One of the most embittering elements of Lester’s old life had been the
absence of any leisure when he could really think--consider things
consecutively enough to make any sort of sense out of them. He seemed
to himself to live perpetually in the mental attitude of a man with his
watch in one hand and a heavy valise in the other running for a train
which was already overdue. How much value would the judgment of such a
man have?
He had always thought he would like to be able to sit right down
quietly to think out a thing or two. Now he certainly had all the
sitting down quietly that anybody could want. Well, he liked it as
much as he had thought he would. And more! He brought under his
consideration one after another of the new elements of his new life,
holding them firmly under the lens of his intelligence, focusing on
them all his attention, and to his astonished relief saw them one by
one yield to his analysis, give up their tortured, baffling aspect of
mystery and tragedy, and lie open to his view, open to his hand, open
to his forward-looking planning. He had never lived with his family
before, he had never seen more of their lives than the inexplicable and
tangled loose ends over which they all stumbled wretchedly. Now that
for months he had had the opportunity for continuous observation, he
perceived that there was nothing so darkly inexplicable, after all,
nothing that resisted a patient, resourceful attempt to follow up those
loose ends and straighten out some of the knots.
Even in the tragic tangle of Stephen’s strange little nature, Lester
felt he had begun to find his way. He had found out this much: Stephen
had more vitality than all the rest of them put together (except Eva,
of course). And when it did not find free outlet it strangled and
poisoned him, made him temporarily insane, in the literal sense of the
word, like a strong masterful man shut up by an accident deep in a
coal-mine, who might fall insanely to work with his bare hands to claw
away the obstructing masses of dead, brute matter that kept him from
the light of day! That was what Stephen made him think of; that was,
so Lester divined, the meaning of the wild, fierce flame in Stephen’s
eyes which had always so shocked and grieved them. They were of another
breed, the kind who would sit down patiently and resignedly to die, not
fight till the last minute with bleeding hands.
All but Eva--oh, poor darling Eva! How much better Lester understood
his wife after those few months of observing her in a life that suited
her than after fourteen years of seeing her grimly and heroically
enduring a life that did not. Was this Eva the same as the old one?
This Eva who came in every evening tired, physically tired as he had
never seen her, but appeased, satisfied, fulfilled, having poured out
in work she loved the furious splendor of her vigor.
His heart ached with remorse as he thought of the life to which he
had condemned her. Why, like Stephen, she had been buried alive in a
shaft deep under the earth, and she had not even had Stephen’s poor
passionate outlet of misdirected fury. What she thought was her duty
had held her bound fast in a death-like silence and passivity. He
remembered the somber, taciturn, self-contained woman who had sat
opposite him, year after year, at the supper-table. Could that be the
same Eva who now, evening after evening, made them all gay with her
accounts of the humors of her profession; who could take off a fussy
customer so to the life that even Stephen laughed; who could talk with
such inspired animation of the variations of fashion that even he
listened, deadly as was his hatred for fashion and all that it stood
for! He had never even suspected that Eva had this jolly sense of
humor! Could it be the same Eva who so briskly dealt the cards around
every evening and took up her hand with such interest?
Those evenings of whist had been an inspiration of his, in answer to
two questions he had set himself: What could he invent that would
keep Eva’s mind off the housekeeping in the evenings? And what could
he and Eva and the children do together, which they would all really
and truly enjoy--what was some natural manner in which to make a
civilized contact between the two generations and the widely differing
temperaments? It was delightful to him to see how Eva enjoyed it, how
she liked to win (just think of her caring to win! How young in nature
she remained! She made him feel like Methuselah!). How cheerily and
heartily she coached Henry along, how the children admired her skill
and luck, and how she enjoyed their admiration.
Heavens! How unhappy she must have been before, like a Titan forced
to tend a miniature garden; forced to turn the great flood of that
inherited, specialized ability of hers into the tiny shallow channels
of the infinitely minute detail of child-care; forced, day after day,
hour by hour, minute by minute, with no respite, into a life-and-death
closeness of contact with the raw, unfinished personalities of the
children, from which her own ripe maturity recoiled in an ever-renewed
impatience. Eva always hated anything unfinished! And nothing around
her ever stayed unfinished very long. How she put through any job she
undertook! She had sat up all one night to finish that sofa she had so
wonderfully refurbished.
But you couldn’t put through the job of bringing up children. No amount
of energy on your part, no, not if you sat up all night every night
of your life, could hurry by a single instant the slow unfolding from
within of a child’s nature....
Eva dropped out of Lester’s mind whenever he thought of this, and he
was all flooded with the sweet, early-morning light that shone from his
daughter’s childhood. He always felt like taking off his hat when he
thought of Helen.
Sometimes when they were working together and Helen was moved to lift
the curtain shyly and let him look at her heart, he held his breath
before the revelation of the strange, transparent whiteness of her
thoughts. That was the vision before which the greatest of the poets
had prostrated themselves. And yet the best that had been done by the
greatest of them was only a faint shimmer from the distant shrine. He
understood now how Blake, all his life-long, had been shaken when he
thought of children, “Thousands of little boys and girls, raising their
innocent hands.” Through all the leaping, furious, prophetic power of
Blake, there ran, like a sun-flooded stream, this passion of loving
reverence for little girls and boys.
And under his quaintly formal rhymed words, how Wordsworth’s deep
heart had melted into the same beatitude, “... that I almost received
her heart into my own.” “Into my own!” Helen’s father knew now how
literally a man could feel that about a little girl.
And yet this did not mean that he thought Helen was perfect. No, poor
child, with her too flexible mind, her too sensitive nerves, her lack
of power and courage, Helen needed all the help she could get if she
were not to be totally undone by life. He knew a thing or two about how
ruthless life is to any one who lacks power and courage! Helen must
learn how to stand up to things and not lie down and give up. He would
find ways to teach her ... yes, he knew wincingly what sarcastic people
would ask, “How could he teach her what he had never learned himself?”
But the fact that he had never learned himself was the very reason
for his understanding the dire need for it. Perhaps it might come
from athletics. She must learn to play on a team, how to take rough,
careless, good-natured knocks, and return them and pass on her way. As
soon as he could get about on crutches, somehow--perhaps he would go to
the physical-training teacher at school and have a talk about Helen.
Perhaps he could get up an outdoor basket-ball team of the children
here on the street. He had plans, all sorts of plans. Above all, Helen
must go to college. It wasn’t so much, going to college; he had no
illusions about it. For a strong personality like Stephen’s it might
very well not be worth while. But for a bookish, sensitive, complicated
nature like Helen’s, the more her intelligence was shaped and pointed
and sharpened and straightened out, the better. She would need it all
to cope with herself. She was not one for whom action, any action
provided it were violent enough, would suffice.
Would it for Henry? How about Henry, anyhow? How everybody always
left Henry out! That was because there wasn’t anything unusual about
the nice little boy. He was a nice little boy, and if he grew to his
full stature, he would be a nice man, a good citizen, a good husband.
No leader of men, but a faithful common soldier--well, perhaps a
sergeant--in the great army of humanity.
But he had a right to his own life, didn’t he, even if he weren’t
unusual? You didn’t want everybody to be unusual. There were moods in
which Lester Knapp took the greatest comfort in Henry’s being just like
anybody else. So much the better for him! For everybody! There would
never be tragedy in his life, no thwarted, futile struggling against
an organization of things that did not fit him. At times, too, there
was something poignant to Lester about Henry’s patient, unrebellious
attitude. He never fought to get what he wanted. He stood back, took
what others left, and with a touching, unconscious resignation, made
the best of it. All the more reason for Henry’s father to stand up for
him, to think of how to get him more of what he wanted.
He began to plan for Henry now. What would Henry naturally want? Just
what any little boy wanted. The recipe was well known: Playmates of
his own age, a “gang”; some kind of shack in the woods to play pirate;
games, lots and lots of games; a pet of his own; perhaps a job at which
he could earn real money of his own to spend on a baseball mitt or a
bicycle.
Why, Henry didn’t have a single one of those things, not one. And he
was eleven years old.
* * * * *
That afternoon when the children came home, he waited till they had
unpacked their minds of the school-news, and then asked casually, “Say,
Henry, wouldn’t you like to have a puppy to bring up? I used to think
the world of my dog when I was your age.”
A quick startled look passed between Henry and Helen, a look rather
wild with the unexpectedness of their father’s question. Henry flushed
very red and looked down dumbly at his piece of bread and butter.
Helen spoke for him, placatingly, “You see, Father ... you see ...
Mother never wanted Henry to ... but ... well, Henry _has_ a puppy,
sort of.”
Seeing nothing but expectant interest in her father’s face, she went
on, “Old Mrs. Hennessy’s Laura had puppies about six weeks ago, and
Mrs. Hennessy said Henry could have one. Henry always did want one,
_so_. And Henry”--her accent was increasingly apologetic--“Henry sort
of did pick out one for his. It’s white with black spots. Awfully
cunning. Noontimes Henry runs over from school to the Hennessys’ to
play with it. Mrs. Hennessy and Laura are weaning the puppies now. He’s
beginning to lap milk. Oh, Father, haven’t they got the darlingest
little red tongues! Henry’s named him Rex. Mrs. Hennessy said Henry
could keep it at her house, because Mother....”
A new possibility opened before her like the horizon lifting, “Oh,
_Father_, do you suppose she would let Henry have it _now_?”
The “now” referred to the change in Mother which they all noticed, but
never mentioned, even in so distant a manner as this “now.” It had
slipped out in Helen’s excitement. Lester took no notice of it.
“Do you s’pose she _would_?” asked Henry, in an agitated voice. He was
now quite pale.
“Heavens, what a sensitive little chap he is!” thought Lester. “How
worked up he does get over little things.” Aloud he said, “Well, she
might. Let’s ask her this evening.”
So they did. She came in rather late and pretty tired. Her feet ached a
good deal by nighttime, now it was warm weather, and Helen usually had
a good hot bath waiting for her when she came. Mother kissed her and
said what a comfort she was before shutting the door of the bathroom.
Helen jumped happily downstairs, two steps at a time, to help Father
get the supper on.
It was steaming on the table when Mother came down in the pretty,
loose, red-silk house-dress which she’d bought at the store at such a
bargain--for _nothing_, as she said. She looked relaxed and quiet and
said she was starved and so glad they had veal cutlets. It was a joy to
watch Mother eat after her day’s work.
They never washed the dishes in the evenings now, because, Mother
getting her breakfast downtown, it was no matter _how_ the kitchen
looked in the morning. Henry and Helen piled them on the new wheeled
tray which Mr. Willing had so kindly sent up, pushed that into the
kitchen and put them to soak, while Father and Mother got Stevie to
bed and lighted the little bedside candle, at which Stephen loved to
stare himself to sleep.
Then they hurried into the living-room for the evening rubber of whist.
Mother’s luck was especially good that evening, a fact in which they
all took an innocent satisfaction. Mother liked it when her luck was
good.
Then, all of a sudden, the opening was there, and Father was taking
advantage of it in a masterful way. Mother said something about the two
little Willing girls who had been down at the store that day with their
dog, and Father put in at once, “By the way, Eva, old Mrs. Hennessy
wants to give Henry one of a litter of puppies her dog has. What would
you say? It’s spring-time. It could be out of doors mostly.” (How they
admired him for being able to speak so casually. “By the way, Eva....”
He was wonderful. Under the table Helen’s hand squeezed Henry’s hard.)
Mrs. Knapp still had before her eyes the picture of the two fashionably
dressed children and their fashionably accoutred dog with his studded
collar and harness and the bright tan braided leather of his leash. She
had never thought of dogs in terms of smartness before. “He’d make a
lot of trouble for you,” she said, looking over at her husband.
“Oh, I’d manage all right. I like dogs,” said Lester carelessly.
“You’d have to promise, Henry, to keep him out of this room. I don’t
want dog-hairs all over everything.” (It was the old formula, but not
pronounced with the old conviction. After all she would not be there to
see. She was often surprised that she worried so little about the looks
of the house nowadays.)
“Oh, I’d never let him in _here_,” promised Henry in a strangled voice.
“Well ...” said his mother. She looked down at the cards in her hand.
There was a silence.
“Who took that last trick?” she asked.
“You did,” said her husband (although he had).
They began to play again.
It had been as easy as that.
* * * * *
Lester had quite forgotten about the dog that evening as he pottered
around the kitchen over some last tasks. He heard the bathroom door
shut and knew that Eva had gone in for her evening toilet. At once
afterwards his ear caught the stealthy sound of bare feet on the
stairway. He turned his head towards the door and saw Henry come
hurrying in on tiptoe.
He opened his lips to make some joking inquiry about whatever it could
be that kept Henry up so late, but the expression on the child’s face
silenced him. Good heavens! Had he cared so much as that about owning
a dog!
Henry came up to him without a word and leaning over the wheel of the
invalid-chair, put his arms around his father’s neck, leaning his cheek
against his father’s shoulder.
“Oh, _Father_!” he said in a whisper, with a long, tremulous breath. He
tightened his arms closer and closer, as though he could never stop.
Lester patted the little boy’s back silently. He was thinking, “I
hope he’ll come like this to tell me when he’s in love and has been
accepted. I don’t believe he’ll be any more stirred up.” The child’s
body quivered against his breast.
After a time Lester said quietly, “Better get to bed, old man. You’ll
take cold, with your bare feet.”
Docilely and silently Henry went back upstairs to bed.