I
IT happens that I twice saw Susan's mother, one of those soiled rags of
humanity used by careless husbands for wiping their boots; but Susan
does not remember her. John Stuart Mill studied Greek at three, and
there is a Russian author who recalls being weaned as the first of his
many bitter experiences. Either Susan's mental life did not waken so
early or the record has faded. She remembers only the consolate husband,
her father; remembers him only too well. The backs of his square,
angry-looking hands were covered with an unpleasant growth of reddish
bristles; his nostrils were hairy, too, and seemed formed by Nature
solely for the purpose of snorting with wrath. It must not be held
against Susan that she never loved her father; he was not created to
inspire the softer emotions. Nor am I altogether certain just why he was
created at all.
Nevertheless, Robert Blake was in his soberer hours--say, from Tuesdays
to Fridays--an expert mechanic, thoroughly conversant with the interior
lack of economy of most makes of automobiles. He had charge of the
repair department of the Eureka Garage, New Haven, where my
not-too-robust touring car of those primitive days spent, during the
spring of 1907, many weeks of interesting and expensive invalidism. I
forget how many major operations it underwent.
It was not at the Eureka Garage, however, that I first met Bob Blake.
Nine years before I there found him again, I had defended him in
court--as it happens, successfully--on a charge of assault with intent
to kill. That was almost my first case, and not far--thank heaven--from
my last. Bob's defense, I remember, was assigned to me by a judge who
had once borrowed fifty dollars from my father, which he never repaid;
at least, not in cash. There are more convenient methods. True, my
father was no longer living at the time I was appointed to defend Bob;
but that is a detail.
Susan was then four years old. I can't say I recall her, if I even laid
eyes on her. But Mrs. Bob appeared as a witness, at my request--it was
all but her final appearance, poor woman; she died of an embolism within
a week--and I remember she told the court that a kinder husband and
father than Bob had never existed. I remember, too, that the court
pursed its lips and the gentlemen of the jury grinned approvingly, for
Mrs. Bob could not easily conceal something very like the remains of a
purple eye, which she attributed to hearing a suspicious noise one night
down cellar, a sort of squeaking noise, and to falling over the cat on
her tour of investigation--with various circumstantial _minutiae_ of no
present importance.
The important thing is, that Bob went scot-free and was as nearly
grateful as his temperament permitted. His assault--with an umbrella
stand--had been upon a fellow reveller of no proved worth to the
community, and perhaps this may have influenced the jury's unexpected
verdict.
Of Susan herself my first impression was gained at the Eureka Garage.
Bob Blake, just then, was lying beneath my car, near which I hovered
listening to his voluble but stereotyped profanity. He had lost the nut
from a bolt, and, unduly constricted, sought it vainly, while his tongue
followed the line of least resistance. I was marveling at the energy of
his wrath and the poverty of his imagination, when I became aware of a
small being beside me, in plaid calico. She had eager black
eyes--terrier's eyes--in a white, whimsical little face. One very long
and very thin black pigtail dangled over her left shoulder and down
across her flat chest to her waist, where it was tied with a shoe string
and ended lankly, without even the semblance of a curl. In her right
hand she bore a full dinner pail, and with her left thumb she pointed
toward the surging darkness beneath my car.
"Say, mister, please," said the small being, "if I was to put this down,
would you mind telling him his dinner's come?"
"Not a bit," I responded. "Are you Bob's youngster?"
"I'm Susan Blake," she answered; and very softly placed the dinner pail
on the step of the car.
"Why don't you wait and see your father?" I suggested. "He'll come up
for air in a minute."
"That's why I'm going now," said Susan.
Whereupon she gave a single half skip--the very ghost of a skip--then
walked demurely from me and out through the great door.