by John O'Hara
It happened that Ann was sitting on her father’s lap, being read to, when Miss McIlhenny, who had been re-engaged for the occasion, came to the den with the news that Edith had given birth to a son.
“Did you hear that, dear? Mummy—you have a brand-new baby brother,” said Joe.
“What’s his name?” said Ann.
“Well, I think his name will be Joseph Benjamin Chapin, the same as mine, except that he’ll be Junior. Aren’t you happy? Aren’t you pleased?”
“Everything’s fine, Mr. Chapin. Fine,” said Miss McIlhenny.
“Thank you, Miss McIlhenny, thank you ever so much,” said Joe.
“Why did you say everything is fine? Do you mean there’s something wrong?” said Ann.
“Not a bit of it,” said Joe.
“Can I see him?” said Ann.
“In a few minutes,” said Miss McIlhenny.
“Why does Mummy have to get sick to have a baby brother?”
“It isn’t really a sickness like—measles.”
“She had to go to bed, she had Dr. English. Dr. English is still upstairs,” said the child.
“It’s because babies have to stay in bed so much when they’re tiny, and she wanted to be there when Dr. English brought him,” said the nurse.
“How did Dr. English bring him?”
“In that little black bag,” said Miss McIlhenny.
“Why didn’t he stuffocate, if he was in the little black bag? He couldn’t breathe. He must be very tiny.”
“Oh, he is, very tiny,” said Joe.
“Not so very tiny, at that,” said the nurse. “He’s over seven pounds.”
“What if I don’t like him?” said Ann.
“Oh, you’ll love him,” said Joe.
“I haven’t even seen him, I’m not sure I’ll love him.”
“But you will love him, I’m sure of that,” said Joe. “Just as we all loved you when you were born.”
“Where is he going to sleep?”
“Why, I suppose in Mummy’s room, for the time being. In his crib.”
“My crib,” said Ann.
“Well, it was your crib when you were a tiny baby, but you don’t mind if he sleeps in it now, do you?”
“Yes I do,” said the child. “Somebody took my dolly out of my crib and put her on a chair. That wasn’t nice.”
“But they did it for a real, live baby, your new baby brother,” said Joe. “I know you’d rather have your baby brother sleep in the crib than your dolly.”
“No I wouldn’t,” said the child. “What if somebody puts him in my bed?”
“Nobody’s going to put him in your bed,” said Joe. “You have your own bed as long as you want it. Then some day you’ll grow so big that we’ll have to buy you a bigger bed.”
“What color?”
“Any color you like.”
“Without a fence? I want one without a fence.”
“Oh, by that time you surely can have one without a fence.”
“But then you’ll give my brother my bed.”
“Well, maybe. Maybe not.”
“Buy me a new bed and he can have mine with a fence. I mean please.”
“Well, we’ll see.”
“Father? Will you carry me upstairs to see my brother?”
“Carry you? My big girl?”
“I’m not a big girl, I’m a little girl.”
“Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go up first and have a moment or two with Mummy, then I’ll come down and carry my big little girl upstairs to see her brand-new brother. Does that sound like fun?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Splendid. Now you go find Margaret and you and she can wait here for me.”
“Margaret’s in the kitchen with Marian.”
“Very well, you go tell her what I told you.”
“Will you please tell her? She won’t obey me.”
“All right. We’ll both tell her.”
“Father?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Will you pick me up and give me a hug and a kiss first?”
“Why of course I will,” said Joe. “You bet I will.”
“And will you carry me out to the kitchen, please?”
“Sure I will that,” said Joe.
“You sound like Marian,” said the child.
“Sure and do I sound like Marian?”
“Father, you’re funny.”
“Sure and am I funny?”
“Sure and you are,” said the child. “Am I funny?”
“Sure and you are, and the sweetest, loveliest—you’re my big little girl. Up we go!” He picked her up and they started for the kitchen.
“Do Marian some more,” she said.
“Sure and I better stop if I know what’s good for me,” said Joe.
“Do her some more,” said Ann.
“Oh, that’s enough for the time being.”
“Will you be right down?”
“Two shakes of a ram’s tail.”
“Will you carry me downstairs after I see my brother?”
“Well, I don’t know. It may be your bedtime. But we’ll see.”
“When you say ‘we’ll see’ you do it. When Mummy says it, she doesn’t.”
“Hmm. We’ll discuss that some other time. All right, my dear, dismount.”
“Please carry me into the kitchen.”
“All right, into the kitchen but then I must go upstairs and see the rest of our family.”
Later that evening, and after the well-intentioned Mrs. Stokes had departed for her own home (after telling Ann that the stork had brought her brother and carried him down the chimney), Joe had a visit from Arthur McHenry.
“I’m glad you don’t like champagne any more than I do,” said Joe.
“It all tastes like Rubifoam to me,” said Arthur.
“Rubifoam?”
“It’s a liquid I use to brush my teeth,” said Arthur.
“Never heard of it,” said Joe. “Lot of things I never heard of.”
“Well, welcome to the new arrival.”
“Welcome to the new arrival,” repeated Joe. They drank their whiskey neat, and without another word or a signal they hurled the glasses into the fireplace.
Next they toasted Edith. “I don’t think we have to be so destructive this time,” said Joe. “It seems to me I remember paying a damn big bill for that dinner I gave my ushers.”
“How is Edith?”
“Well, somewhat exhausted, naturally, but Billy English says she’s fine. How is Mildred?”
“I’m discouraged,” said Arthur. “I’m going to take her to Philadelphia next week to see a specialist. Do you know what she weighs? A hundred and five.”
“Goodness, Arthur. A hundred and five?”
“A hundred and five pounds, and the worst of it is, they don’t seem to know what’s the matter with her. She weighed close to a hundred and thirty when we were married. Or maybe even a pound of two over that. Billy says it isn’t cancer, he seems certain it isn’t that. But he doesn’t offer any opinions about what it might be, so I’m going to have this man in Philadelphia take a look at her and maybe he’ll be able to diagnose it.”
“What kind of a specialist is he?”
“It’s something to do with the blood stream. The white corpuscles and the red corpuscles. You know how little I know about medicine. I was thinking of letting Malloy examine her.”
“No, he’s a surgeon.”
“I know he is, but at least it would be another opinion.”
“I don’t think Billy would like to call him in for a consultation. Billy doesn’t like Malloy.”
“Well, what Billy doesn’t like is too damn bad. If I hadn’t made the arrangements to take Mildred to
Philadelphia, I’d call Malloy myself.”
“He wouldn’t come. That’s medical ethics. Not as long as Billy’s your doctor. And Billy will do everything for you that Malloy can do. Malloy’d probably send Mildred to a specialist too. Probably the same specialist.”
“Well, probably. I’m impatient because I don’t see any improvement at all.”
“Is she in pain?”
“Well, not acute pain, but she’s so God damn weak, Joe. So God damn weak. You know for Mildred to weigh a hundred and five—well, there isn’t much left on her bones any more. She doesn’t complain, but sometimes I think when she looks at me that she was begging me to do something. And what is there I can do?”
“What you’re doing. Take her to a specialist. Cheer up. He may discover what’s wrong with her right off the bat.”
“Rose is going along with us, and if the examination takes more than a couple of days she’s going to stay there with Mildred.”
“Rose is a fine girl, fine.”
“Devoted to Mildred. It’s the way sisters should be but they damn seldom are,” said Arthur. “Nothing new at the office today, or of much importance. Karl Schneider was in. He wants to find out if we can sue the Pennsy for delaying putting in that spur. You know their new building, where they want some new trackage to take the place of the old siding. I told him to make haste slowly. If we went into court every time that wild Dutchman had a grievance.”
“I agree with you. Has he paid his bill?”
“He paid it yesterday. I’d be inclined to tell him to find another law firm, but they’re going to get bigger and bigger, Joe. And I understand the British are buying all the beef they can get their hands on, so let’s humor him for another couple of years.”
“Yes, and there’s the vague possibility, only a possibility, but worth considering. We could be maneuvered into this war.”
“If we were, would you go?”
“If we were invaded, of course I’d go. So would you.”
“It may not take an invasion to get us into it.”
“What else would get us into it?”
“Well, suppose the Germans invaded Canada,” said Arthur.
“Canada? That would be the same as invading us.”
“Or Mexico.”
“Why would anybody want to invade Mexico? I consider the Germans a stupid race of people, but who would be that stupid?”
“It would be a good way to invade us. Mexico first, then us.”
“They’d never get across the Rio Grande.”
“The Mexican bandits do.”
“But not a Mexican army. Not in a real war. And by the time the British and French are through with the Germans they won’t have enough men left to—invasion? Out of the question, Arthur.”
“Well, you said it was a possibility.”
“Yes, but highly improbable. About as unlikely as the Chinese invading California. We’re protected by two oceans and by Canada on the north, and to the south—well, we have nothing to fear there either. All the same, I wonder what I’d do if I’d just got out of college and had no matrimonial plans. What would you do?”
“I think I’d enlist, in the Canadian Army.”
“If you did I’d go with you.”
“I wouldn’t go without you.”
They laughed lightly. “It would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?” said Joe. “And yet, you can’t deny what the Germans did in Belgium. Especially to the Belgian women. Putting them in whore-houses for the troops. When you hear things like that you wonder if it would be so ridiculous after all. You have to admire the British and the Canadians for going to the defense of the Belgians the way they did. What must a Belgian father or husband feel when he hears what they did to his wife or daughter? And they say the British are just as angry at those atrocities as the Belgians. Well, of course, the British sense of fair play. Code of decency and all that sort of thing. Have you thought of joining the National Guard? Some of the fellows at the club were talking about it.”
“I’d rather wait awhile and see what happens. I don’t want to have to drill, and go to camp at Mount Gretna, and march in parades every time a Civil War veteran dies,” said Arthur.
“No, that could be tiresome,” said Joe.
“Drudgery,” said Arthur.
“Well, we’re worrying about nothing. I’m convinced that Woodrow Wilson will keep us out of it. Not that I like Wilson, but he doesn’t even look warlike. And of course he was a college professor.”
“Yes, but he was also a football coach,” said Arthur, smiling.
“He was? I didn’t know that.”
“At Wesleyan.”
“Wesleyan? The Wesleyan at Middletown, Connecticut? That Wesleyan? I thought he was Princeton through and through.”
“I’m sure he is, but he taught at Wesleyan,” said Arthur. “How about the young man upstairs? Have you entered him at New Haven?”
“No, I never thought of it. Took it for granted. He’ll be the fifth in line to go to Yale, fifth generation, and maybe more. I’ll tell you what I have thought of: I’ve thought of entering him in Groton.”
“Groton? Why not The Hill?”
“I have no strong feeling about The Hill. I was sent there because it was close to home, and it may be all right if you’re going to Penn or Princeton, but if my boy goes to Yale or Harvard I want to prepare him for Yale or Harvard. You don’t like the idea.”
“Well—no.”
“Why not?”
“Why don’t you send him to Eton?”
“Eton’s in England.”
“Well, if you’re going to send your boy to a place that tries to be Eton, why not send him to the real thing instead?”
“Oh, I don’t think Groton tries to be Eton.”
“Maybe not, but the fellows we knew that went there . . .”
“Dave Harrison went there. Alec went to Groton. You liked them.”
“Did I?”
“Didn’t you? Now don’t tell me you didn’t like Dave and Alec.”
“How often have I looked them up in New York?”
“You were an usher for Alec.”
“With sixteen other fellows, or eighteen, or whatever it was.”
“He wasn’t one of your ushers,” said Joe, remembering. “Why wasn’t he?”
“He wasn’t asked,” said Arthur. “Alec got married as soon as he got out of college. You and I waited a couple of years, and by that time Yale didn’t mean quite as much to me as it had—if it ever did. I’m not convinced that going to Yale was the best move I ever made. I’m not sorry I went there, but I think I would have learned just as much at Lafayette. I’m sure I would have learned more at Harvard. I was so damn busy being careful so I’d make a senior society, and I didn’t really give a damn about it except that I knew you were sure to make one, so I had to too. If I had a son, which I never will, I’d send him to Gibbsville High and Penn State.”
“You’re joking.”
“No, I’m not joking. I don’t recommend that for your son. Your father’s people have all gone to Yale and they were New Englanders. My family are all Pennsylvanians on both sides. You can get just as good an education at Muhlenberg as you can at Yale, and maybe better with all those Pennsylvania Dutchmen and fewer distractions.”
“Why, you don’t even know anybody that went to Muhlenberg.”
“Yes I do. Old Judge Flickinger went to Muhlenberg. He studied law at Penn, but he went to Muhlenberg. Dr. Schwenk, the pastor of the Lutheran church. And half a dozen other men that I consider as well educated as any Yale men we have around here.”
“You never see them. I’ve never seen these educated men at your house.”
“More’s the pity, Joe. I wish I knew some of them right now, to get an educated German-American’s views of this war.”
“I’
m afraid they’d be more German than American.”
“Well, what if they were? We’re making them feel like bastards, and some of them go back to pre-Revolutionary days.”
“Maybe they are bastards,” said Joe.
“Judge Flickinger?”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking of him. I hardly know Dr. Schwenk. But we know men in this town that are sending money to Germany secretly.”
“Well, we know others that are sending money to England openly. I happen to be one. I have cousins in England that I never saw, never expect to see, and if they knew I was talking like this I’m sure they’d return my money. But I’m really tempted to send some money to the Germans too.”
