CATASTROPHE CREATING CHARACTER
Grandfather Scott was a blacksmith. He was much more-a natural amateur
mechanic-the only man in those early days in the little town of
Warren, who could successfully tinker sewing-machines, repair clocks,
or make a new casting for a broken Franklin heater. He was a hale,
ruddy man who lived, worked and died with much peace. There were
girls, but David was the only boy, and a lusty youth he was. The
absence of brothers, or possibly an excess of sisters, gave him, both
as youth and young man, much more liberty of action and right of way
than was good for his soul. At any rate, he early developed a
steadfastness which, throughout his life, stood for both strength of
purpose and hard-headed, sometimes hard-hearted wilfulness. His father
had dreamed a dream: his smithy was to grow into a shop, and later the
shop was to become a factory where a hundred men would do his bidding
and supply the country with products of his inventive genius. But so
far as his own life was to realize, it remained a dream. The shop was
never built; the genius failed to invent. But his son, David! Yes, he
would have the schooling and advantages that the father had not known.
And so it was: at thirty, David Scott had been well educated in
mechanics; at forty, he had made improvements on the sewing-machine,
which gave him valuable patents; at fifty, his factory employed ten
times the number his father had visioned. Thus was fulfilled the dream
of the ancestor.
Business success was large for Mr. David Scott. But what of his
success as a father? He married at twenty-eight, a handsome woman
whose pride in appearance stood out through the years and influenced
the training given her three children. Little David, or "Dave," as he
was early called in distinction to his father, was petted by his
mother and, in spite of evidences to the contrary, was his father's
pride. The family moved to Cleveland when Dave was a little fellow.
His father would not be cramped, so, with what proved to be rare
foresight, bought part of an old farm on Mayfield Heights. Both here
and at Granddad's, where Dave was sent each summer, there was ample
out-of-doors, and the lad grew sturdy of limb. With a flaming shock of
curling, copper hair, his eyes deepest blue, and skin as fair as a
girl's, he was a boy for mother, teachers and later for maidens to
spoil. But an attractive personality, an inherent fineness never left
him while he was conscious, and seldom when he was irresponsible.
Dave's mother was proud, proud of her successful husband, of the
mansion and estate of which she was the envied mistress, proud of her
handsome self and handsome daughters, and specially proud of Dave, the
brightest and handsomest of them all. It is a pity that she who so
fully enjoyed the pleasures of wealth, and of wealth-shielded
motherhood, might not have lived to drink to her full of the joys she
loved. Pride, insufficient clothing, wealth, inadequate exercise,
exposure in a raw, March bluster, defective personal resistance,
pneumonia!--and in a week, the life was gone.
Dave was only fourteen, but, in face of his spoiling, was ready for
St. Paul's, where he was sent the next fall. He was bright-even
brilliant in his prep school work. Mathematics, the sciences and
history seemed almost play for him, while in languages, and especially
in English, he did an unusual amount of "not required" work.
Dave made his father his hero, and for many years was instant in doing
his will. Had the older man taken serious thought of his son's
personality and entered into the boy's developmental needs with his
wonted intelligence and thoroughness, the two could have grown into a
closeness which would have made the Scott name one to be reckoned with
in the manufacturing world.
The father's business was growing even beyond his own dreams, and he
found little time to give his boy, whom, in fact, he saw but rarely,
save at Christmas holidays. So it happened that Dave was more deeply
influenced by his mother's love for the beautiful than by machine-shop
realities; and the aesthetic developed in him to the exclusion of the
father's practical life.
For many years wine had been served at the family dinners. Mr. Scott
drank only at home, and then never more than two small glasses. He had
no respect for the man who overindulged any weakness. He little
thought his own blood could be different than he. This father was a
man of exceptional energy who had wrought miracles financially, and
was, without question, master in his thoroughly organized factory. He
dominated his surroundings. Where he willed to lead--whether in
business circles, in the vestry, in his own home--the strength of his
intellect, the force of his purpose and his quiet but tangible
assertiveness were felt. He had never been balked in any determined
course of action.
When Dave went East to school, he possessed physique and health which
should have made athletics a desire and a joy. But on both the
baseball and football squads were a few fellows not choice in their
use of English. In fact, even at this excellent church-school, these
exceptions did considerable "cussing." Dave's mother and sisters were
fastidious, and Dave found himself, even at fourteen, resenting
coarseness. He, therefore, chose the "nice fellows" as associates, and
made friends to his liking in books. We must not think of him as
"prissy" or snobbish, but he distinctly disliked crudity however
expressed, and this dislike grew and was strengthened by his
increasing devotion to the aesthetic. Otherwise, Dave's prep school
years were those of an unusually fine fellow, whose mind promised both
brilliance and strength. Sadly, during these vital years, Dave had no
mature counselor; no strong character was sufficiently close to sense
his needs and court his confidence. So some of the proclivities of his
early home influence persisted and developed, which normally should
have been displaced by others standing for oncoming manhood.
College life, unfortunately, but increased his opportunities to
indulge his weaknesses, and his three years at Yale found him a
dependable member of a refined fast-set. With his unusual mind--giving
no time to athletics--there were many idle hours at his disposal. He
now discovered that he liked cigarettes which his father held in
supreme contempt, while, from time to time, a quiet wine-supper with a
select few, where spirits blended so finely when mellowed by
champagne, stood for the acme of social pleasure. Dave could not carry
much liquor and mellowed early, and rather soon slipped quietly under
the table, to be told the next day most of the snappy toasts and
stories the other fellows had contributed to the occasion. These
entertainments soon forced Dave to overdraw his allowance. A business-
like letter asking explanations came from his father, and this was
followed by a peremptory command that he live within his already
"ample remittance." Father and son had never been companions, and here
the boy's devotion deserted, and a growing estrangement began. Dave,
knowing his father's wealth, resented his lack of liberality, and he
knew him too well to protest. For three months he heeded parental
injunction; then a trip to New York to grand opera. Entertainment
accepted must be returned. Another wine-supper, paid for by a draft on
his father-and family warfare was on! The draft was paid-the family
credit must not be questioned, but a house was divided against itself,
and the letter David sent Dave left a trail of blue smoke. It left
also a reckless, rebellious son.
Adelaide Foster's grandfather was wealthy. Her mother had suited her
own taste-not her parents'-when she married attractive Fred Foster.
The grandfather dallied too often with the "bucket-shop" before he
forgave his foolish child, and when he came to his better paternal
self, he hadn't much to leave his little granddaughter. But Adelaide
made much of her little, and spent two very developing years at
Barnard.
Dave and Adelaide met on terms artistic which were most satisfying to
them both. Dave had made good junior marks in spite of his inoffensive
sprees and conflicts with his father. He was in many ways Adelaide's
superior, but she gave him a large companionship in things beautiful,
and worshiped at his feet in questions profound. His father had
ignored, or failed to notice, Dave's references to the young lady-so
there was a little wedding-ceremony with four witnesses, an almost
impulsive wedding. The elder Scott was not expecting this flank-
movement, but family pride again helped Dave out, and a liberal check
followed the stiff telegram of "best wishes."
Six months the young folks spent abroad. The beautiful in nature and
art which Europe offered blended into their honeymoon. The last
wedding-gift dollar had been spent when they returned to East Best,
the paternal mansion in Cleveland. Two evenings later Mr. Scott called
his son into the library. It was time to reassert his sovereignty.
This, too, was business; so it was curt and direct. "Well, sir, I
trust you have sown your wild oats. You have married. It is high time
you settled down. I shall give you and Adelaide a home with us, or, if
you prefer to live elsewhere, one hundred dollars a month for living
expenses. This, mark you, is my gift to her. You don't earn a cent of
it. You will have to start in the business at the bottom. You may
choose the shops or the office. You will be paid what you earn. I hope
you will make good. You are capable. Good-night."
Dave chose the office. The shops were "ugly." Unhappily, much of the
good, the useful and the necessary was being classed as "ugly" in this
young aesthete's mind, and worse, he was finding himself uncomfortable
in the presence of an increasing number of normal, even practically
essential conditions. This gifted and promising young man was at odds
with reality. He refused to accept reality as real. For him in beauty
of line and color and sound, in beauty of thought and expression,
only, was the truth. He suffered in other surroundings. He had become
aesthetically hypersensitive. And of all reality's ruthlessness, what
was less tolerable than monotony? What less capable of leading a man
to the heights than the eternal grind of the office?
Even Adelaide and the baby bored him at times. Young Scott could do
anything well to which he gave effort. And his father was considering
giving him a raise, when at the end of six months he disappeared. The
second day after, the distraught wife received a message from New
York. He was all right, and would be home next week. The father,
however, had to honor another draft before his son could square
accounts and purchase a return ticket. This was the first of his
retreats from the grim battle-front of reality. Six months seemed the
limit of his capacity to face a work-a-day life. He read much, and of
the best. He took up Italian alone and soon read it easily. When at
home his chief excesses were books-but the Scott table was amply
supplied, and in view of his inactive physical habits we realize that
Dave was a high liver.
Adelaide had proven a most dutiful daughter-in-law, and with the baby
long kept the headsman's ax from descending. But even their
restraining power had its limitations. The irk of that "godless"
office was being more and more poorly met by Dave. Five times during
the fourth year he took ungranted periods of relaxation. The last time
the usual draft was not paid. He unwisely signed a check, badly
overdrawing his private account. His father seemed waiting for such an
opportunity, and took drastic action. Under an old law, he had his son
apprehended as a spend thrift, and so adjudged, deprived of his rights
and made ward of a guardian. A young physician was made deputy in
charge of his person--a man chosen, apparently, with much care. It was
to be his business to teach this wealthy man's son to work with his
hands and to live on a stipulated sum. There is no question that
immediate good followed these aggressive tactics, and in the
personality of his companion-guardian he found much that was
wholesome. A sturdy character was the doctor, who had fought his way
through poverty to a liberal education, and was entering a special
study of nervous disorders. His good theoretical training was planted
in a rich soil of common-sense. For three months they worked on a
farm, shoulder to shoulder. The two men became friends, a most helpful
friendship for Dave, whose admiration for the young doctor had proven
a path which led him, for the first time, to a realization of the
hidden beauties in a life of overcoming, and this lies close to the
nobility of the love of work.
Dave was accepting his need for the bitter medicine which was being
administered. He had forgiven Adelaide who sided with his father and,
for the first time, had written, acknowledging some of his past
failures. He wanted some books. He needed clothes. The orders given
the doctor had been rigid as to spending-money and diversions. The
determined father disapproved the expense account. Another man was
sent to relieve the doctor-companion-a man who could be depended upon
to carry out the letter of the father's law. Rebellion, fierce--and it
seemed, righteous--flamed forth in Dave Scott's soul. He was doing his
best. He was working as he never had worked before. He had seen his
need--he had the vision of self-mastery. All this, and more he had
seriously confided to the man his father, through the court, had
placed over him. Without a word of explanation he was again to be
turned over to the custody of a stranger. Was he a child or a chattel?
Was he mentally irresponsible that he should be thus transferred from
one hand to another without a hearing? He wired his protests, and
received in return an assurance that he would accept his new custodian
or be cut off without a cent. In that hour the real character of David
Scott was born. He consulted an attorney and learned the limited power
of his guardians. Outside of Ohio he was legally free. He pawned some
of his few belongings. Adelaide and the child were financially cared
for. Over night he left the State. He would be a man, penniless,
rather than the chattel-son of a millionaire!
The United States had just entered the Great War. The Marines were
being recruited everywhere for "early over-seas service," and Dave
Scott, the aesthetic, volunteered as a "buck-private." Few got over as
fast as they wished. It was six months for Dave at Paris Island. There
were few in the ranks of his mental ability, and physically he became
as hard as the toughest. He was soon a corporal and later a sergeant.
And he worked. He met the roughest of camp duties, at first with set
jaw and revolting senses, later with a grim smile; finally, and then
the emancipation, with a sense of the closeness of man to man in
mankind's work. And the men began turning to him, and as he sweated
with them he learned to discern the manliness in the crudest of them.
He went across at the end of six months, to France. He was a
replacement in the Sixth.
The French line had been beaten thin as gold-foil. If it broke, Paris
was at the mercy of the Hun. Then eight thousand of Uncle Sam's
Marines were thrown in where the line was thinnest and the pressure
heaviest. Sharp-shooters, expert marksmen, were most of them. The
enemy was now in the open. They had not before met riflemen who boldly
stood up and coolly killed at one thousand yards. Crested German
helmets made superb targets, and the officers bit the dust
disastrously. At the end of three days, six thousand of these eight
thousand Marines were dead or casuals. But the tide of the Great War
was turned-and Dave Scott was one of the immortals who forced the
flood back upon the Rhine. What miracle was it that shielded that
ever-smiling white face, crowned with its flaming shock, from the
storm of lead and death? With the fate of nations trembling in the
balance, who can know the part his blue eyes, now true as steel,
played in the great decision as, hour after hour with deadly
precision, he turned his hand to slaughter? Five times the gun he was
using became too hot and was replaced by that of a dead comrade. After
those three days at Chateau-Thierry, no mortal could question that
Dave Scott had forsworn aesthetics; that he was a demon of reality.
Later he saw service on the Champagne front, and then was invalided
home.
It was a chastened father, a magnificently proud father, who was the
first to greet him. For the time he was unable to put into words the
honor he had for the son whom, so few months before, he considered
worthless. "It's all past now, Dave. That past we won't speak of
again. I've arranged for your discharge. You'll be home to stay,
inside of a month."
Dave's answer, probably more than any act in battle, proved that his
character had been remade: "No, Father, I have enlisted for four
years. I belong to the Marines till my time is up. I owe it to you, to
Adelaide, to the boy, to myself, to prove that I can be the man in
peace that I have tried to be in training-camp and in France. I know I
can face reality when spurred by excitement. I have yet to prove that
I can face the monotony of two years and a half of routine service."