The allegiance of his little band of boon companions was all the sweeter
to the young poet because he realized more and more fully as the years
of his school-days passed that for some reason unknown to himself he was
systematically, and plainly with intention, denied intimacy with Nat
Howard and his followers--_snubbed_. As has been said, they did not
hesitate to acknowledge his success in all sorts of mental and physical
trials of skill, but in a formal, impersonal way. There was never the
least familiarity in their intercourse with him. This, naturally,
produced in him a reserve in his manner toward them that they
unreasonably attributed to "airs." Their coldness wounded and chilled
the sensitive boy as much as the love of his devoted adherents warmed
him.
It was not until near the end of his third session in the school that
the riddle was, quite suddenly, solved. Edgar Poe was now in his
fifteenth year. One perfect May day, when the song of birds, the odors
of flowers, the whisper of soft breezes and the languor of mellow
sunshine outside of the open school windows were wooing all poetic souls
to come out and live, and let musty, dry books go to the deuce, little
Rob Sully found it impossible to fix his mind upon his Latin. As for
Edgar's mind, it was plain from his expression that it was far afield;
but then Edgar had the power of knowing his lessons intuitively, almost.
Rob only "got" his by faithful plodding. When their respective classes
were called, Edgar recited brilliantly, while Rob seemed like one
befuddled and, making a dismal failure, was bidden to stay in and study
at recess. A look of utter woe settled upon his thin, pallid face, which
lifted as, impelled to look toward Edgar's desk, he caught his friend's
eyes fixed upon him with their charming smile. He knew well what the
eyes were saying:
"Don't worry, Rob, I'll stay in and help you."
And stay in the owner of the eyes did, patiently going over and over the
lesson with the confused boy until the hard parts were made easy.
Finally, when he saw that Rob had mastered it, Edgar walked out into the
yard for the few minutes left of recess. The boys were all drawn up in a
group a little way from the house and were being harangued by his rival,
Nat Howard. His chums, Rob Stanard, Dick Ambler and Jack Preston, were
standing together a few feet apart from the rest. Their faces were very
red and the haranguing seemed to be addressed directly to them. Edgar
stopped where he was, wondering what it was all about, but shy of
joining a crowd over which Nat was presiding.
The speaker's voice rose to a higher key.
"I'll tell you, boys," he was saying, "if you persist in intimacy with
this fellow, you needn't expect to be in with me and my crowd."
"We don't want you and your crowd," was the response. "He's worth all of
you rolled into one."
Edgar's heart stood still. "Was Nat Howard talking about _him_?"
The voice went on: "I grant you the fellow's smart enough and game
enough, but he's not in our class, and I, for one, won't associate with
him intimately."
"His family's one of the oldest and most honorable in the country," said
Robert Stanard. "I've heard my father say so."
"Yes, but his father must have been a black sheep to run away with a
common actress--"
The harangue was brought to an abrupt end. The enraged Edgar had sprung
forward and, with a blow in the face, struck Nat Howard down. Nat's
friends were lifting him up and wiping the blood from his face and
dusting his clothing, while Edgar's own friends gathered around him as
if to restrain him from repeating the attack. He shook them off, gazing
with contempt upon his limp and half-stunned adversary.
"I'll not hit him again until he repeats his offence," he assured the
boys, "but I want him and all other cowardly dogs to know what's waiting
for them when they insult the memory of my father and mother. Yes! my
mother was an actress! God gave her the gifts to make her one and she
had the pluck to use them to earn bread for herself and for her
children. Yes! she was an actress! She had the lovely face and form, the
high intelligence and the poetic soul for the making of a perfect woman
or for the interpreter of genius--for the personification of a Juliet, a
Rosalind or a Cordelia. Yes! she was an actress! And I'm proud of it as
surely as I'm proud she's an angel in Heaven! And I'm proud that my
father--the son of a proud family--had the spirit, for her sweet sake,
to fly in the face of convention, to count family, fortune and all well
lost to become her husband, and to adopt her profession; to learn of
her, in order that he might be always at her side to protect her and to
live in the light of her presence. If I had choice of all the surnames
and of all the lineage in the world, I would still choose the name of
Poe, and to be the son of David and Elizabeth Poe, players!"
The boys were silent. The school bell was ringing and Edgar Poe, still
pale and trembling with passion, turned on his heel and strode, with
head up, in the direction of the door. Rob Stanard and Rob Sully walked
one on each side of him, while Dick Ambler and Jack Preston and several
others among his adherents, followed close. A little way behind the
group came the other boys, their still half-dazed leader in their midst.
Good Mr. Burke (who had succeeded Mr. Clarke as school-master) guessed
as they came in and took their seats that there had been an altercation
of some kind, and that his two brag scholars had been prominent in it;
but he was wise in his generation and allowed the boys to settle their
own differences without asking any questions unless he were appealed to,
when his sympathy and interest were found to be theirs to count upon.
The afternoon session was unsatisfactory, but the master was in an
indulgent mood and apparently did not notice what each boy felt--a
confusion and abstraction. There was a palpable sense of relief when the
closing hour came.
* * * * *
At dinner that day Edgar was silent and evidently under a cloud, and
scarcely touched his food. Frances Allan looked toward him anxiously and
her husband suspiciously. When his lack of appetite was remarked upon,
he, truthfully enough, pleaded headache. Mrs. Allan was all sympathy at
once.
"You study too hard, dear," she said. "You may have a holiday tomorrow
if you like, and go and spend the day in the country with Rosalie and
the Mackenzies."
"No, no," replied the boy. "I'll just stay quiet, in my room, this
evening. I'll be all right by tomorrow."
"What have you been eating?" demanded John Allan, gruffly.
"Nothing, since breakfast, Sir," was the reply.
"Headaches are for nervous women. When a healthy boy complains of one,
and declines dinner, it generally means that he has been robbing
somebody's strawberry patch or up a cherry-tree, stuffing half-ripe
fruit," he said in the acid, suspicious tone that the boy knew. It was
beyond John Allan's powers to imagine any but physical causes for a
boy's ailments.
* * * * *
Not until the door of his own little bed-room was closed behind him did
Edgar Poe even try to collect his thoughts. Then he sat down at his
window and looked out over the fragrant garden to the quiet sky,
contemplation of which had so often soothed his spirit, and tried to
readjust the inner world he lived in, in accordance with the discovery
he had just made. A first such readjustment his world had experienced
three years before, when Mr. Allan had taunted him with his dependence
upon charity. Before that time the world, as he knew it, had held only
love and beauty--sorrow, as he had seen it, being but a solemn and
poetic form of beauty. The change in such a world made by the discovery
that his being an adopted son set him apart in a class different from
other boys--a class unlovely and loveless--had been great, had stolen
much of the joy from living; but he was very young then, and the joy of
mere living and breathing was strong in his blood, and he had gradually
become accustomed--hardened, if you will--to the idea of his dependence
upon charity.
But here was a change far more terrible, and coming at a time when he
was old enough to feel it far more keenly. He was indeed, in a class by
himself--he was held in contempt because of what his angel mother had
been! His holy of holies had been profaned, the sacred fire that warmed
his inner life had been spat upon. It seemed he had been from the
beginning despised, though he had not dreamed it, for that which he held
most dear--of which he was most proud. The little, aristocratic,
puffed-up world he lived in would doubtless always despise him; but that
was because of its narrowness and ignorance for which he, in turn, would
despise it. With the whimsical, half-belief he had always had that the
dead remain conscious through their long sleep, he wondered if his
beautiful young mother, with the roses on her hair, down under the green
earth, was not aware of the love and loyalty of her boy and if her
spirit soaring the highest heavens, would not aid him in carrying out
the resolution which in the bitterness of his soul, he then and there
made--the resolution to bring this mean little, puffed up world to do
honor to his name--to her name, of which he was prouder in this hour
when others would trample it in the dust than he had ever been before.
Young boy though he was, he was conscious of his God-given endowments.
He felt that the divine fire of poetic feeling in his breast was an
immortal thing. Up to this time, his singing had been as the singing of
a wood-bird--an impulse, a necessity to express the thoughts and
feelings of his heart. He had never looked far enough ahead to consider
whether he should or should not publish his work; but now ambition
awoke--full-grown at its birth--and set him afire. From those parents
whose memory had been insulted he had received (God willing it) the
precious heritage of brilliant intellect. He would put the work of this
intellect--his stories and his poems--into books. He would give them to
the wide world. He would win recognition for the name of Poe.
He drew from within his coat the miniature of his mother--her dying
gift. He gazed upon it long and tenderly, and with it still exposed to
view brought from his desk the little packet of yellowed letters in
their faded blue ribbon. He knew them by heart, but he read them--each
one--over again, as carefully as if it had been the first time. They
were not many and those not long; but ah, they were sweet!--those
tender, quaint love-letters that had passed between his parents in their
brief courtship and married life. His father's so manly so strong--like
the letters of a soldier. His mother's so modest, so tender. They did
not stir his pulses so wildly now as they did upon his first reading of
them, when a little lad at old Stoke-Newington--but they were no less
beautiful to him now than then. The sentences made him think of the
dainty, sweet aroma of pressed roses.
He tied the packet up again and kissed letters and picture, as if to
seal the promise he was making them, then restored them to their
hiding-places. With the bitter knowledge that had come to him, he felt
that years had passed over him--that he would never be young again--this
boy of fourteen!
He raised his deep, pensive eyes once more to the quiet sky and his
spirit cried to Heaven to grant him power to accomplish this task he had
set himself: to lift the loved name of his parents from the dust where
it lay, and to set it high in the temple of fame, wreathed with immortal
myrtle.
His resolution gave to his poetic face and his slender figure an air of
mastery, as though some new, high quality had been born within him.