His Family (32 page)

"I've got an awful lot of 'em," the boy muttered hungrily.

* * * * *

At the farm, the next morning at daybreak, Roger was awakened by the sound of George's voice. It was just beneath his window:

"But cattle are only part of it, Dave," the boy declared, in earnest tones, "just part of what we can have up here. Think what we've got--over three hundred acres! And we want to make every acre count! We want to get in a whole lot more of hogs--Belted Hampshires, if we can afford 'em--and a couple of hundred hens. White Leghorns ought to fill the bill. Of course that's just a starter. I've got a scheme for some incubators--electric--run by the dynamo which we'll put in down by the dam. And we can do wonders with bees, too, Dave--I've got a book on 'em I'd like you to read. And besides, there's big money in squab these days. Rich women in New York hotels eat thousands of 'em every night. And ducks, of course, and turkeys. I'd like a white gobbler right at the start, if we knew where we could get one cheap." The voice broke off and there was a pause. "We can do an awful lot with this place."

Then Dave's deep drawl:

"That's so, George--yes, I guess that's so. Only we don't want to fool ourselves. That ain't Noah's Ark over thar--it's a barn. And just for a starter, if I was you--" Here Dave deliberated. "Of course it's none of my business," he said, "it's for you and your grandfather to decide--and I don't propose to interfere in what ain't any of my affair--"

"Yes, yes, Dave, sure! That's all right! But go on!
What
, just for a starter?"

"Cows," came the tranquil answer. "I've been hunting around since you wrut me last month. And I know of three good milkers--"

"Three? Why, Dave, I wrote we want thirty or forty!"

"Yes--you wrut," Dave answered. "But I've druv all around these parts--and there ain't but three that I can find. And I ain't so sure of that third one. She looks like she might--" George cut in.

"But you only had a buggy, Dave! Gee! I'm going to have a Ford!"

"That so, George?"

"You bet it's so! And we'll go on a cow hunt all over the State!"

"Well--I dunno but what you're right," Dave responded cautiously. "You might get more cows if you had a Ford--an' got so you could run it. Yes, I guess it's a pretty good scheme. I believe in being conservative, George--but I dunno now but what a Ford--"

Their voices passed from under the window, and Roger relaxed and smiled to himself. It was a good beginning, he thought.

They bought a Ford soon afterwards and in the next few weeks of June they searched the farms for miles around, slowly adding to their herd. To Roger's surprise he found many signs of a new life stirring there--the farmers buying "autos" and improved machinery, thinking of new processes; and down in the lower valleys they found several big stock farms which were decidedly modern affairs. At one such place, the man in charge took a fancy to George and asked him to drop over often.

"You bet I'll drop over often!" George replied, as he climbed excitedly into his Ford. "I want to see more of those milking machines! We're going to have 'em some day ourselves! A dynamo too!"

And at home, down by the ruined mill he again set about rebuilding the dam.

Roger felt himself growing stronger. His sleeps were sound, and his appetite had come back to a surprising degree. The mountain air had got into his blood and George's warm vigor into his soul. One afternoon, watching the herd come home, some thirty huge animals swinging along with a slow heavy power in their limbs, he breathed the strong sweet scent of them on the mountain breeze. George came running by them and stopped a moment by Roger's side, watching closely and eagerly every animal as it passed. And Roger glanced at George's face. The herd passed on and George followed behind, his collie dog leaping and barking beside him. And Roger looked up at a billowy cloud resting on a mountain top and wondered whether after all that New York doctor had been right.

He followed the herd into the barn. In two long rows, the great heads of the cattle turned hungrily, lowing and sniffing deep, breathing harshly, stamping, as the fodder cart came down the lines. What a splendidly wholesome work for a lad, growing up with his roots in the soil, in these massive simple forces of life. What of Edith's other children? Would they be willing to stay here long? Each morning Roger breakfasted with Bruce the baby by his side. "What a thing for you, little lad," he thought, "if you could live here all your days. But will you? Will you want to stay? Won't you, too, get the fever, as I did, for the city?" In the joyous, shining, mysterious eyes of the baby he found no reply. He had many long talks with Betsy, who was eager to go away to school, and with Bob and little Tad who were going to school in the village that fall. And the feeling came to Roger that surely he would see these lives, at least for many years ahead. They were so familiar and so real, so fresh and filled with hopes and dreams. And he felt himself so a part of them all.

But one morning, climbing the steep upper field to a spring George wanted to show him, Roger suddenly swayed, turned faint. He caught hold of a boulder on the wall and held himself rigid, breathing hard. It passed, and he looked at his grandson. But George had noticed nothing. The boy had turned and his brown eyes were fixed on a fallow field below. Wistfully Roger watched his face. They both stood motionless for a long time.

As the summer drew slowly to a close, Roger spent many quiet hours alone by the copse of birches, where the glory of autumn was already stealing in and out among the tall slender stems of the trees. And he thought of the silent winter there, and of the spring which would come again, and the long fragrant summer. And he watched the glow on the mountains above and the rolling splendors of the clouds. At dusk he heard the voices of animals, birds and insects, murmuring up from all the broad valley, then gradually sinking to deep repose, many never to wake again. And the span of his life, from the boyhood which he could recall so vividly here among these children, seemed brief to him as a summer's day, only a part of a mighty whole made up of the innumerable lives, the many generations, of his family, his own flesh and blood, come out of a past he could never know, and going on without him now, branching, dividing, widening out to what his eyes would never see.

Vaguely he pictured them groping their way, just as he himself had done. It seemed to Roger that all his days he had been only entering life, as some rich bewildering thicket like this copse of birches here, never getting very deep, never seeing very clearly, never understanding all. And so it had been with his children, and so it was with these children of Edith's, and so it would be with those many others--always groping, blundering, starting--children, only children all. And yet what lives they were to lead, what joys and revelations and disasters would be theirs, in the strange remote world they would live in--"my flesh and blood that I never shall know."

But the stars were quiet and serene. The meadows and the forests on the broad sweep of the mountain side took on still brighter, warmer hues. And there was no gloom in these long good-byes.

* * * * *

On a frosty night in September, he left the farm to go to the city. From his seat in the small automobile Roger looked back at the pleasant old house with its brightly lighted windows, and then he turned to George by his side:

"We're in good shape for the winter, son."

But George did not get his full meaning.

At the little station, there were no other passengers. They walked the platform for some time. Then the train with a scream came around the curve. A quick grip on George's hand, and Roger climbed into the car. Inside, a moment later, he looked out through the window. By a trainman with a lantern, George stood watching, smiling up, and he waved his hand as the train pulled out.

CHAPTER XXXIX

The next morning on his arrival in town, Roger went to his office. He had little cause for uneasiness there, for twice in the summer he had come down to keep an eye on the business, while John had taken brief vacations at a seaside place nearby. The boy had no color now in his cheeks; as always, they were a sallow gray with the skin drawn tight over high cheek bones; his vigor was all in his eyes. But here was a new John, nevertheless, a successful man of affairs. He had on a spruce new suit of brown, no cheap ready-made affair but one carefully fitted to conceal and soften his deformity. He was wearing a bright blue tie and a cornflower in his buttonhole, and his sandy hair was sleekly brushed. He showed Roger into his private room, a small place he had partitioned off, where over his desk was a motto in gold: "This is no place for your troubles or mine."

"Lord, but you've got yourself fixed up fine in here," said Roger. John smiled broadly. "And you're looking like a new man, Johnny."

"I had a great time at the seashore. Learned to sail a boat alone. What do you think of this chair of mine?" And John complacently displayed the ingenious contrivance in front of his desk, somewhat like a bicycle seat. It was made of steel and leather pads.

"Wonderful," said Roger. "Where'd you ever pick it up?"

"I had it made," was the grave reply. "When a fellow has got up in life enough to have a stenographer, it's high time he was sitting down."

"Let's see you do it." John sat down. "Now how is business?" Roger asked.

"Great. Since the little slump we had in August it has taken a new start--and not only war business, at that--the old people are sending in orders again. I tell you what it is, Mr. Gale, this country is right on the edge of a boom!"

And the junior member of the firm tilted triumphantly back in his chair.

With the solid comfort which comes to a man when he returns to find his affairs all going well, Roger worked on until five o'clock, and then he started for his home.

Deborah had not yet come in, and a deep silence reigned in the house. He looked through the rooms downstairs, and with content he noticed how little had been altered. His beloved study had not been touched. On the third floor, in the large back room, he found John comfortably installed. There were gay prints upon the walls, fresh curtains at the windows, a mandolin lying on a chair. And Roger, glancing down at the keen glad face of his partner, told himself that the doctor who had said this lad would die was a fool.

"These doctors fool themselves often," he thought.

Deborah and Allan had the front room on the floor below. Roger went in, and for a moment he stood looking about him. How restful and how radiant was this large old-fashioned chamber, so softly lighted, waiting. Through a passageway lined with cupboards he went into his room at the back. Deborah had repapered it, but with a pattern so similar that Roger did not notice the change. He only felt a vague freshness here, as though even this old chamber, too, were making a new start in life. And he felt as though he were to live here for years. Slowly he unpacked his trunk and took a bath and dressed at his leisure. Then he heard Deborah's voice at the door.

"Come in, come in!" he answered.

"Why, father! Dearie!" Deborah cried "Oh, how well you're looking, dad!" And she kissed him happily. "Oh, but I'm glad to have you back--"

"That's good," he said, and he squeezed her hand "Here, come to the light, let me look at you." He saw her cheeks a little flushed, the gladness in her steady eyes. "Happy? Everything just right?" His daughter nodded, smiling, and he gave a whimsical frown. "No ups and down at all? That's bad."

"Oh, yes, plenty--but all so small."

"Good fellow to live with."

"Very."

"And your work?

"It's going splendidly. I'll tell you about it this evening, after you give me the news from the farm."

They chatted on for a short while, but he saw she was barely listening.

"Can't you guess what it means," she asked him softly, "to a woman of my age--after she has been so afraid she was too old, that she'd married too late--to know at last--to be sure at last--that she's to have a baby, dad?" He drew back a little, and a lump rose in his throat.

"By George!" he huskily exclaimed. "Oh, my dear, my dear!" And he held her close in his arms for some time, till both of them grew sensible.

Soon after she had gone to her room, he heard Allan coming upstairs. He heard her low sweet cry of welcome, a silence, then their voices. He heard them laughing together and later Deborah humming a song. And still thinking of what she had told him, he felt himself so close to it all. And again the feeling came to him that surely he would live here for years.

Allan came in and they had a talk.

"Deborah says she has told you the news."

"Yes. Everything's all right, I suppose--her condition, I mean," said Roger.

"Couldn't be better."

"Just as I thought."

"Those six weeks we had up in Maine--"

"Yes, you both show it. Working hard?"

"Yes--"

"And Deborah?" Roger asked.

"You'll have to help me hold her in."

They talked a few moments longer and went down to the living room. John was there with Deborah. All four went in to dinner. And through the conversation, from time to time Roger noticed the looks that went back and forth between husband and wife; and again he caught Deborah smiling as though oblivious of them all. After dinner she went with him into his den.

"Well! Do you like the house?" she inquired.

"Better than ever," he replied.

"I wonder if you'll mind it. There'll be people coming to dinner, you know--"

"That won't bother me any," he said.

"And committee meetings now and then. But you're safe in here, it's a good thick door."

"Let 'em talk," he retorted, "as hard as they please. You're married now--they can't scare me a bit. Only at ten o'clock, by George, you've got to knock off and go to bed."

"Oh, I'll take care of myself," she said.

"If you don't, Allan will. We've had a talk."

"Scheming already."

"Yes. When will it be?"

"In April, I think."

"You'll quit work in your schools?"