GETTING WARM!
MEANWHILE, in Richard’s stateroom Walter had had his gill and was
fighting hard at cribbage to count in a fine handful of “fifteen’s.”
“Pretty smart,” Richard remarked as he drew a card. “Now why did you
let me have that eight spot?”
“Knew the five was under it,” Walter grinned and rolled out his tongue
foolishly.
“How did you know that?”
“Oh, I know the cards all right. And I know you got two eights and a
seven which you aren’t goin’ to count in.... I need that five to make a
‘fifteen-two.’”
Walter made good his boast in one or two swift plays that ended the
game in his favour.
“Well!” Richard affected great astonishment. “You peg out. I always
thought cribbage was a game of pure chance. You certainly can spiel
’em. Let’s have another.”
As they drew and played and pegged Richard asked questions. Sometimes
he got the answers he wanted; at other times a series of stealthy
probes into the boy’s past brought nothing. Finally he struck a vein
that brought the result he was after.
“What did you most like to do when you were a kid?” he asked.
“Fish, mostly; and climb trees. Wanted to be a sailor.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He darkened and twisted his face ferociously.
“Oh, I know,” Richard soothed. The mother had said no, of course.
“And wouldn’t she let you fish, either?”
“She didn’t kick again’ fishin’. Always glad to get my trout.”
“Ah! She wouldn’t let you climb trees, I bet.”
No answer.
“Ah! I thought so! Still like to climb ’em?”
Again no answer.
“Play the game!” muttered Walter savagely. “Play the game!”
They played, but Richard could hardly see the cards before him. He made
many bad mistakes. Once he really forgot himself, and began to peg in
fifteen-two’s; but he caught himself in time and let Walter finally peg
out a winner of every contest. But his mind was not on that game; it
was excitedly going over the ground of some interesting data that his
friend in the Columbia faculty, Professor Galloway, had produced in
one of their all-night chats on things mental. And here, if everything
turned out well, was a parallel case in Walter.
Galloway was telling how the psychologists were turning into veritable
wizards and healers. Beginning the study of abnormalities for the
impartial purposes of science they had to do with all sorts of freak
cases of mental derangement. Naturally the patients and their friends
were more interested in cures than in the progress of science in
the dim regions of psychology; and naturally, too, the investigator
found his fame depending more upon a sensational cure than upon the
discovery of psychic law. They had been forced into the practice of
psychology; and with hypnotism, “suggestion,” dream readings and
casting out of inimical “personalities” their trade began to take on
the character of the ancient soothsayer and witch-doctor.
Galloway had been telling Richard of certain sudden and unexpected
“cures.” In one case, a “dope fiend,” emaciated and degenerate looking,
had abruptly changed not only his mental personality, but had become
physically transformed. Growth began in him like a garden after a
drought. Healthy flesh multiplied on his brittle limbs, his back
straightened, his eye took on intelligence. As if a bolt had been
released that chained his real self he cast off the Mr. Hyde and became
an uncontaminated Dr. Jekyll. Through accident they learned that a
nervous mother some years before had peremptorily refused to let him
run an automobile. There had been many violent scenes; the mother
had become hysterical; the father, to keep the peace, joined with
the mother. Seemingly the boy had acquiesced, but soon after, he had
slipped many moral stages, until a bad crowd and cocaine had got him.
To the normal mind it would be ridiculous to find a cause for moral
degeneracy in so simple a matter as the repression of a strong desire
to run a car; but the psychologist knows the wisdom of readiness to
believe anything. They got the boy a car; they let him run it, take
it apart, rebuild it; they even permitted him to let her out a peg in
the open country and paid his fine for speeding. And--a miracle--the
long-suppressed spirit rose and took possession and six years of vile
living were cleaned out as if they had not been.
It was this case that Richard had strongly in mind when he took up an
interest in Walter. It was a chance, he thought, but worth trying for;
so he began from the start to probe. Tree climbing had come into the
conversation several times before. Richard fell upon it as a clue; but
Walter was wary. Like all neurotics he fought away from the cause of
his trouble. When pressed directly he always denied any interest in the
thing; but Richard had found him watching the men in the crow’s nest;
and when he talked about the trip at all it was about the height of the
masts, and how fine it would be to crawl up there on the rope-ladder
and fix the top lights. He was obviously disappointed when told that
the lights were probably electric and were turned off and on by a
switch in the engine-room.
Cases of thwarted will are engaging the attention of mind students
nowadays. A youngster will grow physically ill, resisting diagnoses
and medicines, and all because a dollar watch is denied, or because
someone says no to a request for a pink dress. Most of us, fortunately,
fall in easily with the pressure of convention. We are the lucky normal
children; the ones who thrive under opposition and make the rules for
the unlucky others.
When Richard asked Geraldine if she knew about Walter’s desire to climb
trees, she could not recall anything of value. The mother on her part
said he had never expressed a desire to do such a thing. “He climb a
tree?” the energetic mother had ejaculated; “he was always too lazy.
What nonsense is this he has been telling you?”
But while Richard was disappointed he felt it unwise to press the
mother for further information. He tried once to hint of the newer
development of body cure via the release of mental suppression, but,
interested as she was in mental phenomena, she would not connect
anything of the sort with Walter. “He has had every freedom a boy could
desire,” she had said firmly; “he has had too much. What he needs is a
strong, resolute hand.”
Geraldine, however, was taken with Richard’s point of view and set
herself to help.
“Let me ask you questions,” Richard said. They had gone off together to
the mass of machinery at the stern of the boat. “Don’t mind how silly
they may seem. Galloway told me you can’t ignore anything. He did a
fine stroke once on a half-witted kid by noticing the way she pulled
at one ear. It’s a good story, but I won’t tell you now. What I want
from you is a list of the things that Walter has been forbidden to do.
I know your mother well enough to see how she would take mighty good
care of her son and heir; and her plan would be to make fast rules. Am
I right?”
“On the contrary,” Geraldine replied thoughtfully, “she was most
indulgent. Everyone says that she gave him too much leeway, and she
feels very conscience-stricken over it now. That’s why she is trying
to make up by extra vigilance. I’m the one she always held in check,
but I never objected seriously; mother was usually very sensible in her
exactions.”
“Is there any other member of the family who may have coerced him?”
“No; father died when we were very young. Mother has managed the
household ever since I can remember. She was firm in small matters; but
she was always kind and reasonable. That’s why,” she hesitated and then
went on, “that’s why we always feel so dreadful when we deceive her.”
For a moment he gazed in his mild way far out to sea, at the great
churned path made by the vessel.
“You begin to make me feel guilty, now; an experience I very seldom
have,” he said finally.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Without being specific each knew that the reference was to the day in
Naples.
“Why should it be anybody’s fault?” he asked. “I don’t believe in
‘faults.’ If you are a true Whitmanite there is no blame. One might
as well feel guilty over cold and heat as over the acts of our
nature. There’s Whitman and Spinoza rolled into one! I don’t feel
conscience-stricken because my diaphragm moves up and down or because
my appendix is inflamed; why should I be concerned, then, if my will
takes its next appointed step and attempts to go off with you and your
purse?”
“I don’t know why,” she spoke after a moment’s thought. “It’s my
training, I suppose. But let us get back to Walter.... The only time
that I remember when mother seriously attempted to control Walter was
several years ago when she scolded him in public for something he had
done in one of the sailing races. He sulked around the house for days
afterward, and he never would go in the races again, although I am sure
he was awfully keen for them.”
“Jove!” Richard was suddenly eager. “We’re getting warm. When was
that--the exact date?”
“I can find out. I don’t know exactly; but it was the year the
_Tecumseh_ won the cup. Every other boat was either wrecked or blown
ashore or filled with water. Walter was helping sail the _Tecumseh_. He
can’t swim, you know.”
“What was the thing he did that made your mother scold him?”
“I don’t remember. Possibly I can find out. My feeling is it was
something to do with the spinnaker. He used to be very clever at
getting it out in just the right minute when we came about and went
before the wind. But I can’t recall. All that I know is that a terrific
blow came up and sent those boats on end. It ripped the masts out of
two of them; and the _Tecumseh_ was so sprung she never was the same
boat again. I was time-keeper, I remember, and I know they did the
twelve-knot course in less than an hour. It was a record, I think.”
“That’s fast sailing.”
“Oh, you should see those ‘Class A’ boats. They’re the fastest
sailing boats built. I’m not boasting. They’re scows, you
know--centre-board--and they just slide over the water. We took the
inter-lake cup the next year. You must come up and have a go at it. It
is fascinating sport.”
“I think I shall.” He spoke as if he had already made up his mind.
“Mother is going to ask you to pay us a visit--as a ‘professional
guest.’”
“Fine!” he laughed.
“I believe you planned to have her ask you.”
If you had told Richard that he had planned to forge a cheque he would
have considered the matter with an open mind and have rendered an
impartial decision.
“Quite possibly,” he admitted, “although I am not at all conscious of
doing it. I thought I had intended to visit a good friend in Montclair.
In fact, I wrote to him yesterday; but all the same I may have been
planning to go with you. I want to go with you. That’s a very
important clue. Trust your desires every time; they tell which way the
mental wind blows.”
“What could be your motive, then----” she began.
He interrupted. “Motive? I have no motives, no conscious ones. I
don’t know why I do things. That’s what makes me such an interesting
phenomenon to myself. I unfold like a plant; and it’s very exciting--I
am always eager to know whether I’m going to blossom into a sunflower
or an apple tree or a wild strawberry bloom.”
“Or poison ivy,” she interrupted.
“Quite so!” he agreed heartily. “Motive? I’ve long ago given up trying
to discover my motive for anything. And, by the way, we’re usually
wrong when we do discover. Listen to the bragging of folks around you,
to their cock-sureness in knowing why they do this and that. Sometimes
the holiest of men have the unholiest of motives, and many a rascal
would be surprised to know how really Christian he has been acting. It
is the same with nations and elephants and earthworms. Life will have
its way whether we understand it or not. All that I know about myself
just now is that I very much desire to go to your Penn Ying----”
“Penn Yan, please,” she corrected.
“You don’t know how curious I am,” he looked at her frankly, “to see
what will happen next.”
“I am not sure that I want you to come,” she answered thoughtfully.
“Why?”
“I am hoping you will go quietly away altogether after we land. If you
come up to Keuka, sooner or later, mother will know you are not Mr.
Richard and--it is a small matter, but I know her: she will not think
it small. It will strike her like a blow ... and she is getting old.
She tries to conceal it, but I know. The whole family have sat back and
let her carry the burden, but it has always been done so well that we
never inquired.... I’m just beginning to see what it has meant to her.
At ‘Red Jacket’----”
“What’s that?”
“We call our place ‘Red Jacket’ after a local Indian chief. ‘Red
Jacket’ is really a huge plantation. We have farm land, vineyards,
gardens--wonderful gardens!--and a big household. She manages every
inch of it and has always done so. It’s beginning to tell on her
now.... She wouldn’t understand our studied deception. It would break
her; I’m sure it would.”
“I understand,” he agreed. “All right.” Silently they watched the
swirling water. “Walter interests me,” he explained, “interests me more
than you can guess, but I can give him up.... Well, we’ve got a day or
two left. Let’s make the best of it. The boy stirs me like the answer
to a hard puzzle. I’m built that way. I throw my whole life into the
next thing that attracts my curious mind.... To be honest, I’m afraid I
don’t care anything for the boy. Does that seem brutal?”
“No; I understand. You are like a surgeon performing a fine operation.”
“Exactly. I think I’m on the way to fix that boy up! Really! I’m
tremendously excited about it.... By the way, wasn’t there something
in that yacht race about climbing--I mean in the thing that Walter did
that set the mater off?”
“Why, yes!” she exclaimed, catching some of his excitement. “I remember
now. He went aloft to disentangle the peak halyard. That’s it! Mother
was watching the race with a glass, and she nearly fainted when she saw
him leg up. She knew he couldn’t swim. The boat was scudding down the
Lake with the wind back of her; he did that leg in less than a minute
and she was heeling over nearly to the water. And Captain Tyler said
that that’s what won the cup, Walter’s shinning up the mast.”
“By Jove!” Richard seized her hand and wrung it fervently. “We’re
getting warm, Jerry! We’re getting warm! That’s what he meant by
climbing trees----”
“Of course!” Jerry was equally excited. “When he couldn’t----”
“You have it!” he broke in. “When he couldn’t climb masts, he sulked
and wouldn’t race at all. Then he went off and climbed trees all by his
little lonely----”
“Just to show her that he wasn’t going to be bossed!” she helped
quickly.
“Sure! Then he got taking a drink or two just for company----”
“I don’t think he ever really liked the stuff. None of us do.”
“Of course he doesn’t. If his primary interest is drink,” Richard flung
up his hands, “the Lord help him, for nobody else can. That’s what
Galloway says. I’ll get in touch with Galloway soon as we land. Perhaps
I can get him to come up with us----”
“Where?” She was sobered suddenly.
“To ‘Red Jacket,’ of course.” He laughed at her stupidity. Her
expression puzzled him for a moment. “Or is it ‘Yellow Jacket’? I’m no
good on names. Well, never mind the colour, old girl. We’ll all work on
it and we’ll bring that kid around as sound as buckwheat. Aren’t you
excited about it?”
“Yes,” she answered quietly. With her head resting in her hands, she
was frowning at the great swirl of water left by the receding boat.