For an instant after he opened his eyes again, all his life after leaving
Woodville seemed to have melted away, for there at the foot of his bed was
the little, many-paned window out of which he had watched the seasons
change all through his boyhood, and close above him hung the familiar
slanting roof of his own little, old room. However, when he stirred, it
was not his mother but a rosy-faced Irish woman who stopped her sewing and
asked him in a thick, sweet brogue if he needed anything. As he stared at
her, recollecting but dimly having seen her glossy brown hair and fair,
matronly face before, she exclaimed: "Ah, I'm Bridget McCartey, you know,
an' you were hurted by the lads throwin' a baseball into your ribs. It's
lyin' here a week sick you've been, and, savin' your pardon, the sooner
you tell me where your folks live the better. They'll be fair wild about
you."
The sick man closed his eyes again. "I have no family at all," he said. It
was the first time in years that the thoroughgoing extent of that fact had
been brought home to him.
His nurse was moved to sympathy over so awful a fate. "Sure an' don't I
know how 'tis. Pat an' I left every one of our kith behind us, mostly,
when we come away, and it's that hungry for thim that I get. I dare say it
ill becomes me to say it, but the first thing I says to myself when I see
you was how like you are to one of my father's brothers in County Kerry.
It's been a real comfort to have you here sick, as though I had some of my
own kin near. _His_ name was Jerry. It's not possible, is't, that the J.
on your handkerchief stands for Jerry, too?"
For the first time since he had left Woodville J.M. disclosed the
grotesque secret of his initials. In the flaccid indifference of
convalescence it flowed from him painlessly. "My name is Jeroboam
Mordecai."
"Exactly to a hair like Uncle Jerry's!" cried Mrs. McCartey, overjoyed by
the coincidence. "Except that his J. stood for Jeremiah and his M. for
Michael. If you will tell me your last name, too, I'll try and lambaste
the children into callin' you proper. Not havin' sorra name to speak of
you by, and hearin' me say to Pat how you favored my father's brother,
haven't they taken to callin' _you_ Uncle Jerry--more shame to them!"
The mention of the children awoke to life J.M.'s old punctilious habits.
He tried to sit up. "But you have so little space for all your family--you
should not have taken me in; where can the children sleep?"
Mrs. McCartey pushed him back on the pillow with an affectionate firmness
born of "the bringin' up of sivin." "Now lay still, Uncle Jerry, and kape
yourself cool." The name slipped out unnoticed in her hospitable fervor
"Wasn't it the least we could do when 'twas our own Mike's ball that came
near killin' you? An' the children--the boys, that is, that this is their
room--isn't it out in the barn they're sleepin' on the hay? An' that
pleased with it. Pat and I were thinkin' that now was a good chance to
teach them to give up things--when you've no old folks about you, the
children are so apt to grow up selfish-like--but they think the barn's
better nor the house, bless them, so don't _you_ worry."
She pulled the bedclothes straight (J.M. noticed that they were quite
clean), settled the pillow, and drew down the shade. "Now thin, you've
talked enough," she said. "Take a sup of sleep for a while." And to
J.M.'s feeble surprise he found himself doing exactly as he was told,
dozing off with a curious weak-headed feeling of comfort.
He came to his strength slowly, the doctor forbidding him to think of
taking a journey for a month at least. Indeed, J.M., thinking of his
isolated tower-rooms in the deserted college town, was in no haste to
leave Mrs. McCartey's kindly, dictatorial care. He had been very sick
indeed, the doctor told him seriously, and he felt it in the trembling
weakness of his first attempts at sitting up, and in the blank vacancy of
his mind.
At first he could not seem to remember for more than an instant at a time
how he came to be there, and later, as his capacity for thought came back,
he found his surroundings grown insensibly familiar to him. He felt
himself somehow to have slipped so completely into the inside of things
that it was impossible to recover the remote, hostile point of view which
had been his as he had looked over the gate a fortnight ago. For instance,
knowing now, not only that the children's faces were scrubbed to a
polished redness every morning, but being: cognizant through his window of
most of the palpably unavoidable accidents of play which made them dirty
half an hour later, he would have resented as unreasonable intolerance any
undue emphasis on this phase of their appearance.
The first day that he was well enough to sit out on the porch was a great
event. The children, who before had made only shy, fleeting visits to his
room with "little handfuls of bokays," as their mother said, were as
excited and elated over his appearance as though it reflected some credit
on themselves. Indeed, J.M. found that he was the subject of
unaccountable pride to all the family, and one of the first of those
decisions of his between McCartey and Loyette occurred that very morning.
The Loyette children insisted on being included in the rejoicing over the
convalescent's step forward, and soon Pierre, the oldest boy, was haled
before J.M. himself to account for his having dared to use the McCartey
name for the sick man.
"You're _not_ his Uncle Jerry, _are_ you?" demanded Mike McCartey.
J.M. thought that now was the time to repress the too exuberant McCartey
familiarity. "I'm his Uncle Jerry just as much as I am yours!" he said
severely.
It took him a whole day to understand the jubilant triumph of the
French-Canadians and to realize that he had apparently not only upheld the
McCarteys in their preposterous nickname, but that he had added all the
black-eyed Loyettes to his new family. Mrs. McCartey said to him that
evening, with an innocent misconception of the situation, "Sure an'
mustn't it sound fine to you, that name, when you've no kith of your own."
J.M. realized that that speech broke down the last bridge of retreat into
his forsaken dignity. It is worthy of note that as he lay in bed that
evening, meditating upon it, he suddenly broke into a little laugh of
utter amusement, such as the assistants at Middletown Library had never
heard from his lips.
The rapidity with which he was fitted into the routine of the place took
his breath away. At first when he sat on the porch, which was the common
ground of all the families, either Mrs. McCartey or Mrs. Loyette sewed
near him to keep an eye on the children, but, as his strength came back,
they made him, with a sigh of relief, their substitute, and disappeared
into the house about neglected housework. "Oh, ain't it lovely now!" cried
Mrs. McCartey to Mrs. Loyette, "to have an old person of your own about
the place that you can leave the children with a half-minute, while you
snatch the wash-boiler off the fire or keep the baby from cuttin' her
throat with the butcher-knife."
Mrs. Loyette agreed, shaking her sleek black head a great many times in
emphasis. "Zose pipple," she added, "zose lucky pipple who have all zere
old pipple wiz zem, they can _not_ know how hard is eet to be a mozzer,
wizout a one grand'mère, or oncle."
So J.M. at the end of his first fortnight in Woodville found himself
undisputed umpire in all the games, discussions, quarrels,
and undertakings of seven young, Irish-Americans and more
French-Canadian-Americans than he could count. He never did find out
exactly how many Loyettes there were. The untidy front yard, littered with
boxes and barrels, assumed a strangely different aspect to him as he
learned its infinite possibilities, for games and buildings and
imaginations generally. Sometimes it was a village with a box as house for
each child, ranged in streets and lanes, and then Uncle Jerry was the
mayor and had to make the laws. Sometimes the yard foamed and heaved in
salt waves as, embarked in caravels, the expedition for the discovery of
America (out of the older children's history-books) dashed over the
Atlantic. It is needless to state that Uncle Jerry was Christopher
Columbus.
Both the grateful mothers whom he was relieving cried out that never had
there been such peace as since he came, not only because the children
could appeal to him for decisions instead of running to their mothers, but
because, the spectacular character in every game belonging to him as
"company," there were no more quarrels between Mike and Pierre about the
leadership. J.M. could not seem to find his old formal personality for
weeks after Mike's baseball had knocked it out of him, and in the meantime
he submitted, meekly at first and later with an absurd readiness, to being
an Indian chieftain, and the head of the fire department, and the
principal of a big public school, and the colonel of a regiment, and the
owner of a cotton factory, and the leader of Arctic expeditions, and all
the other characters which the fertile minds inhabiting the front yard
forced upon him. He realized that he was a changed soul when he found
himself rejoicing as the boys came tugging yet another big crate, obtained
from the factory, to add to the collection before him. They needed it for
the car for the elephant as the circus they were then performing moved
from one end of the yard to the other.
He was often very, very tired when night came, but he surprised himself by
never having a touch of his old enemy, insomnia. At first he went to bed
when the children did, but as he progressed out of convalescence, he sat
out on the porch with Pat and Bridget, as they insisted he should call
them. It was very quiet then, when the cool summer dusk had hushed all the
young life which made each day such an absorbing series of unexpected
events. The puppies and kittens slept in their boxes, the hens had
gathered the chickens under their wings, the children were sound asleep,
and the great elms cast kindly shadows on the porch where the older people
sat. The Loyettes often came out and joined them, and J.M. listened with
an interest which surprised him as they told stories about hard times in
their old homes, rejoiced in their present prosperity, and made humbly
aspiring plans for their children.
For the first time in his life J.M. felt himself to be a person of almost
unlimited resources, both of knowledge and wealth, as the pitiful
meagerness of his hosts supply of these commodities was revealed to him in
these talks, more intimate than any he had known, more vitally human than
any he had ever heard. The acquisition of rare first edition, perhaps the
most stirring event in his life in Middletown, had never aroused him to
anything like the eagerness with which he heard the Loyettes helplessly
bemoaning their inability to do anything for their oldest child, Rosalie,
a slim girl of seventeen. Her drawing-teacher at school had said that the
child had an unusual gift for designing, and a manufacturer of wallpaper,
who had seen some of her work on a visit to the Woodville factory, had
confirmed this judgment and said that "something ought to be done for
her."
"But _what?_" her parents wondered with an utter ignorance of the world
outside of Woodville which astonished J.M.
"Why don't you send her to a school of design?" he asked.
"Vat is _zat_?" asked Papa Loyette blankly, and "We have no money," sighed
Maman.
J.M. stirred himself, wrote to the director of a school of design in
Albany, consulted the priest of the parish, sent some of Rosalie's work,
and asked about scholarships. When a favorable answer came, he hurried to
explain the matter to the Loyettes and offered to provide the four dollars
a week necessary for her board at the Catholic Home for Working Girls, of
which the priest had told him. He went to bed that night with his heart
beating faster from the reflection of their agitated joy than it had done
for years. He could not get to sleep for a long time, such a thrill of
emotion did he get from each recollection of Maman Loyette's broad face
bathed in tears of gratitude.
After this they fell into the way of asking him about all their problems,
from the management of difficult children to what to do about an unjust
foreman and whether to join the union. The childless, unpractical,
academic old bachelor, forced to meditate on these new subjects, gave
utterance to advice whose sagacity amazed himself. He had not known it was
in him to have such sensible ideas about how to interest a growing boy in
athletics to keep him from drinking; and as for the question of unions, he
boiled at the memory of some of the half-baked, pedantic theories he had
heard promulgated by the professor of political economy in Middletown.
On the other hand, he stood in wonder at the unconscious but profound
wisdom which these ignorant people showed as to the fundamentals of life.
"No, we're not much for _clothes!_" said Mrs. McCartey, comfortably
tucking up her worn and faded sleeves. "Haven't we all of us enough good
clothes to go to Mass in, and that's a'plenty! The rest of Pat's money
goes to gettin' lots of good food for the children, bless their red faces
and fat little bellies! and laying by a dollar or so a week against the
rainy day. Children can play better, anyhow, with only overalls and
shirts. The best times for kids is the cheapest!"
J.M. thought of the heavy-eyed, harassed professors of his acquaintance,
working nights and Sundays at hack work to satisfy the nervous ambitions
of their wives to keep up appearances, and gave a sudden swift embrace to
the ragged child on his lap, little Molly, who had developed an especial
cult for him, following him everywhere with great pansy eyes of adoring
admiration.
On his first expedition out of the yard since his illness, he was touched
by the enthusiastic interest which all Main Street took in his progress.
Women with babies came down to nearly every gate to pass the time of day
with Rosalie, on whose arm he leaned, and to say in their varying foreign
accents that they were glad to see the sick gentleman able to be out.
Since J.M. had had a chance at first-hand observation of the variety of
occupation forced upon the mother of seven, he was not surprised that they
wore more or less dilapidated wrappers and did not Marcel-wave their hair.
Now he noticed the motherly look in their eyes, and the exuberant health
of the children laughing and swarming about them. When he returned to the
house he sat down on the porch to consider a number of new ideas which
were springing up in his mind, beginning to return to its old vigor. Mrs.
McCartey came out to see how he had stood the fatigue and said: "Sure you
look smarter than before you went! It inter_est_ed you now, didn't it, to
have a chance really to see the old place?"
"Yes," said J.M., "it did, very much."
Mrs. McCartey went on: "I've been thinkin' so many times since you come
how much luckier you are than most Yankees that come back to their old
homes. It must seem so good to you to see the houses just swarmin' with
young life and to know that the trees and yards and rocks and brooks that
give you such a good time when you was a boy, are goin' on givin' good
times to a string of other boys."
J.M. looked at her with attentive, surprised eyes. "Why, do you know," he
cried, "it _does_ seem good, to be sure!"
The other did not notice the oddness of his accent as she ended
meditatively: "You can never get me to believe that it don't make old
Yankees feel low in their minds to go back to their old homes and find
just a few white-headed rheumatickers potterin' around, an' the grass
growing over everything as though it was a molderin' graveyard that nobody
iver walked in, and sorra sign of life anyway you look up and down the
street."
J.M.'s mind flew back to the summer home of the president of Middletown.
"Good gracious," he exclaimed, "you're right!"
Mrs. McCartey did not take in to the full this compliment, her mind being
suddenly diverted by the appearance of a tall figure at the door of the
farther wing of the house. "Say, Uncle Jerry," she said, lowering her
voice, "Stefan Petrofsky asked me the other day if I thought you would let
him talk to you about Ivan some evening?"
"Why, who are they, anyhow?" asked J.M. "I've often wondered why they
kept themselves so separate from the rest of us." As he spoke he noticed
the turn of his phrase and almost laughed aloud.
"Petrofsky's wife, poor thing, died since they come here, and now there's
only Stefan, he's the father, and Ivan, he's the boy. He's awful smart
they say, and Stefan, he's about kilt himself to get the boy through the
high school. He graduated this spring and now Stefan he says he wants him
to get some _more_ education. He says their family, back in Russia, was
real gentry and he wants Ivan to learn a lot so that he can help the poor
Roosians who come here to do the right thing by the government--"
"_ What_?" asked J.M. "I don't seem to catch his idea."
"Well, no more do I, sorra bit," confessed Mrs. McCartey serenely. "Not a
breath of what he meant got to me, but what he _said_ was that Ivan's
schoolin' had put queer ideas in his head to be an anarchist or somethin'
and he thought that maybe more schoolin' would drive out _thim_ ideas and
put in other ones yet. Hasn't it a foolish sound, now?" She appealed to
J .M. for a sympathy she did not get.
"It sounds like the most interesting case I ever heard of," he cried, with
a generous looseness of superlative new to him. "Is Ivan that tall, shy,
sad-looking boy who goes with his father to work?"
"That's _him_. An' plays the fiddle fit to tear the heart out of your
body, and reads big books till God knows what hour in the mornin'. His
father, he says _he_ don't know what to do with him ... There's a big, bad
devil of a Polack down to the works that wants him to join the anarchists
in the fall and go to----"
J.M. rose to his feet and hurried down the porch toward the Petrofsky
wing of the house, addressing himself to the tall, grave-faced figure in
the doorway. "Oh, Mr. Petrofsky, may I have a few minutes' talk with you
about your son?" he said.