own, and went quietly to bed without saying anything more.
"I don't know what to do, I'm sure," he said to himself as he got into
bed, "but I'm sure there's something. Maybe I'll dream it, and then I'll
do just the contrary and it'll come all right."
But boys of practical minds and sound bodies do not dream at all, unless
it be after a feast, and most of them can stand even that without having
nightmare, unless two feasts come near together, like Christmas and a
birthday within the week.
A great-uncle of mine was once taken for a clergyman at a public dinner
nearly a hundred years ago, and he was asked to say grace; he was a
good man, and also practical, and had a splendid appetite, but he was
not eloquent, and this is what he said:--
"The Lord give us appetites to enjoy, and strength to digest ALL the
good things set before us. Amen!"
And everybody said "Amen" very cheerfully and fell to.
IV
HOW THERE WAS A FAMINE IN THE CITY
It rained in New York and it "snowed slush" in Connecticut, after its
manner, and the world was a very dreary place, especially all around the
dilapidated cottage where everything was going to pieces, including John
Henry Overholt's last hopes.
If he had been alone in the world he would have taken his small cash
balance and his model to the foundry, quite careless as to whether he
ever got a meal again until the Motor worked. But there was the boy to
be thought of, and desperate as the unhappy inventor was, he would not
starve his son as well as himself. He was quite sure of his little
balance, though he had never had any head for figures of that sort. It
was an easy affair in his eyes to handle the differential calculus,
which will do anything, metaphorically speaking, from smashing a rock as
flat and thin as a postage stamp, to regulating an astronomical clock;
but to understand the complication of a pass-book and a bank account was
a matter of the greatest possible difficulty. Newton would have done it
much better, though he could not get to the head of his class in
arithmetic. That is the difference between being an inventor and having
a practical mind. As for Mrs. Overholt, she was perfectly wonderful at
keeping accounts; but then she had been taught a great many things, from
music and drawing to compound interest and double entry, and she had
been taught them all just so far as to be able to do them nicely without
understanding at all what she did; which is sound modern education, and
no mistake. The object of music is to make a cheerful noise, which can
be done very well without pencil and paper and the rules of harmony.
But Overholt could neither make a cheerful noise, nor draw a holly leaf,
nor speak French, nor even understand a pass-book, though he had
invented an Air-Motor which would not work, but was a clear evidence of
genius. The only business idea he had was to make his little balance
last as long as possible, in spite of the terrible temptation to take it
and offer it to the founder as a cash advance, if only he might have his
piece of casting done. Where the rest of the money would come from he
did not know; probably out of the Motor. It looked so easy; but there
was the boy, and it might happen that there would be no dinner for
several days.
On the first of December he cashed a cheque in the town, as usual; and
he paid Barbara's wages and the coal merchant, and the month's bill for
kerosene, and the butcher and the grocer, and the baker, and that was
practically all; and he went to bed that night feeling that whatever
happened there was a whole month before another first came round, and he
owed no one anything more for the present, and Newton would not starve,
and could have his Christmas turkey, if it was to be the last he ever
ate, poor boy.
On the morning of December third it was still snowing slush, though it
was more like real snow now, and the air was much colder; and by and by,
when Overholt had read a letter that Barbara brought him, he felt so
terribly cold all at once that his teeth chattered, and then he was so
hot that the perspiration ran down his forehead, and he steadied himself
against the heavy glass case of the Motor a moment and then almost
tumbled into a sitting posture on the stool before his work-table, and
his head fell forward on his hands, as if he were fainting.
The letter said that his account was overdrawn to the extent of three
hundred and fifty-two dollars and thirteen cents, including the cheque
he had drawn on the thirty-first, and would he please make a deposit at
his earliest convenience?
It had been just a little mistake in arithmetic, that was all. He had
started with the wrong balance in his note-book, and what he thought was
credit was debit, but the bank where he had kept all the money that had
been put up for the Motor, had wished to be friendly and good-natured to
the great inventor and had not returned his cheques with N.G. on them;
and if his attention had already been called to his deficit, he must
have forgotten to open the letter. Like all men who are much talked of
in the newspapers, though they may be as poor as Job's turkey, he
received a great many circulars addressed by typewriter, and the only
letters he really cared for were from his wife, so that when he was very
hard at work or much preoccupied the others accumulated somewhere in the
workshop, and were often forgotten.
What was perfectly clear this morning was that starvation was sitting on
the doorstep and that he had no moral right whatever to the dinner
Barbara was already beginning to cook, nor to another to-morrow, nor to
any more; for he was a proud man, and ashamed of debt, though he mixed
up debit and credit so disgracefully.
He sat there half an hour, as he had let himself fall forward, only
moving a little, so that his forehead rested on his arm instead of his
hands, because that was a little more comfortable, and just then he did
not want to see anything, least of all the Motor. When he rose at last
the sleeve of his coat was all wet with the perspiration from his
forehead. He left the workshop, half shutting his eyes in order not to
see the Motor; he was sure the thing was grinning at him behind the
plate glass. It had two round brass valves near the top that looked
like yellow eyeballs, and a lever at the bottom with double arms and a
cross-bar, which made him think of an iron jaw when he was in one of his
fits of nervous depression.
But John Henry Overholt was a man, and an honest one. He went straight
to the writing-table in the next room and sat down, and though his hand
shook, he wrote a clear and manly letter to the President of the College
where he had taught so well, stating his exact position, acknowledging
the failure of his invention, and asking help to find immediate
employment as a teacher, even in the humblest capacity which would
afford bread for his boy and himself. Presidents and principals of
colleges are in constant communication with other similar institutions,
and generally know of vacant positions.
When he had written his letter and read it over carefully, Overholt
looked at his timetable, got his hat, coat, and umbrella, and trudged
off through the slushy snow to the station, on his way to New York.
It was raining there, but it was not dismal; hurry, confusion, and noise
can never be that. He had not been in the city since the day when he
made his last attempt to raise money, and in his present state the
contrast was overwhelming. The shopkeepers would have told him that it
was a dull day for business, and that the rain was costing them hundreds
of dollars every hour, because there are a vast number of people who buy
things within the month before Christmas, if it is convenient and the
weather is fine, but will not take the trouble if the weather is bad;
and afterwards they are so glad to have saved their money that they buy
nothing of that sort till the following year. For Christmas shopping is
largely a matter of temptation on the one side and of weakness on the
other, and you cannot tempt a man to buy your wares if he will not even
go out and look at your shop window. At Christmas time every shopkeeper
turns into a Serpent, with a big S and a supply of apples varying, with
his capital, from a paper-bagful to a whole orchard, and though the
ladies are the more easily tempted, nine generous men out of ten show no
more sense just at that time than Eve herself did. The very air has
temptation in it when they see the windows full of pretty things and
think of their wives and their children and their old friends. Even
misers relax a little then, and a famous statesman, who was somewhat
close-fisted in his day, is reported to have given his young coloured
servant twenty-five cents on Christmas Eve, telling him to go out to
Mount Auburn Cemetery and see where the great men of New England lie
buried. And the man, I believe, went there; but he was an African, and
the spirit of Christmas was not in his race, for if it had moved him he
would have wasted that money on cream-cakes and cookies, reflecting that
the buried worthies of Massachusetts could not tell tales on him.
Overholt went down town to the bank where he kept his account and
explained his little mistake very humbly, and asked for time to pay up.
The teller looked at him as if he were an escaped lunatic, but on
account of his great reputation as an inventor he was shown to the desk
of one of the partners, which stood in a corner of the vast place, where
one could converse confidentially if one did not speak above a whisper;
but the stenographer girl could hear even whispering distinctly, and
perhaps she sometimes took down what she heard, if the partner made a
signal to her by carelessly rolling his pencil across his table.
The partner whom Overholt saw was not ill-natured, and besides, it was
near Christmas, and he had been poor himself when he was young. If
Overholt would kindly sign a note at sixty days for the overdraft it
would be all right. The banker was sorry he could not authorise him to
overdraw any further, but it was strictly against the rules, an
exception had been made because Mr. Overholt was such a well-known man,
and so forth. But the inventor explained that he had not meant to ask
any favour, and had come to explain how he had made such a strange
mistake. The banker, like the teller, thought that a man who could not
count money must be mad, but was too civil, or too good-natured, to say
so.
Overholt signed the note, thanked him warmly, and went away. He and his
old umbrella looked very dejected as he left the building and dived into
the stream of men in the street, but if he had paid any attention to his
fellow-beings he would have seen here and there a number who looked
quite as unhappy as he did. He had come all the way from the country
expressly to explain his error, and had been in the greatest haste to
get down town and have the interview over. To go home with the prospect
of trying to eat a dinner that would be cold, and of sitting in his
workshop all the afternoon just to stare at his failure until Newton
came home, was quite another matter. If the weather had been less
disagreeable he would have gone to the Central Park, to sit in a quiet
corner and think matters over.
As that seemed out of the question, he walked from the bank to
Forty-Second Street, taking an hour and a half over it. It was better to
go on foot than to sit in a car facing a dozen or twenty strangers, who
would wonder why he looked so miserable. Sensitive people always fancy
that everybody is looking at them and criticising them, when in fact no
one cares a straw how they look or what they do.
Then, too, he was in such a morbid state of mind about his debt that it
looked positively wrong to spend five cents on a car-fare; even the
small change in his pocket was not his own, and that, and hundreds of
dollars besides, must be paid back in sixty days. Otherwise he supposed
he would be bankrupt, which, to his simple mind, meant disgrace as well
as ruin.
It had stopped raining before he reached Grace Church, and as he crossed
Madison Square the sun shone out, the wind had veered to the west, and
the sky was clearing all round. The streets had seemed full before, but
they were positively choking with people now. The shops drew them in and
blew them out again with much less cash about them, as a Pacific whale
swallows water and spouts it out, catching the little fish by thousands
with his internal whalebone fishing-net. But, unlike the fishes, the
people were not a whit less pleased. On the contrary, there was
something in the faces of almost all that is only seen once a year in
New York, and then only for certain hours; and that is real good-will.
For whatever the most home-loving New Yorker may say of his own great
city, good-will to men is not its dominant characteristic, nor peace its
most remarkable feature.
Even poor Overholt, half crazy with disappointment and trouble, could
not help noticing the difference between the expressions of the men he
had seen down town and of those who were thronging the shops and the
sidewalks in Fifth Avenue. In Wall Street and adjacent Broadway a great
many looked like more or less discontented birds of prey looking out for
the next meal, and a few might have been compared to replete vultures;
but here all those who were not alone were talking with their
companions, and many were smiling, and now and then a low laugh was
heard, which is a very rare thing in Fifth Avenue, though you may often
hear children laughing in the Park and sometimes in the cross streets
up-town.
Then there was another eagerness in the faces, that was not for money,
but was the anticipation of giving pleasure before long, and of being
pleased too; and that is a great part of the Christmas spirit, if it is
not the spirit itself. It is doubtless more blessed to give than to
receive, but the receiving is very delightful, and it is cruel to teach
children that they must not look forward to having pretty presents. What
is Christmas Day to a happy child but a first glimpse of heaven on
earth?
Overholt glanced at the faces of the passers-by with a sort of vague
surprise, wondering why they looked so happy; and then he remembered
what they were doing, and all at once his heart sank like lead. What was
to become of the turkey and the ice-cream on which Newton had built his
hopes for Christmas? Would there be any dinner at all? Or any one to
cook it? How could he go and get things which he would not be able to
pay for on the first of next month, exactly a week after the feast? His
imagination could glide lightly over three weeks of starvation, but at
the thought of his boy's disappointment everything went to pieces, the
present, the future, everything. He would have walked all the way down
town again to beg for a loan of only a few dollars, enough for that one
Christmas dinner; but he knew from the banker's face that such a request
would be refused, as such, and he dreaded in his misery lest the money
should be offered him as a charity.
He got home at last, weary and wretched, and then for the first time he
remembered the letter he had written asking for employment as a teacher.
He had been a very good one, and the College had been sorry to lose
him; in two days he might get an answer; all hope was not gone yet, at
least not quite all, and his spirits revived a little. Besides, the
weather was fine now, even in Connecticut; there would be a sharp frost
in the night, and Newton would soon get some skating.
V
HOW THE CITY WAS BESIEGED AND THE LID OF PANDORA'S BOX CAME OFF
Almost the worst part of it was that he had to tell his boy about his
dreadful mistake, and that it was all over with the Motor and with
everything, and that until he could get something to do they were
practically starving; and that he could not possibly see how there was
ever to be ice-cream for Christmas, let alone such an expensive joy as,
a turkey.
He knew that Newton would not pucker up his mouth and screw his eyes to
keep the tears in, like a girl; and he was quite sure that the boy would
not reproach him for having been so careless. He might not seem to care
very much, but he would be terribly disappointed; that was the worst of
it all, next to owing money that he had no hope of paying. Indeed, he
hardly knew which hurt him more than the other, for the disgrace of
debt, as he called it, was all his own, but the bitter disappointment
was on Newton too.
The latter listened in silence till his father had finished, and his
boyish face was preternaturally thoughtful.
"I've seen boys make just such mistakes at the blackboard," he observed
in a tone of melancholy reflection. "And they generally catch it
afterwards too," he added. "It's natural."
"I've 'caught it,'" Overholt answered. "You have too, my dear boy,
though you didn't make the mistake--that's not just."
"Well, father, I don't know what we're going to do, but something has
got to be done right away, and we've got to find out what it is."
"Thank goodness you're not a girl!" cried Overholt fervently.
"I'm glad too; only, if I were one, I should most likely die young and
go to heaven, and you'd have me off your mind all right. The girls
always do in storybooks."
He made this startling and general observation quite naturally. Of
course girls died and went to heaven when there was nothing to eat; he
secretly thought it would be better if more of them did, even without
starvation.
"Let's work, anyhow," he added, as his father said nothing. "Maybe we'll
think of something while we're building that railroad depôt. Don't you
suppose that now you've got so far the Motor would keep while you
taught, and you could go at it again in the vacations? That's an idea,
father, come now!"
He was already in his place before the board on which the little City
was built, and his eyes were fixed on the lines his father had drawn as
a plan for the station and the diverging tracks. But Overholt did not
sit down. His usual place was opposite the Motor, where he could see it,
but he did not want to look at it now.
"Change seats with me, boy," he said. "I cannot stand the sight of it. I
suppose I'm imaginative. All this has upset me a good deal."
He wished he had the lad's nerves, the solid nerves of hungry and
sleepy thirteen. Newton got up at once and changed places, and for a few
minutes Overholt tried to concentrate his mind on the little City, but
it was of no use. If he did not think of the Motor, he thought of what
was much worse, for the little streets and models of the familiar places
brought back the cruel memory of happier things so vividly that it was
torment. All his faculties of sensation were tense and vibrating; he
could hear his wife's gentle and happy voice, her young girl's voice,
when he looked at the little bench in the lane where he had asked her to
marry him, and an awful certainty came upon him that he was never to
hear her speak again on this side of the grave; there was the house they
had lived in; from that window he had looked out on a May morning at the
budding trees half an hour after his boy had been born; there, in the
pretty garden, the young mother had sat with her baby in the lovely June
days--it was full of her. Or if he looked at the College, he knew every
one of the steps, and the entrance, and the tall windows of the
lecture-rooms, where he had taught so contentedly, year after year, till
the terrible Motor had taken possession of him, the thing that was
driving him mad; and, strangely enough, what hurt him most and brought
drops of perspiration to his forehead was the National Bank in Main
Street; it made him remember his debt, and that he had no money at
all--nothing whatsoever but the few dollars in his pocket left after
paying the bills on the first of the month.
"It's of no use!" he cried, suddenly rising and turning away. "I cannot
stand it. I'm sorry, but it's too awful!"
Never before had he felt so thoroughly ashamed of himself. He was
breaking down before his son, to whom he knew he ought to be setting an
example of fortitude and common sense. He had forgotten the very names
of such qualities; the mere thought of Hope, whenever it crossed his
mind, mocked him maddeningly, and he hated the little City for the name
he had given it. Hope was his enemy since she had left him, and he was
hers; he could have found it in his heart to crush the poor little paper
town to pieces, and then to split up the very board itself for firewood.
The years that had been so full of belief were all at once empty, and
the memory of them rang hollow and false, because Hope had cheated him,
luring him on, only to forsake him at the great moment. Every hour he
had spent on the work had been misspent; he saw it all now, and the most
perfect of his faultless calculations only proved that science was a
blatant fraud and a snare that had cost him all he had, his wife, his
boy's future, and his own self-respect. How could he ever look at his
wretched failure again? How could he sit down opposite the son he had
cheated, and who was going to starve with him, and play with a little
City of Hope, when Hope herself was the lying enemy that had coaxed him
to the destruction of his family and to his own disgrace? As for
teaching again, who ever got back a good place after he had voluntarily
given it up for a wild dream! Men who had such dreams were not fit to
teach young men in any case! That was the answer he would get by post in
a day or two.
Newton watched his father anxiously, for he had heard that people
sometimes went mad from disappointment and anxiety. The pale
intellectual face wore a look of horror, as if the dark eyes saw some
dreadful sight; the thin figure moved nervously, the colourless lips
twitched, the lean fingers opened and shut spasmodically on nothing. It
was enough to scare the boy, who had always known his father gentle,
sweet-tempered, and hopeful even under failure; but Overholt was quite
changed now, and looked as if he were either very ill or very crazy.
It is doubtful whether boys ever love their fathers as most of them love
their mothers at one time, or all their lives. The sort of attachment
there often is between father and son is very different from that, and
both feel that it is; there is more of alliance and friendship in it
than of anything like affection, even when it is at its best, with a
strong instinct to help one another and to stand by each other in a
fight.
Newton Overholt did not feel any sympathetic thrill of pain for his
father's sufferings; not in the least; he would perhaps have said that
he was "sorry for him" without quite knowing what that meant. But he was
very strongly moved to help him in some way, seeing that he was
evidently getting the worst of it in a big fight. Newton soon became
entirely possessed by the idea that "something ought to be done," but
what it was he did not know.
The lid of Pandora's box had flown open and had come off suddenly after
smashing the hinges, and Hope had flown out of the window. The boy
thought it was clearly his duty to catch her and get her into prison
again, and then to nail down the lid. He had not the smallest doubt that
this was what he ought to do, but the trouble lay in finding out how to
do it, a little difficulty that humanity has faced for a good many
thousand years. On the other hand, if he failed, as seemed probable, he
was almost sure that his father would fall ill and die, or go quite mad
in a few hours. He wished his mother were there; she would have known
how to cheer the desperate man, and could probably have made him smile
in a few minutes without really doing anything at all. Those were the
things women could do very well, the boy thought, and they ought always
to be at hand to do them when wanted. He himself could only sit there
and pretend to be busy, as children mostly do when they see their elders
in trouble. But that made him wild.
"I say, father," he broke out suddenly, "can't I do anything? Try and
think!"
"That's what I'm trying to do," answered Overholt, sitting down at last
on the stool before the work-bench and staring at the wall, with his
back turned to his son. "But I can't! There's something wrong with my
head."
"You want to see a doctor," said the boy. "I'll go and see if I can get
one of them to come out here." He rose as if to go at once.