Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  “No, Mr. Lamb.”

  In his resentment, the old gentleman’s ruddy face became ruddier and his husky voice huskier. “Thinks I kept the boy there because I suspected him! Thinks I did it to get even with him! Do I look to you like a man that’d do such a thing?”

  “No,” she said, gently. “I don’t think you would.”

  “No!” he exclaimed. “Nor he wouldn’t think so if he was himself; he’s known me too long. But he must been sort of brooding over this whole business—I mean before Walter’s trouble—he must been taking it to heart pretty hard for some time back. He thought I didn’t think much of him any more—and I expect he maybe wondered some what I was going to do—and there’s nothing worse’n that state of mind to make a man suspicious of all kinds of meanness. Well, he practically stood up there and accused me to my face of fixing things so’t he couldn’t ever raise the money to settle for Walter and ask us not to prosecute. That’s the state of mind your father’s brooding got him into, young lady—charging me with a trick like that!”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you’d never——”

  The old man slapped his sturdy knee, angrily. “Why, that dang fool of a Virgil Adams!” he exclaimed. “He wouldn’t even give me a chance to talk; and he got me so mad I couldn’t hardly talk, anyway! He might ’a’ known from the first I wasn’t going to let him walk in and beat me out of my own—that is, he might ’a’ known I wouldn’t let him get ahead of me in a business matter—not with my boys twitting me about it every few minutes! But to talk to me the way he did this morning—well, he was out of his head; that’s all! Now, wait just a minute,” he interposed, as she seemed about to speak. “In the first place, we aren’t going to push this case against your brother. I believe in the law, all right, and business men got to protect themselves; but in a case like this, where restitution’s made by the family, why, I expect it’s just as well sometimes to use a little influence and let matters drop. Of course your brother’ll have to keep out o’ this state; that’s all.”

  “But—you said——” she faltered.

  “Yes. What’d I say?”

  “You said, ‘where restitution’s made by the family.’ That’s what seemed to trouble papa so terribly, because—because restitution couldn’t——”

  “Why, yes, it could. That’s what I’m here to talk to you about.”

  “I don’t see——”

  “I’m going to tell you, ain’t I?” he said, gruffly. “Just hold your horses a minute, please.” He coughed, rose from his chair, walked up and down the room, then halted before her. “It’s like this,” he said. “After I brought your father home, this morning, there was one of the things he told me, when he was going for me, over yonder—it kind of stuck in my craw. It was something about all this glue controversy not meaning anything to me in particular, and meaning a whole heap to him and his family. Well, he was wrong about that two ways. The first one was, it did mean a good deal to me to have him go back on me after so many years. I don’t need to say any more about it, except just to tell you it meant quite a little more to me than you’d think, maybe. The other way he was wrong is, that how much a thing means to one man and how little it means to another ain’t the right way to look at a business matter.”

  “I suppose it isn’t, Mr. Lamb.”

  “No,” he said. “It isn’t. It’s not the right way to look at anything. Yes, and your father knows it as well as I do, when he’s in his right mind; and I expect that’s one of the reasons he got so mad at me—but anyhow, I couldn’t help thinking about how much all this thing had maybe meant to him;—as I say, it kind of stuck in my craw. I want you to tell him something from me, and I want you to go and tell him right off, if he’s able and willing to listen. You tell him I got kind of a notion he was pushed into this thing by circumstances, and tell him I’ve lived long enough to know that circumstances can beat the best of us—you tell him I said ‘the best of us.’ Tell him I haven’t got a bit of feeling against him—not any more—and tell him I came here to ask him not to have any against me.”

  “Yes, Mr. Lamb.”

  “Tell him I said——” The old man paused abruptly and Alice was surprised, in a dull and tired way, when she saw that his lips had begun to twitch and his eyelids to blink; but he recovered himself almost at once, and continued: “I want him to remember, ‘Forgive us our transgressions, as we forgive those that transgress against us’; and if he and I been transgressing against each other, why, tell him I think it’s time we quit such foolishness!”

  He coughed again, smiled heartily upon her, and walked toward the door; then turned back to her with an exclamation: “Well, if I ain’t an old fool!”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Why, I forgot what we were just talking about! Your father wants to settle for Walter’s deficit. Tell him we’ll be glad to accept it; but of course we don’t expect him to clean the matter up until he’s able to talk business again.”

  Alice stared at him blankly enough for him to perceive that further explanations were necessary. “It’s like this,” he said. “You see, if your father decided to keep his works going over yonder, I don’t say but he might give us some little competition for a time, ’specially as he’s got the start on us and about ready for the market. Then I was figuring we could use his plant—it’s small, but it’d be to our benefit to have the use of it—and he’s got a lease on that big lot; it may come in handy for us if we want to expand some. Well, I’d prefer to make a deal with him as quietly as possible—no good in every Tom, Dick and Harry hearing about things like this—but I figured he could sell out to me for a little something more’n enough to cover the mortgage he put on this house, and Walter’s deficit, too—that don’t amount to much in dollars and cents. The way I figure it, I could offer him about ninety-three hundred dollars as a total—or say ninety-three hundred and fifty—and if he feels like accepting, why, I’ll send a confidential man up here with the papers soon’s your father’s able to look ’em over. You tell him, will you, and ask him if he sees his way to accepting that figure?”

  “Yes,” Alice said; and now her own lips twitched, while her eyes filled so that she saw but a blurred image of the old man, who held out his hand in parting. “I’ll tell him. Thank you.”

  He shook her hand hastily. “Well, let’s just keep it kind of quiet,” he said, at the door. “No good in every Tom, Dick and Harry knowing all what goes on in town! You telephone me when your papa’s ready to go over the papers—and call me up at my house to-night, will you? Let me hear how he’s feeling?”

  “I will,” she said, and through her grateful tears gave him a smile almost radiant. “He’ll be better, Mr. Lamb. We all will.”

  Chapter XXV

  * * *

  ONE MORNING, that autumn, Mrs. Adams came into Alice’s room, and found her completing a sober toilet for the street; moreover, the expression revealed in her mirror was harmonious with the business-like severity of her attire. “What makes you look so cross, dearie?” the mother asked. “Couldn’t you find anything nicer to wear than that plain old dark dress?”

  “I don’t believe I’m cross,” the girl said, absently. “I believe I’m just thinking. Isn’t it about time?”

  “Time for what?”

  “Time for thinking—for me, I mean?”

  Disregarding this, Mrs. Adams looked her over thoughtfully. “I can’t see why you don’t wear more colour,” she said. “At your age it’s becoming and proper, too. Anyhow, when you’re going on the street, I think you ought to look just as gay and lively as you can manage. You want to show ’em you’ve got some spunk!”

  “How do you mean, mama?”

  “I mean about Walter’s running away and the mess your father made of his business. It would help to show ’em you’re holding up your head just the same.”

  “Show whom!”

  “All
these other girls that——”

  “Not I!” Alice laughed shortly, shaking her head. “I’ve quit dressing at them, and if they saw me they wouldn’t think what you want ’em to. It’s funny; but we don’t often make people think what we want ’em to, mama. You do thus and so; and you tell yourself, ‘Now, seeing me do thus and so, people will naturally think this and that’; but they don’t. They think something else—usually just what you don’t want ’em to. I suppose about the only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody.”

  “Well, but it wouldn’t be pretending. You ought to let people see you’re still holding your head up because you are. You wouldn’t want that Mildred Palmer to think you’re cast down about—well, you know you wouldn’t want her not to think you’re holding your head up, would you?”

  “She wouldn’t know whether I am or not, mama.” Alice bit her lip, then smiled faintly as she said: “Anyhow, I’m not thinking about my head in that way—not this morning, I’m not.”

  Mrs. Adams dropped the subject casually. “Are you going down-town?” she inquired.

  “Yes.”

  “What for?”

  “Just something I want to see about. I’ll tell you when I come back. Anything you want me to do?”

  “No; I guess not to-day. I thought you might look for a rug, but I’d rather go with you to select it. We’ll have to get a new rug for your father’s room, I expect.”

  “I’m glad you think so, mama. I don’t suppose he’s ever even noticed it, but that old rug of his—well, really!”

  “I didn’t mean for him,” her mother explained, thoughtfully. “No; he don’t mind it, and he’d likely make a fuss if we changed it on his account. No; what I meant—we’ll have to put your father in Walter’s room. He won’t mind, I don’t expect—not much.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Alice agreed, rather sadly. “I heard the bell awhile ago. Was it somebody about that?”

  “Yes; just before I came upstairs. Mrs. Lohr gave him a note to me, and he was really a very pleasant-looking young man. A very pleasant-looking young man,” Mrs. Adams repeated with increased animation and a thoughtful glance at her daughter. “He’s a Mr. Will Dickson; he has a first-rate position with the gas works, Mrs. Lohr says, and he’s fully able to afford a nice room. So if you and I double up in here, then with that young married couple in my room, and this Mr. Dickson in your father’s, we’ll just about have things settled. I thought maybe I could make one more place at table, too, so that with the other people from outside we’d be serving eleven altogether. You see if I have to pay this cook twelve dollars a week—it can’t be helped, I guess—well, one more would certainly help toward a profit. Of course it’s a terribly worrying thing to see how we will come out. Don’t you suppose we could squeeze in one more?”

  “I suppose it could be managed; yes.”

  Mrs. Adams brightened. “I’m sure it’ll be pleasant having that young married couple in the house—and especially this Mr. Will Dickson. He seemed very much of a gentleman, and anxious to get settled in good surroundings. I was very favourably impressed with him in every way; and he explained to me about his name; it seems it isn’t William, it’s just ‘Will’; his parents had him christened that way. It’s curious.” She paused, and then, with an effort to seem casual, which veiled nothing from her daughter: “It’s quite curious,” she said again. “But it’s rather attractive and different, don’t you think?”

  “Poor mama!” Alice laughed compassionately. “Poor mama!”

  “He is, though,” Mrs. Adams maintained. “He’s very much of a gentleman, unless I’m no judge of appearances; and it’ll really be nice to have him in the house.”

  “No doubt,” Alice said, as she opened her door to depart. “I don’t suppose we’ll mind having any of ’em as much as we thought we would. Good-bye.”

  But her mother detained her, catching her by the arm. “Alice, you do hate it, don’t you!”

  “No,” the girl said, quickly. “There wasn’t anything else to do.”

  Mrs. Adams became emotional at once: her face cried tragedy, and her voice misfortune. “There might have been something else to do! Oh, Alice, you gave your father bad advice when you upheld him in taking a miserable little ninety-three hundred and fifty from that old wretch! If your father’d just had the gumption to hold out, they’d have had to pay him anything he asked. If he’d just had the gumption and a little manly courage——”

  “Hush!” Alice whispered, for her mother’s voice grew louder. “Hush! He’ll hear you, mama.”

  “Could he hear me too often?” the embittered lady asked. “If he’d listened to me at the right time, would we have to be taking in boarders and sinking down in the scale at the end of our lives, instead of going up? You were both wrong; we didn’t need to be so panicky—that was just what that old man wanted: to scare us and buy us out for nothing! If your father’d just listened to me then, or if for once in his life he’d just been half a man——”

  Alice put her hand over her mother’s mouth. “You mustn’t! He will hear you!”

  But from the other side of Adams’s closed door his voice came querulously. “Oh, I hear her, all right!”

  “You see, mama?” Alice said, and, as Mrs. Adams turned away, weeping, the daughter sighed; then went in to speak to her father.

  He was in his old chair by the table, with a pillow behind his head, but the crocheted scarf and Mrs. Adams’s wrapper swathed him no more; he wore a dressing-gown his wife had bought for him, and was smoking his pipe. “The old story, is it?” he said, as Alice came in. “The same, same old story! Well, well! Has she gone?”

  “Yes, papa?”

  “Got your hat on,” he said. “Where you going?”

  “I’m going down-town on an errand of my own. Is there anything you want, papa?”

  “Yes, there is.” He smiled at her. “I wish you’d sit down a while and talk to me—unless your errand——”

  “No,” she said, taking a chair near him. “I was just going down to see about some arrangements I was making for myself. There’s no hurry.”

  “What arrangements for yourself, dearie?”

  “I’ll tell you afterwards—after I find out something about ’em myself.”

  “All right,” he said, indulgently. “Keep your secrets; keep your secrets.” He paused, drew musingly upon his pipe, and shook his head. “Funny—the way your mother looks at things! For the matter o’ that, everything’s pretty funny, I expect, if you stop to think about it. For instance, let her say all she likes, but we were pushed right spang to the wall, if J. A. Lamb hadn’t taken it into his head to make that offer for the works; and there’s one of the things I been thinking about lately, Alice: thinking about how funny they work out.”

  “What did you think about it, papa!”

  “Well, I’ve seen it happen in other people’s lives, time and time again; and now it’s happened in ours. You think you’re going to be pushed right up against the wall; you can’t see any way out, or any hope at all; you think you’re gone—and then something you never counted on turns up; and, while maybe you never do get back to where you used to be, yet somehow you kind of squirm out of being right spang against the wall. You keep on going—maybe you can’t go much, but you do go a little. See what I mean?”

  “Yes. I understand, dear.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid you do,” he said. “Too bad! You oughtn’t to understand it at your age. It seems to me a good deal as if the Lord really meant for the young people to have the good times, and for the old to have the troubles; and when anybody as young as you has trouble there’s a big mistake somewhere.”

  “Oh, no!” she protested.

  But he persisted whimsically in this view of divine error: “Yes, it does look a good deal that way. But of course we can’t tell; we’re never certain about a
nything—not about anything at all. Sometimes I look at it another way, though. Sometimes it looks to me as if a body’s troubles came on him mainly because he hadn’t had sense enough to know how not to have any—as if his troubles were kind of like a boy’s getting kept in after school by the teacher, to give him discipline, or something or other. But, my, my! We don’t learn easy!” He chuckled mournfully. “Not to learn how to live till we’re about ready to die, it certainly seems to me dang tough!”

  “Then I wouldn’t brood on such a notion, papa,” she said.

  “‘Brood?’ No!” he returned. “I just kind o’ mull it over.” He chuckled again, sighed, and then, not looking at her, he said, “That Mr. Russell—your mother tells me he hasn’t been here again—not since——”

  “No,” she said, quietly, as Adams paused. “He never came again.”

  “Well, but maybe——”

  “No,” she said. “There isn’t any ‘maybe.’ I told him good-bye that night, papa. It was before he knew about Walter—I told you.”

  “Well, well,” Adams said. “Young people are entitled to their own privacy; I don’t want to pry.” He emptied his pipe into a chipped saucer on the table beside him, laid the pipe aside, and reverted to a former topic. “Speaking of dying——”

  “Well, but we weren’t!” Alice protested.

  “Yes, about not knowing how to live till you’re through living—and then maybe not!” he said, chuckling at his own determined pessimism. “I see I’m pretty old because I talk this way—I remember my grandmother saying things a good deal like all what I’m saying now; I used to hear her at it when I was a young fellow—she was a right gloomy old lady, I remember. Well, anyhow, it reminds me: I want to get on my feet again as soon as I can; I got to look around and find something to go into.”