-day. Of course, you'd really own the stock. It would only be in my
name till I could pay you for it, and--"
"Beverly," said his father, gravely, "if you've made up your mind fully
to this thing, and are sure you know what you want and can do, I reckon
you don't need to worry over the money for the stock. But are you
_sure_ you want to leave college before you finish? Isn't it a little
premature?"
He did not hear his son's reply. It came suddenly to his mind that this
boy of his was almost exactly the age that he had been when he had tried
to argue his own case with the old Major. It rushed into his thoughts
how hard it had been to approach the topic nearest his heart, and how
cruelly it had all ended. He realized, as he often did these days,
how boyish and immature he must have seemed to his father, and yet how
tragically old he had felt to himself. He wondered if Beverly felt that
way now. He began to realize that the boy was still talking, arguing and
planning, although he had not heard.
"Bev," he said, gently, using the abbreviation instinctively to make
the boy feel the tenderness of his intent--"Bev, I don't intend to argue
this thing with you at all."
Beverly had misunderstood his father's long silence and abstraction. The
remark confirmed his misconception. He arose, disappointed, and started
for the door. Griffith reached out, caught him by the sleeve, and pulled
him into a chair beside his own.
"I want to tell you something, Bev. When I was about your age--maybe a
little younger--
"I made a request of my father that it had cost me a sore trial to make
up my mind to ask. He--well, he didn't take it kindly, and--and--and I
left home in a huff; not exactly a huff, either; but, to tell the truth,
we succeeded in hurting each other sorely. And there wasn't the least
need of it. It took us both a long time to get over the hurt of it.
I sometimes doubt if we ever did get really all over it. I tell you,
Beverly, boy, it was a sad, sad blunder all around. It darkened and
dampened my spirits for many a day, and I don't doubt it did his."
Griffith was playing idly with a paper-knife on the table beside him,
and there came a pause and a far-off look in his eyes.
"Oh, father, don't fancy I feel that way--I--don't--I wouldn't
think----" began Beverly, eagerly, with a suspicious quaver in his
voice. To hide it, he arose suddenly.
"Sit down, son," said Griffith, smiling at the boy and taking the hand
that rested on the table. It was cold. He dropped the paper-knife and
laid his other hand over his son's. "Beverly, you didn't understand me,
I reckon"--he threw one arm about the boy's shoulders--"I reckon you
didn't understand me. I meant to say this: I still think my father was
wrong. Now, if I can help it, I don't want the time to ever come, that
when you recall your first independent effort with me, you will think
that of me. I've always intended to try to remember, when that time
came, to put myself in your place, and recall my own early struggles--be
nineteen again myself. We will all hate to have you go so far away. That
will be the hardest part for mother and for all of us; but if you have,
thought it all over seriously----"
"I have, indeed, father--for months and months. It----"
"Why, all there is to do is for me to look into the matter and get
that stock for you, and see how we can make the change as easy as
possible--as----"
The boy was on his feet. He was struggling to hide his emotion.
Griffith, still holding his hand, arose. He drew the boy toward him.
Suddenly Beverly understood his father's wish. He threw both arms about
his neck and kissed him as he had not done since he was a little fellow.
Mr. Davenport held the boy close to his breast. Beverly was the taller
of the two, but the father's form had filled out into portly proportions
during these past years and Beverly's was very slight.
"There, there, there!" exclaimed Griffith, presently, blowing a blast
upon his handkerchief. "What are we two precious fools crying over?
Wasting time! Wasting time! Better go tell your mother all about it and
let her get about fixing you up to go. Editor Davenport!" he exclaimed,
holding the boy at arm's length. "Well, well, well! what next? Tut,
tut, tut, tut! I expect Roy will be wanting to set up a law-office--or a
boxing school--in a day or two." Roy's exploit with his fists in behalf
of Aunt Judy had always been a family joke. "But, look here, Beverly, I
want you to promise me you will be mighty careful to keep out of trouble
out there. It's a hot State just now. The times are scorching, and--God
only knows what's in store for the country. Keep out of trouble and
hasty words, son. Bless me, but I'm glad it's not Roy! He'd be in
trouble before he got his first stick set up. They call it a stick.
don't they? I'll have to coach up on journalistic language if I'm to
have an editor for a son. The proof of the editorials will be in the
reading thereof," he added, smiling at the play upon the old saying.
"But I stipulate right now that you send me every one you write marked
in red, so I won't have to wade through all the other stuff to find
yours. If they're as good as that last essay of yours at the Delta, I'll
be proud of you, my boy. Only--only don't be too radical! Young blood
boils too easy. Mine did. Go slow on this question, Bev. It's bigger
than you think it is. In one form or another it has burdened my whole
life, and I've never been able to solve it yet--for others, for others.
I solved it for myself--as Judy's presence here proves," he added,
laughing. Judy's presence and her triumph over the law was a family
jest, and Roy's fight on her behalf not wholly a memory of regret.
"He fit fur the ould naiger," remarked the envious Rosanna, from time
to time, "but it would be the rear of me loif, shure, before he'd do the
same, er even so much as jaw back, fer the loikes o' me!"