FACING THE WORLD.
Army surgeons recognize three types of wounded. One type so nervous,
that it drops the moment it is struck, whether the wound is disabling
or not. Another so nerveless, that it fights on, unconscious that it
has been hit. A third, who, feeling the wound, goes on fighting,
sustained by its nerve. It is over the latter sort that the surgeons
shake their heads and look anxious.
Peter did his packing quietly and quickly, not pausing for a moment in
the task. Then he went downstairs, and joined the party, just finishing
the supper. He refused, it is true, to eat anything, and was quiet, but
this phase was so normal in him, that it occasioned no remark. Asked
where Miss Pierce was, he explained briefly that he had left her in the
hall, in order to do his packing and had not seen her since.
In a few moments the party broke up. Peter said a good-bye to each,
quite conscious of what he was doing, yet really saying more and better
things than he had said in his whole visit, and quite surprising them
all in the apparent ease with which he went through the duty.
“You must come and see us when you have put your shingle out in New
York,” said Mr. Pierce, not quite knowing why, having previously
decided that they had had enough of Peter. “We shall be in the city
early in September, and ready to see our friends.”
“Thank you,” replied Peter. He turned and went upstairs to his room. He
ought to have spent the night pacing his floor, but he did not. He went
to bed instead Whether Peter slept, we cannot say. He certainly lay
very still, till the first ray of daylight brightened the sky. Then he
rose and dressed. He went to the stables and explained to the groom
that he would walk to the station, and merely asked that his trunk
should be there in time to be checked. Then he returned to the house
and told the cook that he would breakfast on the way. Finally he
started for the station, diverging on the way, so as to take a
roundabout road, that gave him a twelve-mile tramp in the time he had
before the train left.
Perhaps the hardest thing Peter encountered was answering his mother’s
questions about the visit. Yet he never flinched nor dodged from a true
reply, and if his mother had chosen, she could have had the whole
story. But something in the way Peter spoke of Miss Pierce made Mrs.
Stirling careful, and whatever she surmised she kept to herself, merely
kissing him good-night with a tenderness that was unusual not merely in
a New-Englander, but even in her. During the rest of his stay, the
Pierces were quite as much kept out of sight, as if they had never been
known. Mrs. Stirling was not what we should call a “lady,” yet few of
those who rank as such, would have been as considerate or tender of
Peter’s trouble, if the power had been given them to lay it bare. Love,
sympathy, unselfishness and forbearance are not bad equivalents for
breeding and etiquette, and have the additional advantage of meeting
new and unusual conditions which sometimes occur to even the most
conventional.
One hope did come to her, “Perhaps, now that”—and Mrs. Stirling left
“that” blank even in her thoughts; “now my boy, my Peter, will not be
so set on going to New York.” In this, however, she was disappointed.
On the second day of his stay, Peter spoke of his intention to start
for New York the following week.
“Don’t you think you could do as well here?” said Mrs. Stirling.
“Up to a certain point, better. But New York has a big beyond,” said
Peter. “I’ll try it there first, and if I don’t make my way, I’ll come
back here”
Few mothers hope for a son’s failure, yet Mrs. Stirling allowed herself
a moment’s happiness over this possibility. Then remembering that her
Peter could not possibly fail, she became despondent. “They say New
York’s full of temptations,” she said.
“I suppose it is, mother,” replied Peter, “to those who want to be
tempted.”
“I know I can trust you, Peter,” said his mother, proudly, “but I want
you to promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“That if you do yield, if you do what you oughtn’t to, you’ll write and
tell me about it?” Mrs. Stirling put her arms about Peter’s neck, and
looked wistfully into his face.
Peter was not blind to what this world is. Perhaps, had his mother
known it as he did, she might have seen how unfair her petition was. He
did not like to say yes, and could not say no.
“I’ll try to go straight, mother,” he replied, “but that’s a good deal
to promise.”
“It’s all I’m going to ask of you, Peter,” urged Mrs. Stirling.
“I have gone through four years of my life with nothing in it I
couldn’t tell her,” thought Peter. “If that’s possible, I guess another
four is.” Then he said aloud, “Well, mother, since you want it, I’ll do
it.”
The reason of Peter’s eagerness to get to New York, was chiefly to have
something definite to do. He tried to obtain this distraction of
occupation, at present, in a characteristic way, by taking excessively
long walks, and by struggling with his mother’s winter supply of wood.
He thought that every long stride and every swing of the axe was
working him free from the crushing lack of purpose that had settled
upon him. He imagined it would be even easier when he reached New York.
“There’ll be plenty to keep me busy there,” was his mental hope.
All his ambitions and plans seemed in a sense to have become
meaningless, made so by the something which but ten days before had
been unknown to him. Like Moses he had seen the promised land. But
Moses died. He had seen it, and must live on without it. He saw nothing
in the future worth striving for, except a struggle to forget, if
possible, the sweetest and dearest memory he had ever known. He thought
of the epigram: “Most men can die well, but few can live well.” Three
weeks before he had smiled over it and set it down as a bit of French
cynicism. Now—on the verge of giving his mental assent to the theory, a
pair of slate-colored eyes in some way came into his mind, and even
French wit was discarded therefrom.
Peter was taking his disappointment very seriously, if quietly. Had he
only known other girls, he might have made a safe recovery, for love’s
remedy is truly the homeopathic “similia similibus curantur,” woman
plural being the natural cure for woman singular. As the Russian in the
“Last Word” says, “A woman can do anything with a man—provided there is
no other woman.” In Peter’s case there was no other woman. What was
worse, there seemed little prospect of there being one in the future.