THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
IN MEMORY OF
MRS. VIRGINIA B. SPORER
SUSY S OVERSTRAINED NERVES RELAXED, AND SHE BURST INTO
WILD LAUGHTER
BIOGRAPHY
\BOY
BY
JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON
AUTHOR OK
"THK MEMOIRS OF A KAI:Y"
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
ROSE O NEILL
HARPER & BROTHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
M - C M X
BOOKS BY
JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON
TEN TO SEVENTEEN. Illustrated. Post 8vo . $1.50
THE MEMOIRS OF A BABY. Ill d. Post 8vo . 1.50
THE BIOORAPHY OF A BOY. Ill d Post 8vo . 1.50
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y.
Copyright, 1910, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
Alt rights reserved.
Published January, 1910.
tied in the United States oj .-liner
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. WHICH DEALS WITH A MOVING INCIDENT . . i
II. WHICH DEALS WITH THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE . 31
III. WHICH DEALS WITH THE EDUCATION OF NATURE 66
IV. W T HICH DEALS WITH A TIMELY PROBLEM . . 94
V. WHICH DEALS WITH ONE PILGRIM S PROGRESS . 129
VI. WHICH DEALS WITH COUNTRY LIFE IN AMERICA 164
VII. WHICH DEALS WITH OUR COMMON NEIGHBORS
AND How TO KNOW THEM 201
VIII. WHICH DEALS WITH A LITTLE SCIENCE AND A
GREAT DEAL OF HEALTH ... 235
IX. WHICH DEALS WITH THE CHANCES AND CHANGES
OF THIS MORTAL LIFE 280
2042002
ILLUSTRATIONS
SUSY S OVERSTRAINED NERVES RELAXED, AND SHE
BURST INTO WILD LAUGHTER Frontispiece
SUSY ESTABLISHED HERSELF COMFORTABLY ON HER
HUSBAND S KNEE Fating p. 2
SHE LOOMED BEFORE THEM, A DEMI-GODDESS . 34
" IT KEEPS THEIR MINDS BACK, TOM, AND THAT S
BETTER FOR THEM" 42
"DR. BOSKOWITZ WAS WONDERFULLY INTER
ESTING" ... 112
MAKING A COLLAR OF KISSES 124
HAMLET AND OPHELIA SAFELY PENNED IN THE
GARDEN I 9
HE TOOK MARTIN TO EVERY CIRCUS .... 22O
"I M NOT GOING TO SCHOOL" 238
TOM KISSED HER HASTILY AND DIVED THROUGH
THE SLEET 2 4 2
" AUNT EM WAS PLEASED " 24 6
"SHE LL SAY SHE HAD HIM FROM THE BOTTLE" 250
"NOW, MARTIN, PLEASE HOLD YOUR SHOULDERS
MORE EVEN"
HER HEAD WAS ON TOM S SHOULDER AND MARTIN S
ON HER KNEE 3 lS
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
WHICH DEALS WITH A MOVING INCIDENT
USY slipped out of her chair with
the quick girlish ease that seven
years of married life had failed to
steal from her, and established her
self comfortably on her husband s
knee, scattering legal papers with a fine unconcern.
"Tommy dear," she said thoughtfully, "I ve
been considering it a great deal lately, and I be
lieve you re right. I think we d better."
"Yes, dear up to the eighteenth of May of that
year, inclusive" he murmured mechanically, one
hand rescuing a knowing-looking packet labelled
Motion to Adjourn.
" It will be so much better for the children, and,
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
then, it would be nice to have more bedrooms
down at the beach it s so stupid not to be able
to keep but two people over Sunday, and they
must be married
"Who must be married?" Mr. Wilbour inquired
vaguely, snatching a long - waisted, tan - colored
document entitled Brandergert vs. Terwilliger from
under his wife and endeavoring vainly to thrust
it into his pocket.
"Why, anybody that we have in the blue
room," Susy explained impatiently.
Her husband regarded her seriously, his at
tention now fully, if somewhat tardily, aroused.
"That seems reasonable," he admitted. "I am
not unduly priggish, I hope, but one has to draw
the line somewhere, and really, when you think
of it, we have er comparatively few friends
who fail to qualify as far as that simple convention
ality goes
Susy bounced severely upon his knee.
"What are you talking about, Tommy?" she
interrupted. "All I am saying is that whoever
comes must be married, and it s a great nuisance!
I suppose you agree to that, don t you?"
Tom stared at her.
"For Heaven s sake, Susan Wilbour," he ex
claimed dramatically, "what has happened?
Are you going to be like people in Ibsen? Are
SL SY ESTABLISHED HERSELF COMFORTABLY ON HER HUSBAND S
KNEE
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
you Advanced? You re like that Englishwoman
that writes those novels and has a salon! Is
Marriage a Nuisance? My dear Toots! and to
think that seven years ago . . .
"Don t be silly, Tommy," she cut him short
severely; "of course, you know very well I mean
nothing of the kind. And I think a salon is
ridiculous. Mrs. Strenway started to have one
once, and there was only water-ices and Mr.
Strenway played bridge all the time. You
needn t laugh. Everybody was disgusted. I am
not discussing marriage at all, but only saying
that it s a pity that nobody but people who are
married ... I mean, that it is too bad that people
have to be married in order . . . Oh, Tom, how
horrid you are! I don t think you re a bit kind,
and I sha n t say another word about it, and you ll
be sorry, too, for it was all on your account!"
She endeavored to leave her seat with dignity,
but this is a difficult feat to accomplish when the
seat happens to be one s husband, unless the hus
band in question is disposed to assist one s descent.
Tom was not, and after a few helpless jerks Susy
subsided into a stern martyrdom which yielded
before long to his irresistible chuckling.
"Never mind, Toots," he managed to get out
at last. "I believe in you. Appearances are
against you, but you mean well at bottom, and
5
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
though you seem immoral I am sure your prin
ciples are sound. What you are trying to say
"I could say it well enough, Tom, if only you d
let me alone for a momsnt ! What I mean is that
it is horrid to have only one guest-room in the
summer."
"I know it," he admitted sympathetically, but
with one eye on Brandergert vs. Terwilliger.
"And if you knew the horrid things Martin
hears in the park he will chase after the rough
boys. And Thomas can t move a step without
a nurse. . . . Tom, I simply won t talk to you if you
won t pay some attention to what we re talking
about!"
"But I am I do," he cried penitently, for
Susy was evidently hurt in earnest now, "really,
Toots! We were talking about the the blue
room and the park and and nurses!"
"Not at all," said Mrs. Wilbour briefly, sweeping
the documents to the floor and grasping the lapels
of her husband s coat, looking him in the eye,
meantime, with that firm, intentional kindness
which is supposed to be so efficient in subduing the
inhabitants of the jungle.
"We re not talking about that at all, Tom
Wilbour!"
"Then what are we talking about?" said Mr.
Wilbour resignedly.
6
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"We re talking about moving into the country,"
and Susy settled herself comfortably against his
shoulder.
"Oh-h-h!" Tom drew a long whistling breath
and dismissed Brandergcrt vs.Terwilliger definitely.
"Really, Toots? Would you like it?"
"I told you you d be sorry," she added content
edly, "and it doesn t cost so very much to put in
a new bath-room if you have it directly over the
old one, does it?"
Tom gasped, but made a noble effort.
I believe not, he said gravely. Had you any
particular bath-room in mind?"
Susy looked at him with real reproach and shook
the lapels impatiently.
"Why, Tom Wilbour," she cried, "as if you
hadn t picked it out yourself! Who was it ad
mired that vine over the side porch? Who was
it that said we could bottle the spring water and
sell it? Who told Aunt Emma that that newel
post was really Colonial?"
Tom drew a long breath and appeared to in
voke the shades of a dim and distant past, while
his wife shook him gently at intervals as if to settle
his faculties.
"Oh!" he said at last, "do you mean that old
white house on the Albany Post Road last
summer?"
7
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
You didn t talk about it like that, then." And
the dignified forbearance in his wife s tone would
have deceived any one but her husband.
Mr. Wilbour, startled by a sudden and un
usually peremptory ring at the door-bell, jumped
slightly and endeavored to turn the movement
into one of convulsive admiration for the old
white house, which aroused but faint memories
after the lapse of several busy months.
"Ah that was a fine old place!" he observed
with suspiciously sudden enthusiasm. "If you re
really interested in the country, dear, we might go
out and look about a bit this spring, when I can
get a little of this work off
"This spring, Tom!" It was clear that he had
struck the wrong note. "The spring is the time
to move, silly! you look about before that. Our
lease expires in April, you know, and we can t wait
till then, can we? We must move then."
"Oh!" Tom shuddered, not entirely theatri
cally, and gazed beseechingly at his wife. "Don t
say that awful word to me, Toots dear, even in
jest," he begged. Aside from the fact that we can
hardly go into this without a little more serious
consideration, I think the mere thought of moving
would nail me to this spot forever, even if we knew
where we were going to move to! Do you re
member the awful occasion when we moved from
THE BIOGRAPNY OF A BOY
Forty-seventh Street? You may not recall the
fact tnat I had to help collect Thomas s crib and
two dozen collars and a drawer full of evening
shirts from the middle of Sixth Avenue and
blocked the traffic for half an hour boosting that
infernal chiffonier into the van, with everybody
grinning around me and the policemen a disgrace
to the Force! Move, indeed! When I think
Here the door -bell rang sharply again, and
Susy looked apprehensively toward the win
dow.
"But you wouldn t have had to think of it,
Tom, if you hadn t insisted in following them in
a cab, you know," she interrupted soothingly;
"and anyway, we wouldn t employ them again.
They were really second-class people"- Tom
snorted violently "and this time we d do it very
differently."
"This time!" he repeated vaguely.
"You see," Susy went on, glancing expectantly
toward the library door from time to time, and
producing, as if by some feat of legerdemain, a
small pea-green pamphlet from nowhere in par
ticular, "all these people have given their full
names and addresses, and lots of them are in New
York, so we could call them up on the telephone
any time and see
"See what?" her husband inquired suspiciously,
9
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
viewing the closely printed pamphlet coldly.
"What do you mean, Susy?"
"See whether Slide & Bumpus do all they say
they do," Mrs. Wilbour replied calmly.
"Who in time are Slide & Bumpus?" he de
manded, snatching the booklet mechanically from
her outstretched hand.
"Why Wear Yourself Out, Moving?" the title-
page urged cordially. Let us Attend to it while
You are at the Matinee! Then Return to your
New Home! We Absolutely Guarantee that you
will find Everything In Perfect Order there!"
Tom grinned sardonically.
I suppose you remember the evening we found
Martin s electric railroad spiked down in perfect
order to the library floor and my bed in perfect
order in the laundry, don t you?" he inquired.
Susy shook her head impatiently.
"But these people are utterly different, Tom!"
"I hope so, I hope so, my dear. Not that I
have the slightest interest in Messrs. Slide & Bump
us, but I should hate to think that any firm
in this universe remotely resembled the brutal
pirates that littered Sixth Avenue with my un
derwear!"
"Here s a good one," Susy remarked abruptly,
"this one from Miss Julia Dart Olmstead the
well known woman writer, " she quoted hastily
10
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
from the booklet, as Miss Olmstead s name failed
to evoke any sign of recognition from her hus
band.
"/ should feel myself lacking in common grati
tude were I to omit this utterly unsolicited tes
timonial to Messrs. Slide & Bumpus" Susy
announced eagerly. "/ have moved nine times
in the course of a perhaps unusually varied life,
and to state that destruction has followed in the wake
of eight of these upheavals is to put the case mildly.
But since Mr. Slide s personal and gentlemanly
ministrations t? my household gods, I can truly
say that I am quite willing to move nine times more
if he will attend to it ! Beyond the collecting of my
personal baggage (clothes, manuscripts, etc.] I had
absolutely nothing to do with the transfer of the
entire contents of my apartment from Fifteenth
Street to One Hundred and Forty-first, and not so
much as a drop of ink was spilled or mislaid.
Indeed, an old and valued fountain-pen, which I
had carelessly left in the sideboard, was the first
sight that greeted my astonished eyes, in its old place
on my pen- rack in the opened desk! Mr. Slide s
work was a revelation to me. His charges were
little more than I have been accustomed to pay for
work of a vastly different character, and I cordially
recommend his services to any one who, like myself,
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
finds life all too short for the nervous strain of at
tending personally to his Lares and Penates.
"There!" Susy finished triumphantly, "you can
see what she thinks of them!"
"Yes, and I can see what I think of her!" Mr.
Wilbour replied promptly. "I think she needs a
keeper not a mover. I ll bet they re sorry up at
One Hundred and Forty-first vStreet now ! Not a
drop of ink mislaid, forsooth! She must be a
bird. Let s see the book, anyhow."
Sweetly unsuspicious of the cause of his interest,
Susy handed her husband the pea-green pamphlet
and listened with earnest attention to his spirited
rendering of the almost fulsome admiration of one
Jos. P. Weeks for the invaluable Mr. Slide.
"// any one had told me" began Mr. Weeks,
with engaging candor, "that Slide & Bumpus
could do what they do do, I should say they lied.
When my wife wanted to move into the city I put
my foot down hard, because I well remembered what
an awful time we had in moving down from Troy.
But you know what a woman is, and of course I had
to give in or be miserable. But mind you, I said,
whatever breaks, breaks, and we either go without
or eat from the pieces. There won t be anything
broken that s not replaced on a guarantee, she said,
12
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
and so it was, for in moving from Morristoivn to
New York not so much as a lamp-chimney cracked!
I was at the office all day, and my wife did nothing
but pack the trunks for children and self. She
assured me she had often had more trouble in starting
for the seashore. The only accident was the death
of my daughter Ethel s pet canary-bird, but as he
was eight years old we feel that it was probably due
to shock and could not fairly be laid to their door.
But even for this Slide & Bumpus immediately of
fered a new canary, which was, of course, not accepted.
I advise every one who thinks of moving to consult
Mr. Slide, and promise them they will not regret it.
"(Signed) Jos. P. WEEKS."
Long before the conclusion of Mr. Weeks s artless
discourse Susy realized that Tom s appreciation of
the booklet was slightly different in character
from her own, and she made futile endeavors to
snatch it from him ; but he held it out of her reach
easily, and read with unnecessary expression dis
connected eulogies upon the extraordinarily gifted
firm in question, while she hopped vainly after
him, divided between wrath and laughter.
"Well, if you think these aren t respectable
people," he vouchsafed at last, "here s Mrs.
Brander Beekman I hope she s good enough for
you! Here s what she says:
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"/ cheerfully bear witness to Messrs. Slide &
Bumpus s competent and satisfactory methods. In
moving my establishment from Washington Square
to East Sixty-eighth Street (of which they assumed
entire supervision) no loss whatever occurred, and
only one breakage the stem of a hock-glass in
Bohemian ware. As replacing this was out of the
question, the set being specially imported, Mr.
Slide had the glass repaired so expertly that it is,
if anything, stronger and more artistic than the
remainder of the set. Mr. Slide is quite at liberty
to use my name as a reference.
(Signed)
"FRANCES B. BRANDER BEEKMAN.
"Well, well, well!" said Mr. Wilbour thought
fully, "what do you think of that, now? See
here, Toots," casually raising the book an inch
beyond her grasp, "do you suppose if we should
ever move and Slide & Bumpus took charge of it,
they d cover these leather chairs on the way to
the new home ? Maybe they d re-line my hat-
box while you were at the matinee! Didn t
you say the piano needed
"Hush, Tom, I think he s coming now!" Susy
cried nervously.
"Coming! Who s coming?" Tom demanded.
"Why, Mr. Slide, of course now, do be careful,
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
Tom, and don t hurt his feelings, please. He s
really quite gentlemanly."
The green booklet dropped from her husband s
hand; his face fell.
"Susan Wilbour, will you tell me why in
Heaven s name a moving man should come here,
when we have no place to move to and no idea of
moving, really ? What possessed you
"Sh, sh, Tom! He s up-stairs now. I was
trying to tell you Aunt Emma and I went out
there last week and got the refusal of that place
with the vine it does no harm to just get the
refusal, Tommy, dear, and it s a great bargain it s
bound to be snapped up! And Mr. Slide said he d
look in, in case you wanted him to make the
estimate, that s all. It doesn t bind you to any
thing Oh, Tom, don t look so stupid! Please!
There there he is! Come in!"
Susy arranged her features pleasantly, but Tom
was utterly unable to do this and stared with a
mixture of surprise and horror at Mr. Slide, a
dapper little man with reddish hair and a meek
expression, who cast such an appraising glance
over the room, even in the act of entering it, that
the master of the house gripped the arms of his
chair instinctively, as if in fear of its slipping into
a van from under him!
But no one even slightly acquainted with Mr.
15
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
Thomas Wilbour would have expected him to
remain for long quiescent in such circumstances,
and Susy, in the midst of a perfunctory discussion
of the weather, saw with despair that her husband
was about to revenge himself for her sudden dis
closures by an exhibition of what was known in the
family as his "ridiculous behavior."
"And when have you decided to move us, Mr.
Slide?" he inquired suavely. "I don t wish to
seem intrusive, but it will take a little time for
those clothes, manuscripts, etc. that even Miss
Miss -ah, yes, Miss Julia Dart Olmstead, the well-
known woman writer, found herself obliged to
attend to."
THE BIOGRAPHY OT A BOY
"Tom!" Susy murmured beseechingly, but he
only smiled politely and continued.
"There was Jos. P. Weeks, too you know, Mr.
Slide, how his wife packed the trunks for children
and self! Don t tell me we re leaving this after
noon!"
Mr. Slide chuckled nervously and glanced at
Susy.
"Hardly, Mr. Wilbour, hardly," he said sooth
ingly, "we require forty-eight hours notice, you
know. You ll be warned, sir, you ll be warned!"
Ah !" Tom affected an airy relief. And have
you decided on the new home, Mr. Slide? I
hadn t known that we were moving till a few
moments ago, and "
"Please, Tom!" Susy implored, her eyes fast
ened distractedly on their visitor. But her fears
were baseless. Mr. Slide only wagged his head
wisely and indicated his hostess with an almost
courtly wave of the hand.
Ask the madam, Mr. Wilbour, ask the madam !"
he cried chirpily, "that s my advice, right along!
No use making any plans without the madam, I
tell all the gentlemen. Just leave it to her, sir.
As I ve often remarked to Mr. Bumpus, when it
comes to moving, the sexes is reversed, you might
say, and we always look to the lady!"
"Like Jos. P. Weeks," Tom suggested thought-
17
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
fully, "he seems to have come to that conclusion,
too."
"I see you re familiar with our booklet," Mr.
Slide ended cordially. "We think that s a pretty
interesting lot o testimonials, Mr. Wilbour and I
hope we may have the privilege of addin yours to
it," he concluded neatly.
At this climax to the conversation Tom threw
up his hands and tacitly relinquished all further
satire. Indeed, when upon repairing to the
nursery at the top of the house he found his two-
year-old son and namesake busily engaged in
packing six picture-blocks, a ball of twine, and a
badly worn woolly lamb on three wheels into his
golf-bag, and rescued from Martin, his first-born,
two razors, four match-boxes, and a miraculously
1 8
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
intact ink-bottle, which the misguided youth was
fitting cleverly into Susy s dressing-case (on the
ground that he was an expert mover and was
preserving these forbidden necessities from the
baby), Tom resigned himself to what appeared
an inevitable exodus.
As a matter of fact, the whole affair proved far
more practical than its whimsical introduction had
warranted. The vine-covered house, which he had
honestly admired, was in perfect repair, fresh, and
habitable; its price, at no time excessive, assumed
the character of a really good investment when the
owner declared himself ready to stand by his
original offer to Susy, in spite of the railroad s
decision, published two days later, to build a new
and attractive station within a mile of the prop
erty; a neighbor on the point of moving to Cali
fornia offered a "hired man " horses, carriages,
garden tools, and a spotty red cow with her
daughter, at a surprisingly low figure; the road
commission promised a macadamized countryside
in the course of the year; and altogether the proj
ect, though apparently an unreasonably casual
one, was far from the mere hasty impulse it ap
peared, and Tom admitted generously that, like
many others of Susy s sudden manoeuvres, it was
likely to be a great success when once he had
caught his breath.
19
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
On a mild promising morning in late March
they journeyed thither for a final survey, six-
year-old Martin hanging ecstatically to his father s
hand, chanting to all who crossed his path the
golden glory of fishing, skating, tree-climbing, and
pony-riding that was to irradiate his future years ;
while Susy murmured a steady undertone of box-
hedges, table-butter churned in the pantry, lattice
work in the windows, and brick paths to the
inevitable pergola that closed the vista of her
dreams.
They spent a happy day, pacing off the garden
with the new gardener, inspecting the neighbor s
cow, testing the low-hung phaeton, which supplied
a delightfully providential tiny folding-seat for
Martin, and allotting for the last time the pleasant,
generous rooms ; and when Tom saw the neat plans
for these last, with the disposition of the larger
pieces of furniture carefully indicated, the very
rugs labelled, and listed directions for the unpack
ed china, and heard from Susy of her day-long
consultation on the spot with Mr. Slide, he formally
apologized for his unwarrantable derision of that
artist in details and admitted that the terrors of
moving were banished forever, together with the
tallow-candle and the stage-coach. With charac
teristic ardor he even meditated a testimonial
along these lines to the firm, announcing his am-
20
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
bition to outdo Miss Julia Dart Olmstead, that
well-known woman writer, in the matter of con
vincing detail, and at least vie with the friendly
Jos. P. Weeks in sturdy enthusiasm. He heartily
agreed with Susy s quotation to the effect that
she would be really more in the way than other
wise on the occasion of the settling (the ladies, Mr.
Slide volunteered, seemed to upset the moving-
men, somehow), and though he grinned mock
ingly at her almost superstitious determination to
attend the matinee, even as the pea-green pam
phlet had urged, he could not produce any urgent
argument to the contrary, and deposited Bell,
the nurse, with her youngest charge, in an early
afternoon train, received her assurances that the
last van-load had left in good order, and that the
cook and housemaid were even now ready to begin
their accustomed tasks in their new surroundings,
and went back to his office serenely, only regretting
that an unusually pressing day s work forbade his
accompanying Susy and Martin to the afternoon
performance of Buffalo Bill one of the saint s
days in his son s calendar.
Lost in work, he woke with a start to the realiza
tion that he had but fifteen minutes in which to
catch the train, and his muttered exclamations as
he dashed for the intermediate conveyances were
productive of much simple amusement to those
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
unfortunate city dwellers in his way, who breathed
the unwholesome air of their crowded streets with
some leisure, at least or so it appeared to his
perturbed mind. Swinging himself onto the last
car, as the train pulled out, he just escaped the
fine, dense drizzle that quickly enveloped the
landscape; before he had found Susy in the long
crowded train a heavy rain was falling from a
prematurely darkened sky.
But no journey could seem dismal to Martin,
whose soul was steeped in the gorgeous pageants
of the afternoon, and he prattled ceaselessly of
Indians and scouts, of trick mules and wigwams,
of cannon and rough-riding, while even the delay
of half an hour, while the wreckers cleared a de
railed freight-train from their course, failed to
exhaust his descriptive zeal. For years after
ward Tom connected all such delays and rainy
home-comings with a confused sense of half-re
membered Cossacks, standing on their bare
backed steeds, yelling terribly, of deafening shots
and scrimmages, of painted red men, and finally
of some great absurd calamity connected with all
this so deeply was this journey impressed upon
his mind, so undreamed of was its ending.
The first of the livery-men drawn up in a strag
gling row by the little country station recognized
them promptly, to their comfort, and enclosed
22
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
them quickly in his steaming, curtained car
riage.
"I just come back from your new place, Mr.
Wilbour been helpin the movers!" he called
cheerily, as he pushed in the dripping suit-cases
and canvas hold-alls. "You got a good bargain
when you bought that place!"
A genuine London fog received them : the feeble
light from the lantern attached to the back wheel
barely cut across it ; they might have been driving
through China. The road seemed tiresomely long,
with none of the familiar daytime landmarks,
and Susy, more exhausted from the strenuous
afternoon than she cared to admit, grew momently
despondent, and fearful that some accident had
delayed or deterred even the impeccable Slide &
Bumpus. Perhaps Bell had made a mistake . . .
perhaps the kitchen things . . . suppose there was
no cereal for Thomas ?
"Or for me!" Martin suggested, with the sus
picion of a whine. "I haven t had any cereal since
the last day before this one! I m afraid I ll be
sick if I don t have some pretty soon I think I
feel a little sick, now
"There, there, Martin, that will do. Here we
are! All lighted and comfy, Toots there s Bell!"
A path of light cut through the mist, and the
travellers scudded to shelter. The open door
2 3
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
showed a hospitable hall, a bright fire that
flickered on all the familiar mahogany, a satisfy
ing gleam of linen and silver in the dining-room.
Thomas was reported fast asleep, unbelievably
full of cereal, and every picture, every tea -cup
tallied perfectly with the inventory, in Bell s
voluble recital.
"Mr. Slide told me to tell you how sorry he was,
ma am, not to be able to come himself, but Mr.
Bumpus knew all about it, he said, and was every
bit as good. There s a handle off the old secretary,
but he ll attend to it. There s only eleven salad-
plates, but I guess there never was no more, Mrs.
Wilbour. I"
"Oh, dear, never mind, Bell! I m so tired!"
sighed Susy. "Take Martin to bed. Tom, dear,
did you think the furniture would make such a
difference? It seems so crowded. The sideboard
looks simply enormous. I suppose it will seem
nicer to-morrow . . .
"They ve left a lot of the old stuff that s
what s the matter," said Tom critically. "You
wouldn t think the few old sticks that man had
would make such a difference. I told him to pitch
it all into the barn
"So he did, Mr. Wilbour," explained Bell, who,
well aware of her present importance, was de
laying Martin s retirement from the family circle,
24
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"He was real cross about it he said you d ought
to have said how much there was he was awful
rough with it."
"Nonsense," said Tom decidedly, "Slide saw it
all. I don t care what they did with it, anyhow.
Isn t there any dinner for us?"
"That s another thing, Mrs. Wilbour," and Bell
moved confidentially nearer. "Mary s very upset
about the range. You know you said it was
almost new, and she counted a good deal on that,
but you didn t say how small it was. There isn t
any room
"There won t be any room for Mary if I hear
any more nonsense," said Mr. Wilbour firmly.
"Tell her we re here, Bell. . . . Dear me, Susy, did
you intend that serving- table to stand out here?"
"No; but I can t see \vhere it could go in the
dining-room, I must say," and Susy studied the
room discontentedly. "And the living-room has
too much in it, too it seems so small."
"We re tired," said her husband sensibly
"tired and hungry. It 11 be different to-morrow.
Are the bedrooms all right, Bell?"
"Yes, sir, except that that old Mr. Bumpus
would put your bed and Mrs. Wilbour s into that
big room, Mr. Wilbour. It was no use to argue
with him. He said if any two beds \vas to be in
one room it must be them two, the room was so
25
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
dreadful big. I thought twas meant for the
nursery, from the pictures on the wall-paper, but
he said twas a big double room, and there was no
sense in putting one bed in it and then have two
in a smaller room."
"The silly old thing!" Susy eried pettishly,
dropping into a seat at the table, and dragging the
plan of the furniture from her hand-bag. "Here s
the exact duplicate of his copy; there, Tom, read
it! Mrs. Wilbour s room, southwest corner; old-
rose paper; three-quarter brass bed with round
columns; between windows. Mr. Wilbour s room,
connecting; three-quarter brass bed with square
columns, facing Franklin stove. Could anything
be plainer ? How could he directly disobey that ?"
"Yes m," said Bell virtuously. "He showed
Mary that paper I was undressing Thomas at
the time and explained to her. He said ladies
got excited sometimes and didn t put down
exactly what they meant, but he understood that
and always used his judgment, he d had so much
experience."
Tired as he was Tom laughed, and the sound
cleared away a little of the impalpable disappoint
ment both had felt since they entered the house.
It seemed inexplicably cramped, not so fresh and
spaced as they had pictured it. Everything was
in place, indeed, and not badly placed, though in
26
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
more than one instance the allotted areas had
proved insufficient and the furniture had crowded
uncomfortably. But the change from the old
environment had turned out a little disastrous, it
had to be admitted frankly. The ceilings, which
had seemed beautifully proportioned, looked
strangely low, now that the high -boy and old
secretary nearly reached them ; the fire - irons
dwarfed the hearth, which had seemed ample in
the empty room; the very doors had narrowed in
their full city draperies.
In silence they fell upon the soup and roast that
even the small range had not spoiled, and un
der the cheering
influence of hot,
freshly cooked
food Susy smiled
again and Tom
proposed a thor
ough survey,
even allowing
Martin, sleepy
with the sud
den warmth and
double rations
of toast - and-
milk and molas
ses-cake, trium-
3
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
phantly eaten with the grown people, to accom-
pany them.
They toiled up the stairs, each bravely conceal
ing from the other the shock of their narrowness,
when carpeted; and the utter inadequacy of the
landing, where the grandfather clock, their pride
in the city, nearly crowded unwary climbers
over the rail. In the upper hall Susy stopped,
staring.
I can t help it, Tom, but I m all turned around !"
she cried despairingly. "What is Martin s room
doing there? Are those stairs, beyond the bath
room?"
"That s not the bath-room, Mrs. Wilbour,"
Bell announced instructively, "that s Thomas s
and mine. It s awful small. And I hate to have
Martin way off alone, there. He does get so un
covered. I told that Mr. Bumpus so, but he said
orders was orders. But ain t these floors lovely,
ma am?"
Tom glanced unconsciously at the elaborate
inlay under his feet, stared, lifted the rug, and
stared again. He looked up hastily at Susy, but
she was arguing with the obstinate Bell as to the
whereabouts of Martin s room, and did not notice
her husband when he gasped audibly, seized the
handle of the nearest door, and plunged into the
large room where Mr. Bumpus s experience had
28
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
placed the two three-quarter brass beds of Susy s
plan.
In a moment he emerged, and the extraor
dinary expression of his countenance arrested
her on the verge of her own further explora
tion.
"Why, Tom, what is it? Is is anything
wrong?"
"Toots," he said, his voice quivering strangely,
"oblige me by looking into that room. Keep
calm, now. Only look."
Hesitatingly, her eyes fixed on his changing
features, Susy moved to the door, turned the
handle slowly, and entered. A moment later a
short, breathless shriek brought them all in to
her. Sitting on the three - quarter brass bed
with square columns which has been mentioned
before, she pointed wildly to an old - fashioned
fireplace with a high, heavy fender in front of
it and quaint porcelain tiles set about it. Around
the wall, at the level of the high fender, ran
a frieze representing Jack and Jill, the Three
Blind Mice, the Death of Cock Robin, and other
classic tragedies, sufficiently decorative, to be
sure, but not of a character usually selected by
adults for the adornment of their sleeping-apart
ments.
"Tom! TomWilbour!" she cried hysterically,
2Q
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"what is this room? Where is it? Where are
we?"
"My dear," her husband replied with the quiet
tones of utter resignation, "to be perfectly frank
with you, I haven t the least idea! I feel like
friend Jos. P. Weeks : if any one had told me that
Slide & JBumpus could have done what they have
done, I should say they lied! They ve moved us,
Toots, they ve moved us but the Lord knows
where!"
II
WHICH DEALS WITH THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE
HE excitement of the hunt for their
real home, the pleasure of finding it,
and finding it far more suited to
their needs than the one provided
by Messrs. Slide & Bumpus, and the
breathless dash of establishing themselves in it
swept along the house of Wilbour in a wild rush,
an actual fury of living, that caused their entire
past to appear dull and uneventful in the extreme.
Mad meals were snatched here and there in un
heard-of places ; a general flavor of cold meat and
casual desserts marked the period; and between
their contrite efforts to reinstate the possessions
of the innocent and ignorant owners of the wrong
3 1
house, and their strenuous dismantling of their own
effects, life grew almost too complicated for
patience. Susy, having staked her reputation for
efficiency upon Slide & Bumpus and lost it
refused with characteristic disgust any further
commerce with any sort of professional assistance,
and got those articles which a certain well-known
woman writer would undoubtedly have described
as "her household gods" over the necessary half
mile of country road with very much the primitive
methods adopted by Mrs. Noah on the occasion
of that lady s retirement to the Ark.
Relying upon Bell s known accuracy of memory,
they arranged such of the original furniture as had
withstood the shock of Mr. Bumpus s scornful
casting out, according to the nurse s proud and
apparently competent directions ; but many of the
pieces had only too clearly seen their best days
before they were so rudely thrown into the barn,
and that the short exodus had not improved them
was terribly obvious. To replace things of such
character was difficult if not impossible, and Susy
swayed between tears and laughter, as battered
ebony easels, limping bamboo tables, suspiciously
ancestral fire-screens and incredible crayon por
traits emerged from the great heap in the old barn,
shrank almost visibly under the caustic comments
of Mr. Wilbour and found their way into painfully
3 2
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
prominent corners under Bell s important guid
ance
"They must be a queer lot," Tom grumbled dis
gustedly, unearthing an extraordinary amateur
oil-painting of Niagara by moonlight: a yard of
light green water, adorned with what appeared to
be saucers of whipped cream.
"Think of having matched- wood floors and tiled
fireplaces like that, and then pictures like this!"
"Oh, I don t know," Susy answered perversely,
"other people have different sorts of things, too.
Look at that old Sistine Madonna we have to keep
in sight on account of Aunt Emma!"
Tom snorted argumentatively, and stood Niag
ara - by- moonlight bottom side up, which rather
improved it than otherwise, in his wrath.
"Oh, come now, Toots!" he burst forth, "don t
be an idiot! Engravings of the Sistine Madonna
are bad enough, I admit, but Raphael never com
promised himself to this extent!" He glared at
the absurd whipped-creamy water and staggered
under it to the hall, where Bell serenely directed
its location.
This easy mastery of events, as displayed by
their nurse, completely captivated Martin and his
brother. Long had she represented to them the
height of executive ability and implacable au
thority; long had her judgment and address decid-
33
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
ed the ultimate issues of their small lives; but
never before had they seen their parents thus hang
upon her lightest word, and she loomed before
them accordingly a demi-goddess, a sort of benig
nant Fate. At her command their father rolled a
clumsy square piano across the room, and fitted it,
with compressed lips, into an inconvenient alcove.
On her pause for reflection their mother paused
also, a dented "Rogers group" balanced at
shoulder height, her brows knitted anxiously till
Bell unbent her own and waved her hand toward
a plush-topped, three-legged table under the most
haunting of the crayon portraits. There were no
inconsequent bursts of laughter, now, at this
wonder-nurse s remarks, no amused tolerance of
her persistencies, no criticism of her methods.
Clearly she was appreciated at last, held at her
true value, placed properly at the head of the
household, and Martin watched her with pro
prietary pride.
The whole experience of moving had, indeed,
been most entertaining and instructive to the
youth. Never in the six years of his life had he
been so left to his own devices, so free to ad
minister to Thomas that valuable fraternal dis
cipline to which so many of our young men owe
whatever strength of character they can call their
own to-day. To tell the truth, Thomas seemed
34
SITE LOOMED BEFORE THEM, A DEMI-GODDESS
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
not wholly appreciative of the advantages of this
freedom on his brother s part, and after some
unusual bout of brotherly exertion on his ungrate
ful behalf would often call to mind a small, too-
thoroughly-snuffed candle! But on the whole
he admired Martin and respected his trousers and
his temper equally, and his roly-poly little person
was considered reasonably safe in his brother s
custody.
On the evening of the never-to-be-forgotten
day of Bell s supremacy the younger members
of the Wilbour family snatched a hasty supper
of hominy and milk, served somewhat irrelevantly
in a cut-glass salad - bowl, although eaten with
pewter spoons from the kitchen. They were
sitting side by side upon a piano-bench drawn up
to the library table-desk, and the unprejudiced
observer might have been pardoned his mild
curiosity as to Bell s reasons for selecting the exact
middle of the lower hall for the scene of the meal
their first in their new home. No one could move
himself or his burden in or out of the house without
bumping into some one of the trio ; the sharp edge
of the piano -bench threatened every shin within
a yard of it; each interesting arrival or departure
elicited a whoop of congratulation from Martin
and diverted Thomas s attention from his hominy
with woful results to the mahogany surface of the
37
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
desk. But wild horses could not have dragged
their nurse from what she considered, evidently,
to be a commanding position, and her air of easy
authority when directing the only assistants
Susy would tolerate two thick-skulled Italian
laborers lost nothing in her admiring charges
estimation from the fact that her remarks were
quite unintelligible to the persons addressed.
"Everybody minds you, don t they, Bell?"
said Martin respectfully, recovering from a violent
shock as his father s chiffonier trotted by him on
two mysterious legs, and just saving Thomas s
last spoonful from drenching the rug, as that
interested infant tried to consume it with
his head twisted around between his shoulder-
blades.
"They might do worse sometimes," Bell replied
conservatively. "I m not so helpless as some.
Here, take that into the bath-room! Bath
room ! Understand ?
"Si, si, signora" the Italian murmured pacifi
cally, trotting into the dining-room and depos
iting the nickel sponge-rack and soap-dish on
either side the fernery on the sideboard.
"If your mother d speak louder, those Dagoes
would understand her as well as me," she added
didactically, "but you can t boss em with hat
pins in your mouth not properly, that is."
38
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"No baf-room!" Thomas announced abruptly,
with one of his disconcerting appreciations of the
situation never to be counted on, never to be
guarded against. "No baf-room: diney-woom!
Bad man run off Thomas soapey - dish. No
sponge-baf fahver s diney-woom! Thomas put
in tub. Good-bye come again, thank you!"
"You stay where you are, Thomas Wilbour!
What are you talking about ? Of course you
won t have a sponge -bath in the dining-room!
The idea! Now you go right on and eat that
bread. It s too fresh for you, but it can t be
helped, with things as upset as they are. Try to
chew it good, now. Will Thomas chew?"
"No. Thomas get soapey-dish. No chew."
"There s where you re foolish," remarked his
father, coming up unexpectedly with an armful of
sash - curtains on one arm and three armfuls of
portieres on the other. His articulation was
obscured by the draperies, but his intonation was
unmistakable.
"If I had some soap or anything to chew,
you can bet I d chew it ! I ve had little or nothing
since those sardines and mustard pickles this noon.
Bell, isn t anything ready yet? I can t stand this
much longer. Really."
"I ll see, Mr. Wilbour, but I don t hardly think
so," returned Bell somewhat patronizingly; "those
39
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
Dagoes are dreadful slow. And they took the
kitchen things out into the stable the first time,
you know, and they had to be all brought back.
But I ll see."
Tom sank dispiritedly upon the portieres and
stared hungrily at the empty salad-bowl.
"Lord! I wish we d stayed with Niagara-by-
moonlight," he sighed; "there was a fire in that
range. What are you eating, Susan Wilbour?
Where did you get it?"
"Lemon layer-cake," said Susy complacently,
wiping off the last crumbs with a dusty hand and
depositing a bronze bust of Napoleon in a terra
cotta flower -bowl. "Mary made it just before
we came and forgot about it. There s some more
in the linen -closet. Right next your hat-box.
Children, why aren t you in bed?"
"We haven t got any beds," Martin informed
her cheerfully, "so I guess we can t never prob ly
go any more for a long, 1-o-n-g time. They won t
go into the door they re too fat. So the Dagoes
took em all apart and now they re too apart,
you know. So Thomas is going to sleep in
the bath - tub and I m going to sit up late.
See?"
"I wish you wouldn t train that boy to say
See? that way," Tom observed irritably; "he
sounds like a Yiddish necktie peddler. Heaven
40
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
knows, I m not particularly cr, er -particular,
but
"You re particularly idiotic," Susy interrupted
warmly, "if you think that I or anybody else
trains him to say that! I don t know where in the
world the horrid child picked it up. You might
as well say that I train Thomas to blow his nose
on his sleeve -why don t you ? He does it all the
time."
She picked Napoleon out of the terra-cotta jar
and departed with her own nose at a haughty
angle, feeling, evidently, that she had accomplished
a retreat worthy of her burden. No such exit
was possible for Tom, who sat silently on his
portieres, hopelessly entangled in sash -curtains,
hungry, sulky, and deprived of even such relief
as his bursts of rhetoric afforded him by the
absence of any audience, for Bell had tactfully
removed the objects of parental criticism, and the
miscellaneously crowded hall was his alone.
But the ten minutes gloom which shrouded him
till Susy appeared forgivingly, staggering under a
heart-warming tray of fragrant beefsteak and cof
fee, buttered rolls and jam tarts, was not without
its momentous effect; for a week later, when, in his
own metaphor, the smoke of battle had cleared
away, when the soap-dish and sponge-rack no
longer polluted the sideboard, and each function
41
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
of life was restored to its normal scene, Tom seized
the occasion of a Saturday afternoon family stroll
about the estate for opening his mind upon what
he had evidently come to regard as an important
subject.
"Susy," he said abruptly, "when is Binks going
to school?"
The direct and unadorned nature of this remark
would have indicated to any one acquainted with
Mr. Wilbour s methods that he was extremely
doubtful as to its effects on the listener, but quite
determined to pursue the matter. This attitude
on his part was, however, entirely unnecessary,
for Susy, to his surprise, replied meekly: "Why,
whenever you say, Tom dear. Do you want him
to go now?"
Relieved by this active co-operation, Tom
relaxed and descended to explanation.
"I don t doubt it s all right, you know, to put it
off for girls as long as you want it probably
doesn t make any difference. But Binks is a boy,
you see, dear, and he is getting just a little . . .
well, just a little ..."
"I suppose so," said Susy thoughtfully. "He
certainly is a boy."
"You think so yourself, don t you, Toots?"
"I I suppose so," Susy admitted, "though I
did want to try keeping him out a year or two
42
"IT KEEPS THEIR MINDS BACK, TOM, AXD THAT S BETTER
FOR THEM "
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
more every one seems to think it s better, nowa
days."
"But why?" Tom demanded. "I know you
said that last year, but what s the point ?"
"Why, it keeps their minds back, Torn, and
and that s better for them, you know."
"Why?" her husband repeated obstinately.
"Don t they need all the mind that s coming to
them?"
Oh, of course, Tom. Don t be silly ! But don t
you remember that awfully clever woman we met
at the Upsons , that writes those beautiful stories?
She has a little girl, you know, and she said herself
that if the child ever learned to count more num
bers than she was years old, she was going to spank
her! You see what she thinks about it."
"Yes, I see," replied her husband coldly, "and
I also see that I don t give a continental hang for
her and her books. You mark my words, Toots,
if ever you hear a darn-fool thing to-day, you can
make up your mind that some woman said it that
writes books. They re sure to. Who wrote those
books about bringing up children that Aunt Em
was always studying when she lived with us?
Women. Who lectured those imbecile lectures
you used to hand out good money for? Women.
Who got up those clubs that made you all fight
with each other, so that I hadn t a place to go to
4 45
TUB BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
for a decent game of bridge ? Women. It ought
to be a crime for any woman to have children that
writes books."
"I don t believe they do, most of them," Susy
interpolated vaguely if soothingly. "But there s
that German man, Tom, that Aunt Emma went to
hear lecture he wasn t a woman. And he said
he never went to school till he was twelve. And
now he s a professor at Harvard."
"I ll bet he is," said Mr. Wilbour disgustedly.
"If they don t write books they re always pro
fessors. That s the idea exactly. Or magazine
editors. Do you know, he demanded indignantly,
"that that little man with the rough-rider hat
that s always trying to tell me how to play my
own hand I pointed him out to you last week
actually gave me a long lecture about taking the
kids out every morning and dropping them into
the brook ? He said it would make hardy citizens
of em. He tried to get me to promise I would.
I thought he had six of his own at least, and I
hoped they d turn out hardier than he is he s
always cursing about his digestion. And what
do you think? He s an editor of the ladies
Own Monthly, and never had a child in his life!
Writes articles on tatting and how to make a
nice apple-pie without any apples, I haven t a
doubt!"
46
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
Susy giggled.
"Perhaps that s why those recipes are so bad,"
she added contemplatively. "I never could get
one to come out fit to eat."
They leaned over a misshapen rail-fence, rain-
and-weather washed to a lovely, silvery violet,
and watched Martin and Thomas gather dandelions.
Martin made a neat bouquet of his, but Thomas
followed the more original method of snapping
them off at the head and sitting on them firmly,
to make sure of them.
"There s a nice little kindergarten in the
village," Susy began, after a contented pause.
"It must be nice, because Doctor Partridge s
little girl goes and the Ballantynes two children.
They drive in three miles for it. The woman sent
me a note. It s only from nine to half-past eleven
in the morning, and they do hardly anything but
play out-of-doors with a trained teacher, too.
They can have broth at ten, if you want them to.
They study nature, mostly."
Tom snorted and was only too evidently about
to begin a speech, but his wife checked this with
a clever flank movement.
"But you have to promise they sha n t play
with those scroll-saw puzzles," she concluded
hastily, "for Mrs. Trayner thinks they are far too
stimulating for any child under ten. You can
47
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
have square blocks, if there are only cows and
things like that to make with them."
"Can you play hide-and-seek?" Tom inquired
respectfully. "That s an awful nervous strain,
sometimes."
"Of course. The teacher is to teach them all
those games, Tom. And they learn them in the
proper order. It makes a great difference, she says.
"For the Lord s sake!"
Tom ceased his efforts to imitate upon a grass-
blade the crowing of a cock, and stared at his in
nocent offspring, who were shamelessly antedating
professional instruction by an elaborate and fairly
successful imitation of a baseball nine.
"Do you mean that I m to pay her perfectly
good money to teach Binks how to play jack-
stones?" he asked resignedly.
"I don t believe she d let him play jack-stones
when he s only six," Susy answered thoughtfully.
"Listen to me, Susan Wilbour," he announced,
"I will send the boy there, but on one condition.
If they don t take his temperature before he be
gins to learn squat-tag, I ll sue them!"
It is to be doubted if this ultimatum was con
veyed to Mrs. Trayner, but at nine o clock on the
very next Monday the name of Martin Brinkerhoff
Wilbour was formally entered upon that lady s
books, and the owner of the title left the home-
48
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
circle, as it were, for those broader fields of effort
that must, in the natural course of events, con
tinue to be his earthly portion. He was driven
thither by Susy, who proposed to usurp the
privileges of the coachman-gardener during good
weather and to conduct Tom to his not-too-im
possibly-early train, to his great delight and the
almost equal pleasure of the coachman-gardener.
Martin sat importantly on the little seat so
miraculously adapted to his needs, and Tom
directed the course of the steed, whom he had in
sisted upon rechristening Fido. The extinction
of his early title had made no difference whatever
to the animal who, as Tom said, by any other name
would go as fast, inasmuch as he never altered his
gait under any circumstances.
The air was clear and balmy, the roomy old
buggy a sort of doctor s phaeton glistened with
fresh varnish and new harness, its side-lamps
winked and gleamed. Martin was attired in an
entirely new sailor suit of neat blue-and-white ;
an impeccable broad hat of creamy straw pro
tected his sleek and accurately parted hair. His
finger-nails were quite beyond criticism. The
scarf on Susy s new spring hat rivalled the new
spring sky; a fluffy white bow beneath her chin
pictured the clouds that flecked the blue above
her. Tom had doffed his winter derby for a light
49
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
gray felt affair which became him immensely in the
opinion of his household, and altogether it was a
decorative trio that met the train that morning.
Susy rilled the interval between Tom s depart
ure and the school-hour with judicious counsels,
calculated, from the maternal point of view, to set
her son firmly on the path to fame and fortune,
and Martin, deeply impressed by this plunge into
public life, listened amiably and promised largely.
They drew up before the modest little Colonial
house, which had all the air of a social function,
so numerous were the motors, governess carts, and
pony wagons on the neat round sweep of the en
trance drive. The young students, accompanied
for the most part by nurses, though there w r ere
three or four mothers present, were in the act of
descending from their various conveyances, and
the whole scene was unusually bright and cheerful.
Susy smiled at the pretty picture.
Suddenly there was a clatter of hoofs and a
reckless rattle of wheels, and a gay red grocer s
cart dashed by all the rest and drew up with a
nourish before the door. From among the kerosene
cans and baskets of assorted green stuffs there
leaped a young woman with a fat and serious in
fant held bundle wise under her arm. In front of
all the amazed circle she dashed, fell upon a sur
prised child, dragged him from the iron step where
5
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
he was poised somewhat perilously, and embraced
him wildly, crying as she did so:
"Oh, Martin, good-bye, good-bye! It s the last
time! Say good-bye to your own Bell, for you re
not her baby any more!"
Susy turned crimson with humiliation and
horror as Bell s excited sobs rent the air, but worse
was to come, for with an effort the nurse lifted her
dazed charge to her shoulder, dropped Thomas
by her side, and, pressing Martin to her breast,
waved her free hand dramatically at the spell
bound spectators.
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"And I had him from the bottle!" she cried,
burying her face in his sailor collar.
This was too much for Martin, who raised his
voice and wept aloud, clinging to his anguished
nurse. But even as Susy lifted her ashamed
eyes his wails were drowned in the chorus of weep
ing that suddenly resounded from all sides, for
three of the nurses, overwhelmed by the subtle
tragedy, choked violently and hugged their
charges, who in turn bellowed sympathetically.
Two attendant mothers were obliged to resort to
their handkerchiefs, which upset their children
completely, and even a fat old coachman drew his
sleeve across his eyes as the touching scene de
veloped. Before her blush had faded the corners
of Susy s mouth were quivering dangerously, and
in a moment more she was clasping Thomas and
weeping with the rest ; so that all around that once
cheerful driveway arose the sobs and wails of the
most marvellously sudden transformation scene
the neat Colonial house had ever witnessed.
Mrs. Trayner, appearing on the porch with a
beaming smile and a happy, "Good-morning,
children! Is not this a bright, beautiful-
stopped short in terrified amazement at the ex
traordinary sights and sounds before her, and it
was some time before she was able to comprehend
them if, indeed, she ever really did this. No one
52
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
oi her patrons cared to risk the responsibility of
an explanation, and her expression of ill-concealed
surprise and pardonable curiosity lasted long
after the last damp, clinging child had been firmly
detached and headed for her door and the last hys
terical nurse braced into something like self-
control.
"Why are they all What is the matter?"
she had demanded nervously from an unmoved
mother who with her equally stoical daughter had
regarded the whole mad moment with the air of
a bored box-holder.
"Because a young woman jumped out of a
grocery cart and said that she had had that little
boy in the striped sailor suit from the bottle,"
this callous parent had replied satirically, and Mrs.
Trayner had shaken her head in puzzled depre
cation and herded her small scholars into the
house.
It could not be denied: the day had begun
badly. Long after Susy had forgiven the re
pentant Bell and driven her home did the morn
ing s cloud hang over Mrs. Trayner s School for
Young Children. Two, indeed, of the Young
Children failed utterly to recover their spirits and
burst into gulping sobs on the slightest provoca
tion, so that they had to be isolated in the dining-
room, as their attacks proved infectious to a
53
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
degree. The rest paid for their emotional de
bauch by nervous irritability and a tendency
to argument, aided, if the truth must be told,
by the injudicious comments of the new pupil,
who spoke his mind freely, with embarrassing
results.
"I think," said Mrs. Trayner alluringly, that
this little boy who has just come to join us at our
work and play would like to learn to make one
of these pretty chains."
She held up a series of rings of lemon-colored
paper strips, looped each into the other, the ends
neatly gummed with photographic paste, and
dangled it invitingly, but it proved an unfortunate
choice of bait.
"I don t think I want to," said Martin politely
but with decision.
"What! not a pretty chain like this?"
"I don t think it s pretty," he explained.
"But all the other little children think so,"
argued Mrs. Trayner appealingly.
"But I don t," he said firmly.
Several of the children had stopped by now
and regarded the two curiously: retreat would
have been shameful.
"Then suppose you learn to make some for
your mamma," suggested the teacher; "that is
what our little boys and girls do."
54
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
"She wouldn t like em, either, I don t think,"
said Martin patiently, but with a clearly flagging
interest. "Aren t there any toys here? I have an
engine at home."
"So hav e I!" shrieked a fat boy in a corner,
smearing his paste frightfully.
TME BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"I ve got a parlor-car on mine: it tumbles over
like this," piped up a little girl with long dark
curls, falling abruptly under the table as she spoke,
to the great delight of her brother, who furtively
stepped on her while pretending to discover her
whereabouts.
By dint of equal parts of patience and main
strength, order was finally restored, and Martin,
after superhuman efforts, was induced to address
himself to the lemon - colored chain - work. He
proved an apt pupil, and Mrs. Trayner had already
begun to erase the black mark that had been
steadily growing against him in her estimation
before she left his side. In a very few moments he
was working as deftly as many an artist in chains
of long standing, and with a pat of encourage
ment the teacher left him and went on to the
advanced pupils who were engaged in the con
struction of rickety paper bird-cages. When next
she glanced at the new member his chain was so
incredibly long that she was forced to doubt the
neatness of its technique, and hastened to him,
expecting to find him smeared with paste, and
forecasting her fears audibly.
"No, there isn t too much paste on em," he
assured her affably; "there isn t none at all. I
made em without."
"But how could you have made them stick
56
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
together so, Martin dear? Listen, children, while
clever little Martin tells us ho\v he made the ends
of his strips hold together without using paste,"
cried Mrs. Trayner trustfully.
"I spit on em!" said Binks briefly, indicating
by an unspeakable gesture the method he had
employed, and in the disgusting fever of emula
tion which followed the session closed. . . .
Never in all her blameless career had it occurred
to Mrs. Trayner to have encountered the equal
of her latest acquisition, and the School for Young
Children developed undreamed-of tendencies un
der his moral impact. And yet, as she ruefully
assured his anxious mother, Martin was not a bad
boy. He had no vicious tendencies ; he was truth
ful, brave, and fairly industrious. His principal
fault, though Mrs. Trayner was not quite equal
to discussing this phase of his character, w T as his
disconcerting way of "blocking Frobel s game,"
in the irreverent language of his father. No soon
er did this great educator announce a basic theory
of child nature than Binks completely annihilated
this theory. His caustic comments chilled the
hitherto satisfactory games; his contemptuous
criticism of the helpful little contests rendered the
participants idiotic in their own eyes ; the peculiar
school of poetry consecrated to this form of
education proved all too bald and unadorned for
57
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
his riotous fancy, and his reckless, not to say
vulgar, emendations shocked the teachers as
much as they delighted the children; last, but not
least, the constructive art-features of the system
found and left him strangely cold. Let those
who would raise shrill voices of praise at the evolu
tion of some unequalled complication of red-and-
blue shiny paper the voice of Binks was not
among the chorus. Like the person in the poem,
he seemed to be whispering, "It s clever but
is it Art?"
Nevertheless, some unnamed instinct impelled
him to the ceaseless production of the ill-fated
chains with which he had christened his educa
tional career, and unending yards of blue, red, and
yellow stickiness filled the house. It would have
been against every kindergarten canon to destroy
these monuments of youthful toil and filial de
votion, and they soon formed the main decoration
of the bedroom floor of his home. The loathsome
baubles draped bureau and bed, wall-space and
window - frame. They dangled on Susy s head
till she shrieked with nervous terror, they fell into
Tom s bath and twined about his brushes. Thomas
ate them in preference to any other form of
nourishment, and dried and disconnected segments
of them rolled down the stairs and fell out of
the windows. It was like some horrible Biblical
58
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
plague and so far as Mrs. Trayncr knew, Frobel
afforded no antidote. In all that great System
there was no way to stop Martin Wilbour from
manufacturing paper ehaiiis!
It is doubtful if anything short of the inter
vention of the Federal Government would have
freed the house of Wilbour from this incubus had
it not been for the opportune arrival of Aunt
Emma. No longer a member of the family of
her niece and nephew who were as dear to her
as if they had been her own children she was
yet far from the status of any ordinary guest, and
her tactful suggestion that the looped horrors
should be sent in quantity to the Crippled Chil
dren s Home called forth a storm of enthusiastic
approval, although Tom s gloomy fear that the
crippled children would henceforth be handi
capped by imbecility as well dimmed Susy s
pleasure for a moment.
Aunt Emma s interest in intellectual systems
was as keen as ever, and not many days had passed
before she had thoroughly inspected Martin s
school and returned characteristically impressed
by Mrs. Trayner who, it must be owned, was
quite accustomed to impress everybody but Mar
tin Wilbour. She had found the conduct of the
educational institution almost flawless, Susy
decided from her report. Almost, but not quite;
59
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
for Tom had read large print at five, and his father,
one gathered, read with expression and marked
selective powers from the Scriptures at the age
of four. Aunt Emma confessed that in her
opinion a little less paper bird-cage and a little
more First Reader would seem to hold out more
hope for the future. In vain her niece recounted
to her the dangers of excessive and premature
cerebral stirmilation ; in vain Tom cited sar
donically the case of the book -writing woman
and her spanked daughter Miss Wilbour was
firm.
Is anything the matter with Tom ? she
demanded. Was ever a word spoken about
my brother Thomas s brain ? He might make
those clay eggs, too but he could learn to
read!"
However, Susy obtained her loyal promise not
to teach him, for a reading member was as hope
lessly banished from Mrs. Trayner s Young Chil
dren as the unwise virgins from the Bridegroom,
and there was no other such select establishment
in sight. She promised, too, not to impart the
terrors of Bluebeard till the proper age for that
indispensable classic (eight to nine years) , and sub
mitted to a graded list of nursery favorites for
home narration, whose only weak point was that
Martin refused to listen to the selections judged
60
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
suitable to his time of life, and listened to the
others from Bell, whom no one had thought to
warn.
After this almost irreparable error Susy grew r
a very gorgon of forethought, and chancing upon
the waitress arranging some hitherto harmless
lettered blocks to form the word " cat," confiscated
them all, and included in a moving address nurse,
cook, and housemaid, obtaining from them a
solemn vow to keep Master Martin from undue
cerebral excitation, as far as in them lay, picturing
so vividly the shame of his expulsion from his
present seat of learning as to draw tears from the
cook s eyes.
Mother Goose, that ageless classic of the nursery,
was not banned, however, though a distinct re
serve was recommended in the matter of those
poems dealing with sudden and violent death.
This, unfortunately, mutilated the volume ap
preciably, as the maternal Goose resembles all
early national bards in a slashing disregard for
the finer feelings of a neurasthenic generation,
and Aunt Emma complained that it was hard
to interest her great - nephew in the expurga
ted edition. He knew them all by heart, and
it sometimes chilled his mother to the marrow
to mark the natural manner in which he held
the volume, cleverly deducing the rhymes from
5 6l
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
the attendant
pictures, and de
claiming with ab
solute acciiracy
for astonishing
lengths of time.
His father, on
one of these oc
casions, turned
from a spirited
rendering of Sim
ple Simon to ask
abruptly, "Did
you notice he says
ayny for any ?
He says, Indeed,
I haven t ayny.
He never hears it pronounced like that, does
he?"
"Why, no, I suppose not," Susy replied vaguely;
"he ll outgrow r it, anyway."
"What makes him say that one about a dillar,
a dollar, a ten-o clock scholar so slowly?" Tom
pursued.
"Because he s trying to remember it, I suppose.
I didn t know he knew that one. They learn so
quickly. Aunt Emma must have read that to
him."
62
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"No, I didn t, Susy," said Aunt Emma; "that s
in a new rag book, and we haven t gone over it
yet."
"It was Bell!" cried Martin hastily. "Bell,
she told it to me!"
Tom looked thoughtful, but said no more. On
the next Saturday he appeared with a new and
gorgeous rag book, filled with animals of every
hue, and presented it to his youngest son.
"Binks talk picshures to Thomas Binks talk
book!" the little fellow begged.
"But Binks doesn t know those pictures,
darling: that s a new book. Give to mother
mother talk," said Susy.
"Oh, Binks knows all those Bell has read them
all to him in other books," Tom answered careless
ly, at which Martin s face brightened, and he
seized the book, turned it right side up, and
recited, in loud, didactic tones, to the enraptured
Thomas :
" Look at our bon-ny brown cow!
Give us some milk, bos-sy, now.
Do not turn pale
When she swishes her tail,
For she is a gentle old cow!"
"Don t say swyshes, Martin; it s swishes ,"
said Susy. "What a nice story! How well you
know it!"
63
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"He knows it about as well as you do!" Tom
shouted. Binks, you little rascal, the game is up !
Susy, that boy will be President some day, as sure
as fate."
"Tom Wilbour, what do you mean? What s
the matter?"
Tom snatched the book from his son and tossed
it at Susy.
"It s just published to-day!" he cried. "Bell
never read it to him because she never saw it
nor anybody else. My dear, that little devil can
read as well as as as anything!" he concluded
lamely but triumphantly.
Confused, convicted, Martin faced them like a
mouse at bay. Susy stared accusingly at Aunt
Emma.
"And you promised!" she said reproachfully.
"And I kept it," Miss Wilbour replied proudly.
"I never had the least idea he could read, Susy!"
"It was Bell, then."
"Indeed it was not, then, Mrs. Wilbour! Again
and again I ve refused to show him dog and
cat with the blocks!" cried Bell indignantly.
"But I ll bet I know who did it! So that s why
you were off at the barn so much, and me thinking
all the time you were with the animals, like your
teacher said was so fine for you! Oh, but you re
the sly one! I might have known. I always
64
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
said there was something underhand about Myron
Plummer, and now he s taught you to read!"
"He said I d surprise my ma," Martin ventured
tentatively.
"And so you have," Tom said, choking with
laughter at Susy s dazed face and Aunt Emma s
tragic eyes, "so you have, Binks, and your pa too,
though not so much. Cheer up, Toots it might
be worse, you know! He can live it down: many
of us have."
"And I took such pains with everybody," poor
Susy began. "And then to learn from the hired
man! Oh, my dear, what a judgment!"
Aunt Emma s tones vibrated with horror.
Again Tom choked.
"It s one on us," he admitted cheerfully.
"Well, Binks, you re dished, so far as the Young
Children are concerned that s certain! Never
mind, my boy. Run up and bring down your
Differential Calculus, and then we ll have a page or
two from dear old Homer before we go to bed.
College opens in the fall, you know!"
Ill
WHICH DEALS WITH THE EDUCATION OF NATURE
JUSY S was a disposition far too hon
est to attempt to conceal from Mrs.
Trayner the black truth of her un
happy son s indefensible excursions
into literature; and in accordance
with the immitigable rules of that lady s estab
lishment, in comparison with which the regula
tions of the Medes and Persians faded into in
definite and elastic by-laws, the name of Martin
Brinkerhoff Wilbour was, with decent expressions
of regret, expunged from the rostrum of the
School for Young Children, and his little arts-and-
crafts oaken work-table knew him no more. It
would be untactful to delve too thoroughly into
66
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
the depths of this regret: the proprieties were
fully observed, and on the first day of his absence
the central chandelier was touchingly draped with
paper chains of the missing student s own manu
facture. But to deny that the teaching force of
the School for Young Children drew its first easy
breath for several weeks would be to suppress the
mere truth, and no one could have failed to observe
that the exercise of the day glided to a neat and
decorous finish as they had not done since one no
longer there first disturbed their even tenor.
Susy, who had accepted in their entirety the
rulings of the institution and had been secretly
more moved by the dictum of the Upsons book-
writing friend than she had admitted to her hus
band, was sincerely shocked at her son s dis
ingenuous methods of mental development, and
refused to condone his offence or listen to any
further exhibition of his powers. She even exact
ed from him a solemn promise not to impart his
ill-gotten learning to his innocent brother, and
looked thoroughly pained when Aunt Emma be
trayed her own irrepressible satisfaction in her
nephew s achievements, t
"But it didn t hurt Tom!" the good lady re
iterated with puzzled emphasis. "I can t see, Susy,
why you feel so badly about it. Anybody would
think the poor child had committed a crime!"
67
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"Things are different now, Aunt Emma," the
young matron assured her with an evident sense
of restraint.
"Ye-es," Aunt Emma admitted unconvinced,
"but if anything, I should think they d have to
begin earlier there s so much more to learn. And
especially boys," she added decidedly- "auto
mobiles and air-ships and wireless telegraphy, and
all that, you know. And yet there are all the old
things, too. Martin will have to learn all that Tom
did, and more besides goodness knows how much
more, if Mr. Edison keeps on inventing all the
time!"
"You think so, Aunt Emma, but that s just
where you re wrong!" cried her niece triumphant
ly. "That s just the point. Binks won t have to
learn what Tom did. A lot of that silly stuff was
only a w r aste of time, and the most advanced
schools don t teach it now. Look at the way I
cried over that nasty old Compound Interest at
Miss Crammer s and what earthly good did it
ever do me or any of the girls ? And geography
is so different now."
"Different ?" queried Aunt Emma. "You mean
they ve discovered more in that empty part of
Africa things like that?"
"No, no," said Susy impatiently, "I mean the
way they teach it. I was lunching with Minnie
68
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
Sears yesterday, and she was telling me about
Dorothy s geography. You know they don t
bound things any more and they don t use a book
much, anyway."
"What do they use?" Aunt Emma asked in
bewilderment.
"Why, they take them for walks, and then they
see about hills and valleys, and then the lake in
Central Park, you know, and after it rains there
are little rivers that flow through the mud you
can do it with the end of your umbrella," Susy
explained, evidently quoting vigorously.
"But I can t see how taking them to walk in
the Park is going to teach them where where
Costa Rica is, and the Amazon, and and all such
places, Susy," Aunt Emma argued plaintively.
"Minnie says that Dorothy s teacher says that a
person can live a happy, cultured life without
knowing the whereabouts of many places once
considered necessary," Susy returned glibly, "and
I believe Costa Rica is one of them, Aunt Emma!
When I remember the awful times I went through,
bounding those foolish countries in South America,
it makes my head ache now!"
Aunt Emma said nothing, but appeared un
convinced, and Susy went on, with the absorption
in her subject that always marked a new idea with
her:
69
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"Then history, Aunt Emma. They have such
a nice idea about teaching it : at that luncheon of
Minnie s there was a cousin of hers that lives in
Concord, and she was telling how her children learn
history. The teacher just takes them out to
walk, and they visit all the historical places, and
then they go by trolley to Lexington, and see the
very spots where it all happened. And they go in
and study about Bunker Hill right on the spot."
"Um!" said Aunt Emma doubtfully. "That
may be all very well for Concord, Susy, because a
great deal of history happened there. But I don t
know what the children would have done in
Taylorsville, Illinois. Uncle James Taylor found
ed that town himself, and there wasn t much his
tory going on there except what Uncle James and
the other men made and they were in business
mostly," she added thoughtfully.
A loud burst of laughter from the hall greeted
this contribution to contemporary pedagogics, and
Tom hurried in and clapped his aunt heartily on
the back.
"There s where you win hands down, Aunt
Em!" he cried joyously. "Go on, both of you!
I ll be referee and bottle-holder and
I don t know what you mean by bottle-holder,"
his wife interrupted with dignity. "You could
never begin to hold six, like those wire ones that
70
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
Bell had for Thomas! And I think it s perfectly
horrid of you to listen out there when I m talking!
It makes me feel so silly. And it s nothing I in
vented, anyway, Tom Wilbour, and I don t feel at
all like kissing you when you are laughing at me.
If you could hear what some other mothers think
about what their children ought not to know,
you d find that I was very moderate ve-ry
mod-e-rate in-deed!" Susy declaimed breathlessly.
"Well, you re not moderately good-looking,
anyway," her husband replied, with a calm con
viction that dismissed all suspicion of a purposely
tactful answer ; " is she, Aunt Em ? You look about
eighteen I m so glad you don t get white with
anger, Toots, like people in books! What do the
other mothers think?"
Relenting a little as who would not? Mrs.
Wilbour sat upon the arm of his wicker porch-
chair (they were trying to believe that summer had
come) and continued earnestly:
"Well, that woman what is her name, Aunt
Emma? I read you a beautiful story of hers in
one of the new magazines this month: that one
about the child that didn t die, finally that
woman, Tom, that said she d spank her little girl,
you remember
"For Heaven s sake, are we to have another
dose of that woman?" Tom sighed and stretched
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
his legs enduringly. Well, get it over. What s
her trouble, now? Child learned to come in when
it rains, by mistake?"
"Not at all," his wife replied with dignity.
"That little girl is eight years old, and has never
been inside a school nor had a governess. All she
is learning is riding and swimming. She is leaping
bars now and diving. Her mother is going to
keep her back as long as possible."
"Well, I wish her luck," said Tom briefly.
"It s a pity the kid didn t take after its mother:
if it had turned out as dippy as she is, there
wouldn t be any difficulty in keeping it back
the trouble would be to keep it out of the asy
lum!"
"I think that is simply wicked, Susy," Aunt
Emma added decidedly. "The child won t thank
her for such treatment later, let me tell you ! She
should send it to school immediately."
"Ah, indeed!" cried Susy. "And supposing she
did, Aunt Emma? What do you think it would
learn there ? There was a friend of that cousin of
Minnie s that lives in Concord at the luncheon,
and she told us what her boy was studying. What
do you think it was?
"What?" Aunt Emma, asked breathlessly, for
it was characteristic of the good woman that her
interest in each new theory of life was as un-
72
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
quenchable as if she had never disgustedly aban
doned each in turn.
"And a very expensive school, too," Susy
added impressively, "and most select. Only the
very best Boston families."
She faced them defiantly, for Tom and Aunt
Emma were both against her now, and checked
each subject off on a pointing, rosy finger.
"Bee-keeping; etching on copper; fancy dan
cing, and Greek history!" she enumerated solemn
ly, and their awe-struck countenances assured her
she had not lunched with Minne Sears in vain.
"By Godfrey!" Tom muttered, shaking his
head "by Godfrey, Toots!"
Aunt Emma arose, and shook out her skirts
thoroughly her method of exhibiting utter res
ignation.
"Well, Susy," she said, "of course it is no
affair of mine, but if that is the idea nowadays,
I must say I agree with Mrs. Trayner that Martin
would develop quite as well for another year with
Nature and the animals!"
To Nature and the animals, accordingly, Mar
tin was consigned; and as no one ever caught
Nature in the act of administrating any specific
instructions, so to speak, it was impossible to
quarrel with the first of these great teachers.
But it is only just to Mrs. Trayner to conclude
73
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
that she had never employed many animals upon
her own Faculty; nor, indeed, associated to any
great extent with those humbler brothers of the
human race. In this easy disposal of responsi
bility, however, the lady does not stand alone,
for one famous professor of ethics has summarily
sent more than one sluggard to an insect proved
by modern scientists and philosophers only too
little capable of affording a valuable example to
any practical person; and if Solomon mistook
his data, how shall Mrs. Trayner be blamed for
inaccuracy ?
It might be urged, moreover, that the stock of
animals in the Wilbour s possession failed to repre
sent the brute creation adequately. But for this
the young people were hardly responsible, as, with
the exception of Fido the horse, all were gifts.
Tom s senior partner, on learning of the contem
plated country exodus, had enthusiastically pre
sented his colleague with a pair of spotty black-
and-white hounds, of the genus known in the
country as "carriage dogs." Naturally, Tom
had accepted them thankfully, though he had
planned for an Irish terrier, and Susy had set her
heart upon a Russian w r olf-hound. Two dogs,
however, were considered sufficient, particularly
as in recommending these two to the family s
affections the senior partner had impressed upon
74
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
Tom the fact that they were none too friendly
to other dogs, and apt to be jealous, even, of
visiting pets. Their names were "Happy" and
"Dapple," but these were soon modified by their
new master to "Lappy" and "Drabble," which
better described their habits of respectively crawl
ing into every known variety of filth and leaping
onto the knees of every one, notwithstanding a
weight of fifty-odd pounds.
Martin, like every healthy boy of six, pined for
a goat and cart, and it had been one of Susy s
cherished plans to buy him one as soon as they
should get into the country. It was with the
most unaffected pleasure, therefore, that she
learned of the expressed intention of her son s
godmother to present him with one. She, her
self, had looked no higher than the ordinary
short-haired goat of commerce, and was much
impressed when an enormous shaggy creature,
dripping with cream - colored, curly locks that
trailed to the ground, and horned elaborately, ap
peared before their humble gate, accompanied by
a fresh and brilliantly scarlet equipage, at sight
of which Martin had screamed for joy.
Around the goat s neck was a label which read,
I come to darling Binks, from Godmother, with
hopes for a happy future together." But after an
attempt to detach this label had nearly cost Tom
75
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
an eye, and when an equally ill-advised essay on
Myron Plummcr s part to hiteh the beast to its
cart rendered their hired man s right arm useless
for a week, Tom decided that the future referred
to must have been a heavenly one, though if
the goat s share in this was at all assured, Mr.
Wilbour was convinced that all he had learned
in youth about the place was entirely errone
ous.
The animal s name was Mildred, and as it was
perfectly aware of this, and was a goat of great
determination and fixity of character, it was use
less to change it to any one of the many more
suitable titles that readily occurred to the Wil-
bours. Mildred turned out to have been pur
chased second-hand, at a great reduction, by Mar
tin s godmother, who, with an unfortunate lack
of practicality, had neglected to inquire the rea
sons for such cheapness not that she would have
been cheap at any price in Myron Plummer s
possibly prejudiced opinion, to whose enlightened
mind no reasons were required. Any further at
tempt to hitch her to her cart would be, obviously,
as reckless as futile, and she roamed the orchard,
remarkable only for her superfluity of hair and
ungovernable disposition. Nevertheless, Susy re
garded the purchase of another and more amena
ble of her class as the wildest extravagance, and
76
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
poor Martin was wont to regard her wistfully from
afar, vainly endeavoring to propitiate her with
offerings of carrots and sugar, which he was
obliged to deposit on a certain rock of the wily
animal s own selection, previous to a hasty escape
from the wrath to come, for she detested children,
and was perfectly frank about it.
Aunt Emma herself was responsible for the
next pet. She had observed a small and dis
pirited donkey dragging stones from an old wall
in what had once been, evidently, a handsome
little two-wheeled cart; and heartbroken at the
cruel treatment of the little beast, who was
beaten steadily by the half-grown boy in charge
6 77
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
of it, she had complained of this to the boy s
father. This gentleman, a foxy-faced teamster
in dirty corduroys, agreed with her heartily as to
the severity of his son s methods, but explained
them (with a sly glance at Martin, who was
with her) by the fact that the beast was really
a child s pet and not at all a working animal, but
that having purchased it for this purpose and
been cruelly deceived, he felt himself too poor
to forego the services of the donkey, and was
compelled, much against his will, to witness this
degradation of a fine, well -broken, gentle play
mate for some fortunate son of a wealthier parent
than he.
"Gentle?" Aunt Emma repeated hopefully,
with visions of the unspeakable Mildred.
The teamster s son was promptly dispatched
for a carrot and a bit of bread, and the enrapt
ured Martin fed these to the undoubtedly well-dis
posed little creature. A moment later he was
sitting on its back in triumph, and its easy pace
and deliberate rate of progress were perfectly
convincing, even to a maiden aunt.
"A lick o paint on that cart, ma am, a bolt here
and there, and new cushions, and the President s
sons might be proud to sit in it!" observed the
owner of the cart dispassionately.
"But but the expense of its food," Aunt
78
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
Emma urged. "I should not feel justified in
charging any one with that, even with a gift."
"It s plain you ain t used to a jackass, ma am,"
replied the teamster pityingly; "the windy side
of a barn is what the saying is for them, ma am.
No one don t ever expect to lay out a penny on
a jackass. I assure you of that."
It was quite evident that he practised what he
preached, for the poor little creature s ribs were
clearly defined, and its hungry nosing of Martin s
fingers showed the unaccustomed nature of its
little luncheon.
When Aunt Emma found that twenty dollars
would purchase both donkey and cart, she struck
the bargain instantly, and both purchases ap
peared before the surprised heads of the house
in short order.
Susy was much pleased, and a week, during
which time Cousin Albert (for Tom had insisted
on christening the new pet on the strength of an
undoubted resemblance in expression) gained a
little in weight, saw him obediently dragging a
new painted cart around the driveway. To be
sure, the bill for painting, varnishing, repairing,
adding reins, whips, and cushions, was of a nature
to be carefully concealed from Aunt Emma; but,
as Tom said, a pet that neither leaped at your
throat nor sought to impale you on its horns
79
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
was worth something, and Cousin Albert was far
from these or any other ferocious courses. In
deed, so meek was he that Susy, after seeing him
fall between the shafts, apparently from over-
exertion, after a dozen circuits of the driveway,
sternly forbade his further use till he had got
a little stronger and outgrew the teamster s ill
usage, and he was fed almost constantly by the
eager children and the kindly servants. When
not thus engaged he was absorbedly cropping
grass, and Martin, who, with the connivance of
Myron Plummer, stole several furtive rides upon
his daily-broadening back, observed a growing
tendency to restlessness in Cousin Albert, coupled
with a contrary tendency to stand perfectly still
for minutes together, discouraging in the extreme
to a young rider. While things were in this state
a week s heavy rain kept everybody away from
him, and on the heels of this a widespread epi
demic of measles frightened Susy into sending
Bell with both the children to her sister for three
weeks, taking this occasion, herself, for many long-
promised little visits to old friends. Aunt Emma
took care of the house, and Tom, who had begun
to be a little overworked, spent most of his free
hours at his club, running out wherever Susy
might be for little holidays now and then.
Nothing could have been more to Cousin
80
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
Albert s fancy, and he ate steadily for twenty
hours out of the twenty-four, assisted enthusias
tically by Aunt Emma, who marked with delight
his sleek and rounding sides and stoked him like
a furnace. She wrote delightful letters about
him to Martin, who skipped with joy and ordered
him to meet himself and his brother at the station
and convey them home.
But only Myron Plummer met them, driving
the faithful Fido. As he descended and handed
the reins to Susy, who was to drive the children,
leaving Bell to walk the scant mile from the
station with the friendly hired man, Martin in
quired somewhat sulkily why Cousin Albert had
not complied with his request. The result was
disconcerting, for Myron Plummer burst into a
loud guffaw that startled every living thing within
hearing, and slapped his leg with such force as to
nearly throw himself over.
"Cousin Albert!" he bellowed with rich en
joyment "Cousin Albert! Oh yes! I guess
so!"
"What do you mean, Myron? What is the
matter with the donkey?" Susy inquired with
dignity, while the children held their breaths
with anxiety.
Matter ?" cried Myron Plummer. Why, Mis
Wilbour, that durn little jackass has et him-
81
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
self so near the bustin - point that you couldn t
no more get him inter them shafts than you could
n el phant. No, nor never will, if you ask me.
He s a reg lar butterball ! And frisky ? My Lord !
you can t get near him to touch him, let alone
harness him. Martin better watch out for his
heels, I tell you! He s a terror, he is Cousin
Albert! Yes, I guess so!"
They left him shouting with his rural mirth,
and a little later regarded the subject of his out
burst wistfully, but not too near. For Cousin
Albert had waxed fat and kicked, like his Script
ural predecessors ; and though his extra food was
strictly cut off, there was no way of keeping him
from the grass but muzzling, and as no one could
be found who would volunteer to do this, he
swaggered about the pasture lot, sleek and scorn
ful, so utterly at variance w r ith his narrow little
shafts that Tom professed to believe he had
never fitted them, and had been artificially reduced
in order to make their use possible.
To Mrs. Trayner, who, on the occasion of her
school s closing, was making a semi-professional
call on Susy, Cousin Albert appeared picturesque
to a degree, and she declared herself quite cap
tivated by his gentle gambols, and begged per
mission to escort the School for Young Children
to the pasture, in a body, the following autumn,
82
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
enlarging upon the conviction that nothing-
even her own justly famous method could ever
approach in educative value the reverent and mi
nute study of the domestic animals.
"In many ways," she added magnanimously,
"your dear little Martin, left, as you have left
him so wisely, to the simplest, greatest influences
of all, will learn much that we never could have
taught him, had he stayed-
She was interrupted by a terrible braying, a
wild "hee-haw! hee-ha\v! hee-haw!" that shocked
every sense, closely followed by an astonishing
ly accurate imitation of the cry of an angry
goat. A frightful clatter, an indescribable stam
pede that threw furniture and tea - cups to the
veranda floor, alternated with a series of mys
terious thuds, drove the blood from Mrs. Tray-
ner s cheek and alarmed even Susy for a mo
ment.
"The animals are on the porch!" cried the un
nerved guest, "but, thank Heaven, Mr. Wilbour
is coming up the path he can face them! Oh,
what is the matter with him?"
For Tom had stopped abruptly and stood star
ing in the direction of the house, evidently a prey
to mixed emotions. With a short, angry ex
clamation, Susy thrust open the French window
and stood upon the porch. About the floor an
83
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
animated fur rug appeared to be running amuck;
four stubby tan shoes supported it and confused
her, until she observed that sleeves were thrust
into two of these. A pair of flopping brown ears,
strangely familiar, but connected in her mind
with an old rocking-horse, waved at the forefront
of this creature ; its horrid brays afflicted the ear.
Staggering along behind it appeared a smaller
creature, neatly fitted into an Angora baby-
wagon blanket. Soiled white stockings were
drawn over the four legs of this beast, which ex-
84
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
hibited a tendency to lose its balance and roll
from time to time, though never stopping for a
moment its metallic and yet life-like bleating. At
regular intervals the two collided furiously, and
at such times the fur-rug beast would thud ter
ribly with its hind legs, perilously escaping the
head of the smaller combatant, to whom it yelled
breathlessly :
"Butt me! Butt me with your horns! Butt
harder, or I ll kick you! Hee-haw I Hee-haw I"
To which the smaller beast replied with a wild
"Ma-a-a-a! Ma-a-a-a!" and a head-on crash at
anything in sight, so that the wicker furniture
flew about until the porch resembled the reports
of a successful spiritualistic seance and the win
dows rattled in their frames.
Even as the horrified women advanced to them,
the smaller animal staggered toward the un
guarded guest and butted furiously at her knees;
she sank down with a shriek and an utterly un
intentional blow at the larger creature, who re
sponded with a bray of rage and an only too well
aimed and naturalistic kick. Susy, in a dash for
rescue, seized the Angora beast by a misleading
white stocking, thus bumping its nose badly;
it bit angrily at her ankle, and her agonized cry
brought Tom charging into the group, by now
almost inextricably entangled.
85
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
A few horrid seconds, and the worst was over.
Mrs. Trayner was established in a righted arm
chair, flushed and palpitating, one hand uncon
sciously holding in a grip of iron a brown rocking-
horse ear. Susy fled for tea and smelling-salts,
leaving her sons, crimson with heat and temper,
entirely at their father s mercy. And history
compels the statement that whatever may have
been Mrs. Trayner s professional attitude toward
corporal punishment, she, or some one wonderfully
like her in appearance, held Thomas Franklin
Wilbour in a rigid embrace until such time as his
father should have finished giving his brother the
most memorable spanking of his life and felt him
self free to begin on his youngest.
It would have ill become such a well-known
friend of infancy to bear malice, and Mrs. Trayner
assured the deprecating parents that she bore
none; but they could not but observe that she
declined, firmly though politely, Susy s visit of
apology, promised on the not - yet - presentable
brothers behalf.
Poor Susy felt very badly about it all, though
Tom s wrath had been dissipated by the spank
ing, and he was able to laugh at it that evening.
But their situations were quite reversed on the
occasion of his senior partner s visit.
Mr. Hartwell was a somewhat fat and fussy
86
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
gentleman, a confirmed city-dweller, whose idea
of the country is best described by the picture of
a wheeled chair on a board-walk. But he had
grown quite attached to his clever young junior,
was genuinely interested in the two spotty dogs,
which he seriously believed to be very valuable,
and anxious to gratify his childless wife with a
day of children s society. The visit opened ad
mirably: a perfect June day had brought out
Susy s peonies and early roses ; the children were
quietly napping through an unexceptionable
lunch a glut of new peas and strawberries and
tender lamb chops; there was neither mud nor
dust, either of which would have ruined Mrs.
Hart well s day, for she was a nervous, immacu
late little creature, a fanatic housekeeper, and
hopelessly in thrall to germs and imaginary in
fections of every sort in short, the Wilbour
household was at its best.
Susy had privately wondered, ever since the
advent of Drabble and Lappy, how Mrs. Hart-
well could have tolerated them for a moment,
until Tom enlightened her with the information
that the dogs had boarded in a very expensive
stable in the city, and been subjected to unheard-
of disinfectings and bathings before they were
permitted even to accompany Mr. Hartwell in his
morning constitutional through the Park.
87
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
That gentleman, serenely enjoying his coffee,
spoke for the second time of his one-time pets.
"And where are Happy and Dapple, Wilbour?"
he inquired genially. "Dapple, particularly, was
my favorite, though Mrs. Hartwell, I believe, al
ways slightly preferred Happy."
Susy glanced apprehensively at the snowy lengths
of solid embroidery and lace that clothed her visitor.
"The dogs are not quite dry I have just
had them washed," she replied, a little uneasily.
"Drab Dapple gets into rather messy places,
sometimes, and Lap Happy springs up on one,
now and then. Haven t you ever noticed it?"
"He never sprang up on me," Mrs. Hartwell
announced firmly, with such decision that Susy
determined that the lady s husband should inter
view his favorites alone.
"To tell the truth," said Mrs. Hartwell, "I am
much more interested, myself, in your dear chil
dren. Are we not to see them before we go?"
"Yes, indeed," returned the mother proudly,
with a contented consciousness of the little white
embroidered sailor suits, white stockings, and new
russet slippers that lay decorously at the foot of
Bell s bed.
"Bell, are the children awake yet?"
"Y-yes, Mrs. Wilbour, they re awake, but I
don t seem to find them, somehow," Bell an-
88
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
swercd guardedly. Martin said something about
getting his bones, and never came back from the
bath-room. And now Thomas has gone, too."
Getting his bones ? How amusing children
are!" Mrs. Hartwell exclaimed. "I suppose they
say things like that twenty times a day, and you
don t know what they mean."
"Yes no I suppose so," Susy responded
vaguely. Where could they be ?
Even as she spoke a sudden, frightful odor
floated into the dainty drawing-room, particularly
fresh and sweet to-day in recognition of Mrs.
Hartwell s known standards. This odor was not
entirely novel; rather did it appear to be com
pounded of many vaguely familiar but always
shunned ingredients, unconnected, however, with
drawing-rooms. Mrs. Hartwell sniffed audibly;
Susy endeavored not to. Then a succession of
stifled giggles was heard, the door moved slowly,
and the unspeakable odor became suddenly more
pronounced. At this point Susy should have
leaped forward, closed the door, and called loudly
upon Bell, and no one was quicker to acknowl
edge this, afterward, than she. But we have all
our weak moments, our Waterloos, and this was
undeniably poor Susy s. She sat fascinated, it
seemed, upon her neat Chippendale chair; her
lips moved, Tom assured her later, but no sound
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
issued from them. Tom, who had an unfortunate
summer cold, smelled nothing, and merely smiled
with paternal tolerance at the childish giggles.
Now a snarling yap, more giggles, a quick
scuffle, and the door flew fully open. Two fright
ful little objects, reeking with filth unmentionable,
scrambled on hands and knees into the room.
They were clad in diminutive pajamas, whose
original tint was absolutely unguessable, so
stained and dripping with every sort of refuse
were they. Between the teeth of each was held
a too evidently buried bone of enormous dimen
sions, and as they shuffled along they barked and
growled with wonderful realism.
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
Self-preservation is ever nature s first law, and
each member of that party shrank fearfully aside,
for a dazed moment, as the horrid, crawling ob
jects neared them. And in that moment the
smaller object raised itself, with a whiff of drains
and stables, and chuckled,
"Hello, man! I m Drabble. Man want Drab-
ble s bone?" and threw its vile bone with terrible
accuracy straight onto Mr. Hartwell s fresh, light-
gray summer suit.
Tom rushed for it, but paused a fatal second,
enough for the other unmentionable creature to
rise, barking, and, with an ecstatic shriek,
"I m Lappy! Love me! Love me!" to hurl
itself upon the shrinking embroidery of Mrs.
Hart well.
In kindness to the Wilbours the chronicler can
only, in the language of the early novelists, draw
a veil over what followed. Tom, with a hasty
glance at the tongs, abandoned the idea and de
tached his loathsome children bravely with his
hands.
Susy, at Mrs. Hartwell s faint request, disrobed
her where she sat, and escorted her tremblingly
to the bath-room, where she used a bottle of
Listerine and half a tin of borax. The children
were partially cleaned in the stable, and, at Mrs.
Hartwell s hysterical request, sprayed there with
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
carbolic. Everything was done that could be
done, but their guests evidently felt, with Lady
Macbeth, that it would take more than the per
fumes of Araby to mitigate the occasion, and it
required all Susy s persuasive powers to avoid a
solemn promise to bury the white embroidered
dress.
When they were fairly on their home train
poor Susy s overstrained nerves relaxed, and
she burst into wild laughter, joined, in spite
of himself, at least, by her exasperated hus
band.
Oh, do you think she still regrets that she has
no little ones?" Susy moaned.
Tom chuckled wrathfully.
"Probably not," he said; "but look here, all
the same, Toots
this can t go
any further. If
this is all Nature
is going to teach
Binks, then he d
better quit and
get into a state
of grace mighty
quick ! This is
awful."
I know, Tom.
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
Of course, I m sure we ll do anything you say,"
she agreed meekly, wiping her eyes; "but they re
waiting in the stable, you know. What are you
going to do ?"
And two perplexed parents stared at Fido.
IV
WHICH DEALS WITH A TIMELY PROBLEM
OOTS," Mr. Thomas Wilbour be
gan abruptly, helping himself to
an enormous spoonful of orange
marmalade, and spreading it over
a bit of heavily buttered toast with
the leisurely accuracy possible only to holiday
breakfasts, "have you noticed anything out of
the way lately with Aunt Em?"
"With Aunt Em?" Susy repeated absent-
mindedly, dragging her youngest son dexterously
out from the coils of the electric table-bell, which
he rang furiously with every motion of his en
tangled feet (a disturbance which would have
softened the brain of any ordinary waitress, but
94
THE BIOGRAPNY OF A BOY
to which the Wilbours servants were thoroughly
accustomed). "Why, I don t think so, Tom. She
seemed very well to me. Martin, please don t
kick your chair so much, and you know very well
that those crusts will be saved for your dinner,
so you might as well eat them now!"
"I ll never eat none of them," said Martin
quietly, but very, very firmly. "I ll never eat
nothing, if it has to be them. Thomas, I ll kick
your head if you smell my boots again,"
95
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
Susy drew a long, resigned breath. This was
to be one of Martin s "days."
"There s no use arguing with him, Tom," she
interposed hastily, as her husband gulped his
marmalade down with a portentous expression ;
"when he gets to a certain point he knows what
he ll have to do, and he doesn t like it at all. So
he d better be careful."
Martin made no reply whatever, but ostenta
tiously cleaned bits of bread down to their crusts
and piled these latter in the shape of a log-cabin
by his plate.
"Binks no eat cushts, naughty Binks go
stwaighttobed," Thomas murmured tactfully,
edging with good generalship out of his brother s
way, but slightly miscalculating the reach of that
avenger s arm, so that a neat nip in the fleshy
part of his back elicited agonized squeaks from
the injudicious commentator and destroyed for
the moment the serenity of the morning meal.
It was the Fourth of July, and in honor of the
day Myron Plummer had early suspended the
emblem of his country from the neat white flag
pole that had for a week past adorned the side-
yards. This pole was masked for several feet of
its otherwise bare and undecorative surface by
a fortunate clump of syringas, an arrangement
somewhat ungratefully insisted upon by Mr. Wil-
96
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
hour before he would consent to accept the flag
pole, which was a recent gift from his aunt, and
made him feel, as he somewhat enigmatically
described it, like a German dentist, anyway, but
less so when the syringas partly covered the thing.
Pressed for an explanation, he had admitted that
a German dentist who had lived near him in boy
hood had owned and frequently used a flagpole,
and that he objected to the resemblance, but
as the position was somewhat untenable, he had
finally admitted its inherent weakness, and had
even, at Aunt Emma s insistence, purchased a
flag of proportionate size to attach to her gift.
"After all," Aunt Emma had urged, "the chil
dren are Americans, and as the public schools are
the only place where patriotism is taught, and
they aren t to go to them, they ought to learn
it at home. And the first step is a flag."
So, as has been said, the banner of his country
floated like a mammoth peppermint-stick in the
breeze when Martin and his brother sallied forth
to take the air after the somewhat tempestuous
scene which closed his breakfast and threatened
at one moment to banish his modest bundle of
fire-crackers from the programme of the day. To
any collection of adults unaccustomed to the con
stant presence of a pair of youths of six and two
years respectively, the scene of the breakfast,
97
THE BIOGRAPHY OT A BOY
whose harrowing details have been, in the in
terests of domesticity, repressed, would undoubt
edly have spelled nervous headache and an acute
attack of pessimism at the very least ; but to the
Wilbours it was but as the merest ripple on the
surface of family life, and passed as such, with
little comment.
Tom took another cup of coffee on the strength
of the interruption, and resumed his previous topic
with the ease which only long practice in this art
could have given him.
"About Aunt Em," he began "is it only my
idea, or isn t she just a little er well, just a
little ..."
"Why, what do you mean, Tom?" Susy was
honestly quite ignorant of whatever fine shades of
meaning her husband had intended to convey,
and he was forced to speak more plainly.
"I can t exactly think of the word I want,"
he began again; but at this simple statement
Susy gasped irrepressibly :
"Goodness! If you can t think of it, Tommy,
who in the world can ?"
Passing by this apparent tribute to his mental
powers with an airy wave of the hand, Mr. Wil-
bour continued:
"Maybe it s only me she favors, but I give you
my word, Toots, I haven t opened my mouth for
98
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
the last week that I haven t been been, well,
been sat on, you know!"
Susy scowled thoughtfully.
"Do you mean to say you haven t noticed it?"
he demanded.
"Why, now that you speak of it, I remember
that you have been rather argument
"Arguments!" Tom interrupted. "I believe
you! Heavens above, how can I help it, when she
talks such nonsense ? Am I or am I not supposed
to know whether or not a married woman can
control her property in this State?"
"Oh, well, what does it matter?" said his wife
philosophically. "I don t know how on earth
we got into the subject, anyhow."
"That s it that s just it!" Tom leaned tow
ard her dramatically, rolling his after-breakfast
cigarette with the air of a conspirator. "Don t
you observe that we re always getting into those
subjects ? Three or four days ago, what were we
scrapping over ? Oh, I know child labor. I
got it, hot and heavy, just because I said and
very properly that there were two sides to that
question, and that a great many ignorant people
were going to get themselves into a fine box if
they went around ventilating their half-baked ideas
about it without realizing what they were getting
at in the end with their crazy, sweeping reforms. "
99
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"Well, I know; but why will you talk about
those sort of things, Tom?" And Susy glanced
out of the window and jumped nervously as the
first explosive bang assured the neighborhood
that the Independence of America was forever
memorialized in one faithful patriot s heart.
"I talk about them? I?" Tom swelled with
disgust. "What should I talk about em for?
I tell you it s Aunt Em. Toots, she s got some
thing up her sleeve! She s at it again you
mark my words. That s why she s always roping
me into some
Bang! Bang!! Bang!!!
A frantic wail from Thomas and abnormal si
lence on his brother s part struck terror to their
hearts, and they raced out to the flagpole to meet,
after all, a reassuring tranquillity, as the bangs
turned out to have been merely three unusually
successful celebrations of the day, and Thomas s
wail nothing more than his ingenuous protests
against the fate that confined him to paper tor
pedoes, which but feebly expressed, it would
seem, the patriotic emotions that stirred his
youthful breast.
They sat down comfortably under the syringas,
and Tom, after a few reminiscent whiffs of the
burning powder, yielded, like the war-horse, to
its seductions, and touched off a few of the fire-
100
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
crackers, to the great delight of his heirs. Aunt
Emma, who scorned late breakfasts, having taken
that meal, as she succinctly put it, for considerably
over half a century at half-past seven, now joined
them, crackling in a speckled black-and-white
morning dress, and commented favorably on the ef
fect of the flag and its undoubted educative results.
"And though I understand, of course, Susy,
your objections to those rough boys in the public
school, and the horrid things Martin would un
doubtedly learn there, still I must say that the
system is most excellent, and it is so beautiful to
see them all stand up and do that about my God,
my Home, and my Flag!"
"What do they do when they stand up?" Tom
inquired lazily, jerking his youngest back sudden
ly from a too-intimately conducted analysis of
that species of pyrotechnic known as a "sisser,"
an effect which the chief operator produces by
the simple process of bending a fire-cracker in the
middle and applying a light to the exposed and
bursting powder, with the pleasing result and al
most as pleasing uncertainty as to where the object
will jump, which might be expected from the
method employed.
"Why, they all rise," Aunt Emma explained,
herself suiting the action to the word, "and point
upward like this when they say my God ;
IOI
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
then, then well, really now, I can t remember
where they do point for my Home ; they can t
all point in different directions very well, now,
can they? It wouldn t be orderly "
"And then people move so often, too," Susy
added absent-mindedly.
Tom gazed with interest at Aunt Emma s sus
pended gestures, and suggested:
"Perhaps they put their hands on their hearts
you know home is where the heart is !"
"Well, anyway," Miss Wilbour resumed, "when
it s my Flag they kiss their hands all together
to the flag over Washington s picture, and it
really brings tears to your eyes, Tom, to see all
those little Jewish and Irish and Italian children
so patriotic!"
"Urn," said her nephew thoughtfully, "I don t
doubt it would have brought tears to Washing
ton s, Aunt Emma. But if you approve of it so
highly, why not teach it to the kiddies ? At least,
they d know where to point for my Home,
wouldn t you, boys?"
"That s a very good idea, Tom and Susy,"
Aunt Emma cried enthusiastically, "and it would
make a nice little ceremony for the day, too.
Now, just come over here for a moment, Thomas,
dear, and stand by Martin, so; stand up straight
and hold your heads up
IO2
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
"I have to tie m shoe," Martin grumbled sus
piciously; "let Thomas do it."
"Now, Binks, dear, don t be disagreeable,"
Susy interposed, "and don t begin to make ob
jections before you know what it is Aunt Emma
wants you to do, even."
"I don t care what it is I don t want to do it,"
said Binks flatly; "I m too big to kiss my hand.
I m six and a half."
"Stand up here, sir," Tom commanded short
ly, and Martin hurriedly assumed a lop-sided and
unconvincing pose next his brother, who braced
himself for the coming ordeal by stepping firmly
upon one foot with the other, thus throwing him
self forcibly upon the ground and requiring to be
untwisted before he could arise with any degree
of success.
"Now," said Aunt Emma, "we all say my
God together"
"Mother won t let me," Martin interrupted
doggedly.
"Won t let you? What do you mean, dear?"
Susy asked anxiously, her maternal imagination
requiring no aid in prophesying a strained and
unfortunate morning if things took no turn for
the better.
"That new Mary that cooks the things in the
kitchen says my God all the time, and when I
103
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
said, My God, Thomas, you ve lost your rubber,
you said if I said it again you d speak to my
father, and so I can t," he explained in injured
tones.
Tom turned his head, after the simple formula
in vogue among adults when they wish to conceal
inconvenient emotions from eyes sharper than the
average squirrel s, but Susy was too involved in
explanation to find time for mirth, and hastened
valiantly into the awkward discussion.
"No, no, dear, you don t understand. You
mustn t say it about Thomas s rubber, but this
is different. This is a a sort of a little speech
an address
"Whose dress?"
Oh, dear ! Aunt Emma, if you want the chil
dren to say it, I really think you might ex
plain it!"
"You are looking up into heaven, Martin and
Thomas," Aunt Emma began, "and so it is per
fectly proper to say my God. It s not at
all the way Mary says it. I m sure you know
why."
"Yes," Martin interrupted eagerly, with the
first evidence of interest he had yet show r n, "I
do, Aunt Emma."
"I thought so, dear," said she, with an irresist
ible glance of triumph at the child s parents
104
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
that concentrated essence of inquiry, peculiar to
the unmarried, as to why Providence has seen
fit to implant in their breasts alone that exclusive
comprehension of infancy so often displayed by
them. "Tell me why it is different."
"Because," Binks returned importantly, as
suming a Daniel Webster attitude, "you say my
Godd, and Mary says my Gawd !"
Again Tom turned his head, and this time Susy
sided openly with him, and Aunt Emma looked
the pain and disillusionment reserved for those
who grapple with the youthful mind.
"Well, at any rate, if we don t get at it, it will
never be done," she recovered herself briskly,
"and so don t let us argue any more, children,
but do it, if we re going to."
"I will if mother will," Martin bargained shame
lessly, noting his mother s relaxed air and sure of
his ground.
"Of course I will," Susy returned promptly,
"we all will father, too. Come on, Tom get
up!"
Somewhat unwillingly, but alive to the re
sponsibilities of his example, Mr. Wilbour arose
languidly and lined up with the other four
on the edge of the little slope behind the flag
staff.
"Now," Aunt Emma began approvingly, "all
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
together, looking up look at the sky, Thomas,
dear now!"
And from the throats of the united Wilbour
family rang such an unexpected and thrilling
shout as would have made the fortune of any
stage-manager of Bowery melodrama.
"My God!" they cried, then ceased abruptly,
106
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
for the extraordinary and undreamed of effect of
the exclamation proved altogether too much for
two of the performers, and Tom and Susy stag
gered back, weak with laughter, and literally
rolled down the little slope, in which manoeuvre
their sons enthusiastically joined, leaving Aunt
Emma, a disgusted Goddess of Liberty, alone be
neath the flag-staff.
When they had picked themselves up and
climbed, still giggling hysterically, to the seat of
the experiment in applied patriotism, Miss Wil-
bour had composed herself, and was engaged in
the morning paper, which she had brought out
with her. Susy would have glided over the in
cident with the placidity known only to the
mothers of boys, but Tom could not resist the
opportunity of a final shot, and observed, as he
settled himself beside her :
You see, Aunt Em, it s all because we re
not Jews or Italians. I m sure we could have
pulled it off if we d been even as nationally
inclined as the Irish, perhaps but it s the
stern repression of the Anglo - Saxon nature
that"
"Anglo-Saxon grandmother!" Aunt Emma in
terrupted briefly; "it s all very well to joke, Tom,
but there won t be any Americans in spirit if
this keeps up, I can tell you."
107
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
"Good Heavens, Aunt Em, what do you mean?
If we keep on rolling down hill ?"
"Miss Shaughnessy says that the the other
Americans are just as easy to train into it as the
Irish, if you take them young enough, but that
the older ones act foolish about it just like you
and Susy."
"The other Americans is good, anyhow," Tom
commented. "Who s Miss Shaughnessy not one
of the others, I take it?"
"She s the principal of the public school,"
said Aunt Emma, with a curious decision of man
ner, "and a very fine woman."
"Well, well," observed her nephew, "since when
have you been so interested in the public schools,
Aunt Em ? I didn t know women could be prin
cipals, anyway I thought they had to be men."
"I don t doubt you did," replied Aunt Emma
with a certain asperity, "but you were mistaken,
you see. Women are not entirely helpless, even
in this country."
"For Heaven s sake, I should think not!" Tom
declared in amazement. Even in this country !
Good Lord! If you can show me any country
where they re less helpless
"Finland," Aunt Emma articulated abruptly,
causing her niece and nephew to stare at her in
empty surprise.
108
THB BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"Finland! Why, Aunt Emma, what do you
mean?" Susy cried. "Do you mean the Finland
that the Sears s waitress came from?"
"I do," said Aunt Emma firmly, "though that
is a curious method of describing a country,
Susy."
"Well, but but what do the women do there ?"
Tom inquired vaguely, touching the short fuse of
a fire-cracker with a bit of the brown, pungent
light-stick known to youthful patriots as "punk,"
and tossing the cracker cleverly so that it ex
ploded in mid-air, to the delighted admiration of
his sons.
"Did you ask me what they did in Finland?"
Aunt Emma repeated, with a curious determina
tion in her manner, as the tumult and the shout
ing (to use the words of a modern bard) died.
"Why, yes," Tom returned carelessly "yes,
Aunt Em, since we appear to be conducting this
conversation on the lines of a nigger - minstrel
show yes, Brother Bones, I do ask you, What do
the women do in Finland?"
"They vote," said Aunt Emma shortly.
Tom dropped the punk from a relaxed hand,
and it burned, slowly and silently, but surely,
through his gray flannel trousers. Not till the
scorching heat stung his actual person did he
develop sufficient presence of mind to push it
8 109
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
off, and even the round, smoking hole in the light
fabric elicited only a casual murmur from Susy,
so utterly taken aback were the Wilbours by this
brief announcement of their relative.
The unusual silence impressed even the chil
dren, who turned inquiring faces toward their
elders, and Martin asked curiously:
"How do they vote, Aunt Emma?"
"With ballots," said Miss Wilbour firmly-
"with ballots, Martin. As you will see some day,"
she added with a concealed meaning of some sort,
evidently, all the more dreadful because no one
knew just what meaning it concealed.
"Ballads?" Martin repeated. "Like like
Young Lockervar has come out in the West ?
I like those. Does the Sears s waitress know that
one?"
"The two are very much alike," said Tom,
catching his breath at last -"at least somebody
or other once said he didn t care who cast one
if he could get royalties on the other, I believe."
"But as he was a man, there was nothing to
prevent him from doing both," said Aunt Emma
quickly.
Tom looked at her and shook his head sadly
once or twice. Then he took a cigarette from
his pocket, tapped the end slightly, lit it, and
puffed out a full breath.
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"So that was it all the time!" he said reproach
fully. Oh, Aunt Em ! Aunt Em ! Married wom
en s property, indeed ! Child labor, forsooth !
And I never once suspected! Do you want my
vote, woman? Take it, take it! It never did
anything yet but keep me from winning a silver
cup on Election Day."
Aunt Emma nodded sadly, and yet as one who
takes a certain pride in seeing her deepest con
victions fulfilled.
"Just what Miss Shaughnessy says!" she
mourned. "The sex that puts a paltry game
of golf before its country s welfare is the sex
that stands selfishly in the way of in the way
of"
"The only other sex there is," her nephew fin
ished helpfully. "Go on, Aunt Em, get it out of
your system and don t mind me! Is this part of
the public - school instruction ? When did you
begin to feel this way? I believe you re planning
to be mayor before you die they always get in
with the schools."
"Not at all, Tom, not at all," she replied eager
ly, "that s just what the better class of women
don t want. We don t want to hold any office-
it s only to vote."
"The more fools you," her nephew remarked
impolitely. "Why not draw the salary while
in
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
you re about it? And incidentally, dear aunt,
keep your eye on anybody of the name of Shaugh-
nessy when it comes to office-holding, and watch
em get away with it! There s no one, short of a
Reilly, to beat em! I ll bet you your friend the
principal knows the proper length of a mayor s
train this minute, and whether plaids or stripes
will be most worn."
"It s all very well to make fun, Tom," Aunt
Emma persisted, "but making fun is not arguing,
and can t be accepted as such any longer. As
the Reverend Byram Boskowitz told us at the
Normal Luncheon last week
"The Normal Luncheon!" Susy cried. "Was
that where you were the day you missed the
4.20? What on earth is a normal luncheon?"
"It is a luncheon of all the alumnae of the Nor
mal Training School for Teachers," Miss Wilbour
informed them quickly, transparently delighted
to have relieved her open mind of such unnatural
secrecy, "and there were over a hundred of them
there. Miss Shaughnessy gave me a ticket for
the speeches, afterward. She was toast-mistress.
And you ought to have heard Doctor Boskowitz,
Tom; he was wonderfully interesting and he
certainly is masculine enough for anybody," she
added conclusively.
"Really!" said Tom with what any one but
112
THB BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
Aunt Emma would have regarded as suspicious
interest. "Can t you give us some of his mascu
line ideas?"
"Yes, indeed, Tom," she answered with pleas
ure; "they re here in this paper; I saved it
especially."
And, assuming her glasses, the good woman
read, with the impressive monotony dedicated
to newspaper interpretation, the following se
lection :
"Dr. Byram Boskowitz charges the Alumna of
the X Normal Training School with favoring
the harem idea of women not to the full Oriental
limit, biit in the sense of a confined, restricted life.
"And that was rather startling, Tom and
Susy," she interpolated, looking mildly at them
over her glasses, "but you will see he makes it
even stronger.
Your harem of the United States may be a lit
tle larger than the Mohammedan woman s," he told
them, "but your sphere is not a sphere it is not
a hemisphere; it is only a segment."
"Well, well!" said Tom with increasing interest,
"isn t he the startling old bird, though? Only
a segment, eh ? What did the Shaughnessy think
of that?"
/ know you are all devoted to your wash-tubs and
your children," Aunt Emma read on hastily, "but
"5
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
the question is whether these should absorb your
vitality."
"Hold on!" Tom interrupted at this; "didn t
you say this luncheon was in New York ? Wasn t
the Reverend Byram just a little, just a little,
teeny, weeny
"Well, Tom," said Miss Wilbour honestly, "as
Miss Shaughnessy said afterward, that was the
only weak point he made."
"Ah!" (her nephew eyed her closely) "not so
many wash-tubs, perhaps ..."
"Well, you see, Tom, they were all teachers
but eleven they married superintendents of
schools and only six of them had any children.
So, so well, that part didn t apply so much."
"No, I can see that," her nephew replied readily
enough. "So that was his only weak point, was
it ? I should say that was rather a good thing,
Aunt Em, for many points like that would be
likely to swamp the lecture, don t you think?
Well, go on. Did he add any more little
gems?"
Surely no woman should be satisfied to be merely
the mother of a family," Aunt Emma continued,
stopping involuntarily at his chuckling.
"Dear me, no indeed," he interrupted hastily;
"in the circumstances, I must say, dear aunt, I
should think the majority of the normal alumnae
116
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
- the very normal alumna? would have been
highly dissatisfied !"
"Tommy," Mrs. Wilhour warned him, "don t
be absurd!"
"Absurd! I?" Tom looked highly virtuous.
"With the Reverend Boskowitz on deck? Toots,
you wrong me!"
"I I don t think there s any more," Aunt
Emma began somewhat unconvincingly, but her
nephew snatched the paper with a quick move
ment from her hand, and defending himself easily
against her feeble attempts, read with great relish
the peroration of the lecture.
/ would invite you to become dangerous women
(for Heaven s sake, Aunt Em!) did you hear that
at some recent foregathering of females (females is
good perhaps they weren t Normal) a woman
from Boston warned her hearers against certain
women who try to improve social conditions as
dangerous women (look out for Miss Shaugh-
nessy, Aunt Em!) ? I would have you become dan
gerous women (I take it back, Aunt Em, you
needn t look out for her at all!) : dangerous to
hoary, senile injustice, antiquated civics, supersti
tion, disease."
Mr. Wilbour handed the folded paper cere
moniously back and drew a long breath.
"I m no palmist, dear aunt," he said at last,
117
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"but I would guarantee to give the Reverend
By ram a reading free, and urge him to look out for
a tall, strong woman resembling a trained nurse,
because if he ever meets one, it s all up with him,
if she has a straight-jacket with her. I can see
a large building like an institution, right from
here, looming up in his life."
"Of course, Tom, you can take all these things
the wrong way," Aunt Emma began.
"If you mean Boskowitz, I wouldn t take him
any way," said Tom decidedly -"not as a gift.
And I must say, Aunt Em, that if he has a vote,
you might as well have five."
"Perhaps the address wasn t quite so suitable
for just those women
"Will you tell me any women it would have
been suitable for? Lord! Harems and wash-
tubs and mothers of families to a pack of normal
school-teachers! Although," Mr. Wilbour added
thoughtfully, "what d you suppose he d have said
to Abnormal ones ? It makes my head swim!"
"Did you know," Aunt Emma observed some
what irrelevantly, "that women commit only one-
fifth as many crimes as men?"
Her nephew stared uncomprehendingly at her.
"That is taken from statistics," she continued
triumphantly, "collected by oh, by somebody
important, and so, as that Doctor you remember
118
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
that Englishman that spoke over here and said
he was so surprised that the American woman
should be behind Russians and Bohemians as
he said, women would lift politics out of the slime.
He made that, at least, very clear."
Tom still gazed at her dumbly, but here, to
the surprise of both, Susy, who was holding
Thomas, now grown sleepy with excitement and
heat, entered the political arena.
"I think it s awfully silly, Aunt Emma," she
said, "to worry about all that when, as a matter
of fact, most women don t want to vote anyhow.
It s just as that nice old Doctor What s-his-name
says: if they wanted to, of course they would,
but they don t. I don t know a single one that
does except Minnie Sears, and she says it would
be very repugnant to her feelings to ride in that
smelly old coupe they send round for voters in
Laurelmere, but still she would do it for Dorothy s
sake."
"Suffering Satan!" Tom cried, "how would it
help Dorothy ?"
"Oh, that about the slime that Aunt Emma
said, I suppose," Susy returned vaguely, "but
then Minnie would do anything if it was dis
agreeable enough."
Aunt Emma began fumbling in the capacious
pocket that dignified all her dresses, and pro-
119
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
duced, to the complete mental rout of her niece
and nephew, a small red blank - book. To be
more exact, it had once been blank, but was now
nearly filled with notes on the various lectures
she had attended during Martin s infancy, at
which period she had eagerly collected every
available theory of child culture, to the mingled
alarm and amusement of the young Wilbours.
They had not seen this book since long before she
left them, nearly two years ago now, to join
domestic forces with a favorite cousin of her own
age, and with sudden memories of those days,
that seemed so long past, when boyish Martin was
babyish Binks and Thomas was not at all, moved
them to join hands quickly, half with tears, half
with laughter. Binks, who would not talk, and,
when at last he would, talked unquotably ; Binks,
who would not walk until tied into a humiliat
ing creeping - bag ; Binks, who bore so patiently
enough psychological experiments to have per
manently stunted the growth of a less-determined
infant all this the red book brought up to them,
and they glanced wonderingly with one accord
at the trousered citizen now searching hopefully
among the burned-out fire-crackers for one possi
ble treasure, his hat cocked over one ear, his hands
in his bulging pockets, and yes, an actual whistle
on his lips !
1 20
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
Aunt Emma s voice woke them as from a
dream.
"It is just there, Susy, that the most impor
tant point of all comes in," she cried triumphant
ly. "Miss Shaughnessy cut this bit out of a great
speech it was in the Sun and bought fifty
copies to cut from, and mailed them to all the
women the uninterested women she knew.
She said if that didn t stir them, nothing would.
Just after it the clipping says the house fairly
shook with applause, so that the man couldn t
go on for some minutes it was a man, you ll
notice! Listen to this:
"As for the assertion that women did not want
the vote, Abraham Lincoln had said, when he was
told that the negro didn t want the vote, that if the
negro had sunk so low he hugged his chains, the
hour of his deliverance had struck.
"Had struck!" Aunt Emma repeated solemn
ly. "And that is what convinced me, Tom and
Susy. I suddenly saw that I was just like that
negro! For I didn t want to vote then," she
added frankly "that is, not particularly."
"Dear, dear!" Tom murmured, "is it as bad as
that ? Well, that certainly is a smasher. That
ends it, as far as I m concerned. I m all in. All
I can say is, when you are President, don t forget
that here s a likely young Attorney-General, will
121
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
you? There s a good fellow! The only other
thing I can think of in this connection and
Heaven knows it s a mere bagatelle, after an argu
ment like that I hope, I do earnestly hope, my
dear aunt, that your use of the vote won t resemble
the negro s
after his hour
had struck!"
"I I don t
think I know
just what you
mean, Tom,"
Miss Wilbour
began uncer
tainly.
"Of course
you don t," he
returned cheer
fully, "neither
does the man
who made that
speech, w hen
the house, as
the Sun so pithily puts it, fairly shook I should
think it might have. However, why should you
waste your vitality, as Friend Boskowitz said, in
understanding it ? Don t understand just vote.
In the words of the poet, Vote, and the coon
122
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
votes with you ; think, and you think alone !
It s going to rain. Get up, you unnatural
woman," he turned upon Susy, who at Thomas s
request was making a collar of kisses for his hot
little neck, and taking great pains to make the
kisses join neatly, "it s sickening to us Miss
Shaughnessy and Aunt Em and me, I mean to
see you sitting there, dead to every responsibil
ity, with the negro sinking and striking all around
you, and you hugging your chains like like any
thing!"
"Pooh! I m not," said Susy, laughing and com
pleting the collar with an elaborately constructed
buckle of complicated design, which entailed an
enormous deal of kissing, and tickled Thomas so
that he squealed again, "I m only hugging my
baby!"
"Toots," Tom declared, waving his hand ora-
torically and concealing it between the second
and third button of his coat, "you have hit it!
In your benighted, feeble-minded fashion you
have certainly hit it it s the same thing!"
They turned to\vard the house, laughing, drag
ging Thomas between them, and Aunt Emma
stood puzzled beneath the flag-staff, whose ban
ner hung languidly now in the dense calm that
preceded the coming thunder-storm. A few slow
drops sprinkled her forehead already, and she
123
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
was starting to follow the others when she re
membered the new flag and turned hastily to
lower it. Tugging at the fastenings with nervous
fingers Aunt Emma detested thunder she seem
ed only to knot them harder, and her frantic tug at
the main rope appeared to have no effect what
ever. She put her whole weight on the rope:
the flag did not move.
"The thing s bewitched!" she cried irritably.
"Martin, run and call your father to come and
take in the flag before it pours."
"Can t you do it, Aunt Emma?" asked Martin
curiously.
"No, I can t," she said, "it s too heavy. Hurry
and call your father."
"Why, I ll do it for you," he assured her toler
antly; "I don t need to call father. Didn t you
see how he ran her up?" And his little brown
fingers hovered over the knot.
"Ran it up," she corrected; "a flag isn t she,
Martin."
"That s what Myron Plummer says run her
up," he replied placidly. "You were pullin on
the wrong rope. It s a slip-knot."
And the flag began to descend, easily and
steadily, while Miss Wilbour watched it, half
chagrined, half amused.
"Evidently a she can t take it down, even if
124
MAKING A COLLAR OF KISSES
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
it is she." And she watched him slip the bright
folds loose from the guy-rope.
"Oh, well," he said, with a curious effect of
his father in his gesture and voice, "flags is men s
work. Father and I 11 take care of her."
"Indeed," she answered, absurdly nettled by
the amazing precision with which he wove and
wove again the loose ropes, pursing his lips in
unconscious imitation of Myron Plummer, and
breathing heavily as he clumsily but with a cer
tain rough effectiveness folded the length of can
vas together and knotted them into a compact
bundle with the loose, short end that depended
from one corner "indeed! But I wanted this
flag, Master Martin neither of you two men, I
notice."
"Oh, well, that s all right," he said absently,
making the main ropes taut about the lower
brace of the pole, in a fever of impatience to effect
a triumphant finish before Myron, already hasten
ing toward them, could interfere "that s all
right you can want em. We ll put em up and
take em down, though."
"But can t I do anything else, Martin?" she
cried, seizing his hand and hurrying from the
scudding drops. "Won t you let me do anything
else for my flag?"
He caught instinctively at the note of real
9 127
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
seriousness in her voice and did his best for
her.
"Oh yes," he began, "you can you can
A great clap of thunder drove them at a run to
shelter, and, with a sudden memory of the pa
triotic drill of an hour before, he concluded has
tily, "You can point to her, Aunt Emma!"
V
WHICH DEALS WITH ONE PILGRIM S PROGRESS
T S no use, Toots," said Mr. Wil-
bour firmly "not one bit of use
at all. I can t do it."
"You mean you won t," Susy
retorted reproachfully. "I think
it s horrid of you and only an hour and a half,
too!"
"But what an hour and a half! My dear girl,
it depresses me for the day; it eats up my whole
morning; it spoils my lunch, and it s the only
day I get in the fresh air do you consider that ?"
Susy wavered.
"Well, of course, Tom, it does seem too bad
if you can t get the air," she admitted, innocently
1 29
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
oblivious to the damp March wind outside and
the cheerful arrangement of wood-fire, pipe, and
Sherlock Holmes awaiting the master of the house.
"That s what I told Mr. Wakeman, and he
said that he thoroughly appreciated all that, but
he couldn t help feeling that there was all Sunday
afternoon."
"The deuce he did!"
Tom glared sardonically at the absent Mr.
Wakeman.
"Well, you can tell him that / can t help feel
ing that if he had a man s-size job, with something
else to do but trot up and down in the air all day,
six days a week, if he wants to, getting six per
cent, discount from the department stores just
because his collar buttons in the back
"Tom!"
"You told me that yourself."
"I didn t say that about his collar, Tom," said
Susy reprovingly.
"Well, then, why does he get it?"
Mrs. Wilbour giggled reminiscently.
"Mrs. Wakeman tried to get a discount at Bark
& Milford s for his cigars," she confided, "but
they don t do it any more; she was awfully angry
she said there was no respect for the cloth in
this country."
"I should hope there wasn t," her husband re-
130
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
joined scornfully, "if that s the test of it, by
George! Will you tell me why Wakeman should
get his cigars any cheaper than I do?"
"I suppose it s just a sort of custom," Susy re
marked pacifically.
"Yes, and so was burning witches, but it s
gone out, lately," said Tom with effective brevity,
stuffing his pipe decisively and ending the dis
cussion, from his point of view.
"But really, Tom, that hasn t anything to do
with the question, you know," Susy persisted
"cigars and collars and all that."
"Oh, hasn t it?" her husband cried. "You
think not? Ask a few men, and see what they
say, that s all!"
But a change is the same as a rest, everybody
says,"
Susy had given up the contention, but she could
not resist this parting shot an ill-advised one,
for Tom turned on her triumphantly.
"The Sunday that I went with you this winter
may represent your idea of a rest, Susan Wilbour,
but leading other people s bulldogs out of church
and side-stepping an epileptic
"But the poor man can t help having them,
Tom."
"No, but I can help assisting at any function
he s likely to adorn," said Tom grimly.
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"Mr. Wakeman says he hasn t the heart to for
bid him to come it s his only pleasure," Susy
explained.
"That s all right, that s Wakeman s business,"
Tom returned briskly, "but it s not my job, that s
all."
"Well, then, I suppose I d better get ready and
go alone," said Susy disconsolately, plumping
the cushions on the library couch and eying the
damp, gray landscape with some distaste; "that
is, unless unless you d rather I stayed with
you. . . ."
"Of course I d rather," her husband replied
promptly; "the only chance I get to see any
thing of you."
"Then it s my duty to stay," she announced
firmly, "and I ll go some Sunday when you can
work outdoors."
Mr. Wilbour mended the fire with alacrity, and
all seemed in the best possible train when the ap
pearance of Martin in the doorway, crackling in
fresh white duck, a white sailor hat perched on
his decorously parted locks, and a beaming and
expectant smile on his lips, produced a sigh of
recollection from his mother.
"Oh, Martin dear, I m afraid we can t go to
day father doesn t want to," she began -"and
what have you got on your summer suit for?"
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
Martin looked portentously displeased, and
gazed accusingly at his father.
"You said we would you said so!" he began
chidingly, "and I got all ready on purpose. This
is just what I wore when we went before. Father
needn t go just us two. You promised."
Susy looked uneasily about the room as if to
gain inspiration from the furniture, and avoid, at
the same time, the faces of her husband and her
son, whose expressions at these family crises were
wont to resemble each other remarkably.
"I did tell him, Tom," she began, "he is so
anxious to go . . ."
"Very well," said Tom quickly, "that s right
enough, but I have told you more than once,
Susy, that you have simply got to begin making
the boy understand that things happen and
people change their minds. It s got so that this
whole house is held up right and left in order to
keep promises made to the children that never
should have been promises, anyhow. I approve
of the principle when it s a matter of importance,
but you can t keep people on a schedule that way,
you know, and Binks is old enough to use his
judgment aren t you, old fellow?"
Martin, who had followed the meaning of this
speech quite accurately, though unacquainted
with many of the words in it, pulled his mouth
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
down sulkily and began to stub his toes against
the door-sill.
She said she d go, he muttered ; she said so.
She said she d
"That will do," Tom interrupted decidedly.
"I don t doubt your mother said she d go, but
she has changed her mind. She thought I was
going with you, but I I can t manage it very
well to-day, and so we re all going to stay at home.
It s a damp day, and I think it will rain before
noon."
"Why can t you manage it very well to-day?"
"Because I can t, that s all."
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"We could put down the curtains on the
carriage."
"We won t discuss it, Martin. I don t care to
get the wagon all muddy."
"Myron s got to get the paper, anyway; then
it 11 have to get muddy."
"Stop talking about it now, and go up and
change that ridiculous suit."
Martin rattled the door-knob exasperatingly.
"If it didn t rain, it wouldn t get muddy, any
way!" he whined.
Tom set his jaw and rose from the chair he was
stretched out in, and Martin abruptly relinquished
both whine and door-knob, to his mother s great
relief.
"I don t want him to think that we don t keep
our word, dear," she murmured as the door was
discreetly closed and the white canvas shoes pat
tered virtuously toward the stairs.
"I don t believe his mind is poisoned to any
extent," Tom rejoined easily, profiting by the
softness always engendered in Susy by his success
ful interference in domestic policies, and kissing
her comfortably under her left ear; "he s not a
fool, my dear girl. Why, see here, Toots, sup
pose we had six children
"Goodness, Tommy!"
"Yes, of course, but people do. And suppose
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
no grown person in the house could ever change
its mind in regard to anything that had been
said to any one of the six don t you see how
ridiculous that would be? We d all go crazy."
"Yes, I suppose that s so," she answered
thoughtfully.
"I m disappointed, you re disappointed," Tom
pursued, pleased at her reasonable attitude and
enlarging upon his theme; "we all have to run
against things some time or other, you know,
Toots, and the kid had better find it out, it seems
to me. As far as that goes," he added, glancing
sidewise at her as she leaned against him in the
chair, "he s morally certain to find out that some
of the Reverend Wakeman s views aren t exactly
in line with other little facts he s due to pick up
sooner or later, and perhaps he won t be so shocked
if he gets a little practice at home."
"Why, Tom dear, everybody says that Mr.
Wakeman s so advanced Mrs. Strenway was so
surprised to find such a broad-minded man in
such a small place, she said."
"Um," her husband returned cryptically, "I ll
bet she was. Harriet Strenway was always sur
prised at anybody s knowing anything she didn t,
and it was those telling facts about the Four Hun
dred that got her, my dear. I don t believe they
take the same newspaper."
136
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"Tom!"
"That s all right, Toots, but now that we re
on the subject, will you kindly tell me what there
is that strikes you as particularly broad-minded
in preaching against the vices of multi-millionaires
to thirty-eight people, of whom not three have
over three thousand dollars a year? I may be
narrow, myself, but I can t see the point."
"Oh, well, Tom, Mrs. Strenway meant that it
was very brave of him
"Brave? In Heaven s name, Susan Wilbour,
how was it brave ? Not one of the multi-million
aires was there! I shouldn t think it would re
quire any very reckless state of mind to scold
about the number of quarts of champagne con
sumed weekly in the combined restaurants of New
York to old lady Purdy, who lives on buttermilk
for her digestion. And the only reward for his
bravery in the case of that noble effort on luxuri
ous yachting, that pleased Aunt Em so when she
was here, appears to have been that the druggist
on the corner left in a huff and took his daughter
out of the choir."
"That was because he thought Mr. Wakeman
meant his cat-boat, Tom."
"Exactly. But as he didn t mean the cat-
boat, and as nobody else in the congregation ever
came within ten feet of a yacht, probably, it seems
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
to have been misplaced excitement on his part.
Don t you think so?"
"Well," Susy admitted, "it was too bad about
poor Mr. Pillbridge, because of course nobody
would think of grudging him the pleasure he gets
from that cat-boat Saturday afternoons he
loaned it to the Fresh Air Fund picnic, too. But
his election-day sermon, Tom, you must admit
"My darling girl!" Tom wagged his head
hopelessly at her. "I didn t have the pleasure
of assisting at that bit of oratory," he pursued
thoughtfully, "but if it was anywhere nearly cor
rectly reported in the local press, it s a good thing
Wakeman never tried for any other job than his
present one. He d have a terribly hard time
getting it in the town he preached that sermon
in, I can tell you."
The rain had now begun in good earnest, and
with a natural if not wholly logical conviction
that nature had thoroughly justified Tom s course
of action, Susy settled herself to the belated cor
respondence inevitably delegated to rainy Sun
days and wrote busily for a few minutes, to be
interrupted shortly by Bell, whose apologetic
countenance bore the unmistakable expression
worn by the bearer of a ridiculous message which
must, nevertheless, be delivered, according to
previous contract.
138
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"Excuse me for interrupting you, Mrs. Wil-
bour," she began, "but Martin is obstinate for
me to come and tell you can he put away those
white duck trousers and the other things in a
special box, till he needs em ? He says he must
have a church -box. And he wants moth-balls
in with em. Yes m, I told him I was sure you
wouldn t allow it, especially as moths don t eat
duck, or canvas shoes either, but he wants every
stitch of that suit to go in, clean handkerchief and
stockings and all. Then, he says, it 11 be all
ready under his bed, so he can put his hand on it
in a hurry. That was what he said, really, Mr.
Wilbour. I know," Bell concluded with the privi
leged frankness of an old retainer, "I know Mr.
Wilbour doesn t always believe Martin says things
just as I say he does, but it s so I always repeat
very exact. And he wants his father to write
church-box in large printing, in ink, on the
cover. He says he knows of a very good box in
the blue-room closet."
Church-box ?" Susy queried. What an idea !
What can the child mean?"
"Well, you see, Mrs. Wilbour," Bell continued
with a virtuous but self-effacing air, "Martin not
being a member of the Sunday-school, of course
he don t get any of them little church-boxes
they fill them with pennies, and then at Easter
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
they pile them up, and march around and sing.
The other little boys at school mostly have them
(they have them in nearly all the churches now) ,
and so he hears about them. And of course you
know what a child is. So what he says is, if he
can t have a church-box for money, he ll have
one for trousers."
Bell s manner, conveying subtly, as it did, that
human nature, if balked of a pious desire, takes
refuge in less estimable flights of fancy, at the
risk of those responsible for its abridgments, was
not without its due effect on Susy, who was
always prompt to be influenced by such impalpable
criticism, and easily led to believe in the strength
of any position held with sufficient decision by
anybody else.
"I suppose the poor child does feel it," she said
thoughtfully, "and if that foolish Miss Ada Reed
wasn t so ridiculously High Church and didn t
teach the children such absurd things, I d have
sent him long ago. But she has all the little ones,
and Mr. Wakeman can t very well remove her,
considering all her stepfather does for the church.
Not that he approves, himself. But ever since
she tried to get little Willie Weeks to give up
meat in Lent he was only seven, you know, Tom,
and Mrs. Weeks was furious I resolved that I
simply couldn t send Martin, he does take such
140
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
ideas, you know, and he s so obstinate with them.
So Mrs. Weeks sends Willie to the Congregational
Sunday-school now they use a lot of our service,
anyway, and Mr. Weeks simply put his foot down,
she said."
"Did he put it down on Ada?" Tom inquired
eagerly. "I hope so!"
"Well, no," said Susy simply, "he couldn t
very well she s that big woman that plays the
organ. Don t you remember?"
"Oh, she s that one, is she? Well, see here,
Toots, the next time you see Ada, tell her in a
friendly way from me that it isn t meat she ought
to be giving up, if there s anything in the popular
theory it s potatoes."
"My dear Tom, you don t give up potatoes in
Lent," Susy assured him seriously.
"I ll bet Ada doesn t," he responded with con
viction, pulling hard at his pipe, "hence my
advice."
Bell coughed politely at this point, and Susy,
recalled to her maternal problems, frowned obedi
ently, and attacked them again.
"What would you think of the Congregational
Sunday-school, Tom?" she inquired. "Then he
wouldn t tease for church so. And he is really
too restless to go. He keeps me on pins and
needles, and I can t follow the service at all. It
T4T
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
seems so odd he should want to go so much. If
he had to, as some children do, he d loathe it,
of course I know I always did. I can t see what
he expects to like; there s very little music, and
they do the Litany every single Sunday, and the
sermon does seem so long."
"It s only an hour and a half," Tom re
peated absently, "and a change is a rest, re
ally."
Susy blushed, and tried not to smile.
"Then it s you that have corrupted my good
habits, Tom Wilbour, and you ought to be
ashamed! And lots of the girls I knew before
I was married say the same thing."
"You told me awhile ago that there wasn t
one of those girls you didn t think much im
proved," he remarked casually. "Did you mean
you found them more immoral?"
"Why, Tom Wilbour, of course not the idea!
But of course going to church is one thing,
and"
"And morality is another," he interrupted
quickly. "Just so, and that s what I ve been
trying to instil into you, lo! these many years,
Tootie."
The ensuing silence while Mrs. Wilbour en
deavored to adjust her mind to this situation,
into which she had the confused feeling that she
142
TMD BIOGRAPHY Or A BOY
had been unduly hurried, was broken by Bell,
who stood immovably by the door.
"I know why Martin wants to go, Mrs. Wil-
bour," she announced, as one who is ever ready
and willing to contribute to the solid information
of any company, once the said company has
finished with the empty raillery that too often
passes for conversation.
"Do you, Bell?" cried Susy hopefully. "Why
is it?"
"Because he wants to see that man have an
applectic fit," said Bell, with no particular emo
tion of any sort. "He often speaks of it to
Thomas and me, and complains that he never
gets the chance. And yet the man has had a
good many. I ve seen three, myself."
"Why why why, Bell, how dreadful!" Susy
gasped. "The horrid boy! I ll never take him
again never!"
"Yes m," returned the nurse imperturbably,
"I thought you d feel that way, most prob ly.
But there s no fits at the Cong ational Sunday-
school, and they have fine entertainments there.
Socials for the grown people, and picnics and
tricks with handkerchiefs for the children. And
they have the church-boxes, too. A good many
from Martin s school goes there, and they cer
tainly do give fine Christmas presents."
143
THB BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"Good!" Tom burst out enthusiastically, "that
is the place for Binks, I can see that at a glance!
I wish they d had tricks with handkerchiefs when
I went to Sunday-school. But all they had was
Golden Texts, and Aunt Em was a regular in
quisition in the Golden-Text line, I tell you. I
used the only handkerchiefs in that game. That s
a fine idea, too, of the presents. They believe it s
more blessed to give than to receive, you see,
Susy, and naturally they want to corner all the
blessings."
"You say everything upside down, Tom,"
Susy complained. "You re worse than Martin.
That will do, Bell; let Martin put his suit in the
box if he likes it can t hurt anything. But
no moth-balls, of course, and I m ashamed of him
about that poor man."
"Yes m," said Bell, and departed, leaving the
parents of her charge to muse on his reasons for
seeking the sanctuary to any extent pleasing to
them.
The next Sabbath smiled on Martin wending
his way in triumph to the Congregational Sunday-
school, the convenience of its hour, as opposed
to the unreasonably early session at the Episcopal
church, where it preceded the regular service,
proving a passable excuse for his straying from
the fold it never having occurred to Susy,
144
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
thoroughgoing American empress as she was, to
advance her husband s early associations (which
had been, to judge from his resigned comments,
of a stringent and relentless nature) with the
church now adorned by his son.
The teacher of the Infant Class, which Martin,
though nearly eight now and therefore eligible
to more advanced standing, was forced to join,
on account of his ignorance of dogma and pro
cedure generally an ignorance approved by Tom
and suffered by Susy was a mild, stout old lady
of genial address and long experience with chil
dren. She led them lustily in song, in a cracked,
hearty voice; recited more or less irrelevant
texts, selected, obviously, with a view rather to
brevity than intelligibility, in chorus with them;
invented many little honors and dignities, such
as book-distributing, chair-arranging, and black
board-cleaning, which greatly facilitated her own
ease; and had hit upon an ingenious system of
solitary confinement under the pipe-organ for re
fractory cases all of which had made her amaz
ingly popular and kept her in office upward of
twenty years. Her theory as to the successful
conduct of an Infant Class, as she confided to
Bell, with that young woman s complete appro
bation, was plenty of drinks of water and enough
exercise of leg and lung to relieve the excess of
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
animal spirits so often noted in very young
Christians; and modern science, however it might
differ with her theological views, could but up
hold her psychology.
Martin returned fascinated with her personality
and methods, deeply impressed with the awful
recent judgment upon Willie Weeks (who, freed
from the asceticism of his previous ritualistic in
structress, would appear to have indulged in
meat banquets to the complete annihilation of
his spiritual nature, and passed, in consequence,
three-quarters of an hour under the organ), and
infatuated by the possession of a small card,
highly colored with forget-me-nots and decorated
146
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
with the motto "Thou God Seest Me," which he
assured his astonished parents marked his ex
traordinary proficiency in the Scriptures. He
passed the afternoon pleasantly to himself, at
least in teaching Thomas to sing Onward, Chris-
Han Soldiers! and exhibited a stiff, bemottoed
"church -box" with such ingenuous pride and
anxiety that Tom, for the honor of the family, was
forced to contribute pennies out of all reason to a
fund ultimately destined for the particular brand
of heathen he disapproved of most !
His glowing encomiums quite shamed poor Susy,
who felt, with her usual ready absorption of any
new idea, that only her carelessness and Tom s
cruelty had deprived the child of two years com
panionship and training, for old Mrs. Singleton s
simple common-sense morality and code of nursery
virtue were indisputably reasonable and unpreju
diced; and at her son s request she accompanied
him gladly to one of the sessions, where he shone
in an undoubtedly correct if somewhat hurried
rendition of the Beatitudes, and vaingloriously
distributed books from the little lending library
with all the air of an usher.
Mrs. Singleton related, in much the concise and
rapid-fire delivery of the music-hall monologist,
her justly famous expurgated version of the dis
covery of Moses by Pharaoh s daughter, at an age
147
THE BIOGRAPHY OT A BOY
when the total inexperience of the principal char
acter should have protected him, it would seem,
from the necessity of any very great amount of
literary excision; but as the brisk old lady con
fided afterward to Susy, there was precious few
of the Bible stories that was fit to be told to such
small children just as they stood, and ever since
she had one little girl break a blood-vessel crying
over the cruelty of Joseph s brethren she d been
pretty careful how she put things.
"Of course, Mrs. Wilbour, we all know there s
a great lesson in em, and one we re qualified to
understand at our age, but they re tender-hearted
when it comes to partings in families and such
like, though they don t mind blood or killings by
armies, and all that," she chatted volubly at the
close of the exercises, adjusting her prim little
veil over her good-humored nose before a tiny
cracked mirror ingeniously concealed in the back
of a plaster cast of the kneeling Samuel, while she
bestowed her odds and ends of illustrated text-
cards, candied flag-root, reading-glasses, and stray
handkerchiefs in an ageless black silk bag with
frayed drawing-strings.
"I don t even say much about the Flood any
more there s no telling how they ll take it; and
in a good many ways the Flood s hard to explain,
Mrs. Wilbour, if you ve ever thought of it. When
148
THE BIOGRAPHY OT A BOY
old Mr. Seelye was sup rintendent he bought me
a fine big set of Bible pictures that flopped over
on a roll, like an almanac, you know, and said
they d be a grand thing for the children, being
all by great artists. Well, the very first one was
an awful real scene of Adam and Eve and the
snake, and I m not overfond of snakes myself,
so I didn t dwell on it much, but the Wetmore
twins (perhaps you ve noticed them in the vil
lage they re young ladies now) got all upset
over that snake (he was pretty green and dread
fully striped), and I declare, those children had to
have a night-light for years! Their mother was
a good deal put out over it, but of course she didn t
blame me.
"Then came Cain and Abel. And I must say I
didn t see that there was any need for showing
Cain quite so fierce, with a tremendous jagged
rock, right in the act of bumping Abel s head-
Mrs. Davis always insisted it gave Adelaide the
idea of treating her little friends that way when
they wouldn t mind her. I don t think that was
quite fair, though, hardly; children do think up
so me things for themselves.
"But nobody liked the Flood. It was by Dore,
a French artist, and there d be an arm sticking up
here and a leg there, and awful expressions on just
heads, that stuck up out of the water all alone.
149
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
Right on the top of something wooden I sup
pose it was a dog-house there was a big New
foundland dog with one paw over a little one,
and its head up as if twas howling. Well, all
those children thought of was that dog. I couldn t
get them to care about Xoah or all the animals
that were saved it was just that dog. Before I
had those pictures I used to talk mostly about
the Ark, and not so much about the Flood, you
see, and as they had Noah s Arks, lots of them,
that always seemed reasonable and held their at
tention. But nothing would do, now, but that
Newfoundland dog I thought I d go crazy with
them. One little fellow with brown eyes (I can
see him now he died of croup, poor child) he d
look at me so mournful and say, What did the
poor mother-dog do, Mrs. Singleton ? Why was
that mother-dog bad ? I think it was mean of
God to drown the poor little puppy, too, Mrs.
Singleton was it bad ? And then they d all look
so solemn, and I couldn t get their minds off for
anything I could do.
"I wish, says one of em, that old Noah was
drowned and the poor mother-dog got into the
Noah s Ark with her puppy! And then they all
joined in, and nn lly I had to tell Mr. Seelye
I was much obliged, but as far as I was con
cerned they c cl put those artists pictures into
150
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
the missionary -box, and I d go on as I used
to."
There \vas no doubt that these were the words
of a specialist and a successful one, and Susy,
much relieved to find that Tom shared her re
spect for the garrulous old lady, and agreed with
her that Binks might form acquaintance with the
Scriptures under worse auspices, dismissed the
matter from her mind, and beyond spasmodic
contributions of pennies to the church-box and
polite listening to the various hymns, whose
sometimes obscure renderings bespoke her mater
nal attention, left her son to the hands through
which so many young pilgrims had passed with
out spiritual injury. She had been an active,
restless child herself, a confessed tomboy in the
eyes of the community, somewhat laxly governed
by an indulgent older sister; and as is usual with
such natures, she vibrated between a half-acknowl
edged consciousness that such easy courses had
not proved so vicious in the result, after all, and
a generous desire to do better (if it should be
better) by the little creatures dependent upon
her for their earliest and strongest notions of the
virtues and proprieties.
It was therefore with a doubtful feeling of hav
ing decided too hastily in the matter of relig
ious instruction for her son that she listened
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
to a spirited discussion in the pretty little village
library, in the course of which the wife of a local
magnate described with pride the flourishing
condition of the Methodist Sunday-school, whose
discipline, advanced methods, and high standing
had passed beyond mere local rumor, and enjoyed
a lengthy treatment in a widely read magazine
devoted to the interests of the home. This
school, which boasted more than two hundred
members of all ages, was taught entirely by
salaried instructors, graded as accurately as the
public schools, defended against triflers by a
system of examinations and diplomas, and bul
warked by prizes and honors of which the crown
ing reward was a free summer course at Chau-
tauqua.
Scorning the petty conflicts with Science which
have strewn the battle-field of the Church militant
for ages, this broad-minded organization invited
discussions with biologists and ethnologists and
any daring ologists, in brief, who might be minded
to come forward, and pointed proudly to a pro
fessor of geology among its instructors and the
editor of a leading review on its board of direc
tors.
It was a wealthy society, and no expense had
been spared in the line of papier-mache models of
Jerusalem in every stage of preservation, plotted
152
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
maps of the desert wanderings of the Israelites,
and stereopticon slides of anything and every
thing mentioned or hinted at in the entire con
tents of the Bible, to say nothing of a wonderful
set of Eastern costumes assumed in the course
of his lectures by the editor of the leading re
view, whose personally taken photographs of Pal
estine and Syria were supposed to exceed any
thing in that direction previously secured to the
world.
"Although," Susy added thoughtfully, in the
midst of a glowing description of these educa
tional advantages, which, by the way, seemed
to fail to interest Mr. Wilbour, "it does seem
as if an hour a day through the week, with all
their other lessons, was a great deal to ask of
the older ones, doesn t it ? The daughter of that
dentist on Main Street that s so nice with chil
dren what is his name? was working terribly
hard to get that Chautauqua scholarship, and
having scarlet fever put her back, and it seems
they re very strict about absences, and she got
quite delirious one night: her mother says she
woke up at twelve o clock screaming, How many
ephods make a tetrarch? and they had to take
her out of school altogether. As her mother says,
in her young days they used to learn that even
the Lord rested on the seventh day."
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
"Still, you must remember that the Lord hadn t
so much to learn," Tom suggested thoughtfully,
"and there was more time in those days."
As even the professor of geology could not have
denied this, Susy accepted it without discussion,
relieved to find that her husband did not feel
that they were cheating Martin out of any indis
pensable system of training a state of mind into
which she had been thrown by the discussion in
the village library.
"I thought you would think it was advanced,
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
Tom, and and scientific and and all that," she
confided, a little shyly "more what men would
believe in, you know. And better for Martin."
"For Heaven s sake, Toots, don t be so ridicu
lous and darling!" he begged her. "Am / in the
habit of waking up at twelve o clock to inquire
how many ephods make a tetrarch ? What in
thunder do I care or any other sensible person ?
Why, see here, Susy, in Greenfield, Mass., where
I was brought up (as I may have mentioned
before), do you think we didn t go to Sunday-
school? Heavens and earth, we didn t go any
where else, it seems to me! When you ve sat
through morning service, and eaten your lunch,
and then sat through another service, and then
gone to Sunday - school, and eaten supper, and
then gone to evening church, you ll get some idea
of what the Sabbath really is and you making
a fuss over one little Litany! The Lord knows
I respected those old fellows, though I may not
agree with em Deacon Matthews was as sure
as death that I was bound straight for eternal
torment, and, feeling as he did, he naturally
groaned and sweated over me! I can tell you
there was little time to waste on modelling Jeru
salem in kindergarten clay in Greenfield, Mass.!
And if ever you heard Uncle William Wyman
pray George, I used to be afraid to get into
THE BIOGRAPHY Or A BOY
bed nights ! There wasn t anything dilettante
about Uncle William Wyman and he was short
on stereopticons, but he was mighty long on the
Wrath of God!
"But do you suppose that troubles your friend
the dentist s daughter? Nary a bit. She s aim
ing for Chautauqua, she is, and I m sure I hope
she ll make it, but why should anybody look
pious over her and her tetrarchs ? Uncle William
Wyman was trying to shoot us boys into heaven,
with a poor outlook for us if he didn t succeed,
and that s why we paid more attention then than
we do now. Do you see what I mean ?"
"Yes, Tom, I see," said Susy meekly, grateful
inwardly that she had not abstracted Martin
from Mrs. Singleton s unprogressive methods.
But even these gave way under her in the
most startling and unexpected manner a few
weeks later, when April had rounded into May,
and two years of their country life had slipped
by so quickly that they could scarcely believe the
quiet calendar. Martin s usual interest in his
little day-school a small private institution for
children under ten whose needs failed, for one
reason or another, to be met by the kindergarten,
but for whom the plunge into the graded public
school seemed a little too vigorous appeared to
flag, suddenly, and his excuses for avoiding its
156
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
short sessions assumed so variable and unreason
able a character that Susy was at her wits end
with his sulky humors and appealed finally to
Tom.
"He doesn t seem to have any rash," she ex
plained mournfully, "and I gave him some castor-
oil last week, and there s absolutely nothing in
his throat, I m sure. But he acts so ashamed of
himself all the time and yet he says he s done
nothing bad, and Martin never lies, Tom. Do
you think he needs a tonic?"
"There s something on his mind," said Tom,
briefly; "he s not sick, dear. But I don t like his
not wanting to play with the other boys, I must
say. I wonder if they bully him? Well, he s
got to work it out, Toots, that s all. He s big
for his age, and there s no need to worry."
But even this calm masculine philosophy wav
ered slightly when, on returning unexpectedly
from the city by an early train, he confronted his
son moping near the gate with a lump like a
purple walnut under one eye, and a generally
dishevelled appearance that spelled but one word
to the experienced.
"Well, well!" he began, "you do seem to have
let yourself in for it! What s all this about,
Binks? You ll frighten your mother, you know.
Who s fighting you?"
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
To his consternation, Martin cast himself down
on the carriage-drive and burst into furious weep
ing, a course so abject as to disgust Tom beyond
words.
"Here, get up," he growled, "and take it like
a man! If you must fight
"I wasn t fighting!"
"Nonsense! Do you think I m blind?"
"I tell you I wasn t!"
"Indeed he wasn t, Mr. Wilbour," panted a
female voice, and Bell appeared mysteriously, from
the bowels of the earth, apparently. "I ran as
fast as I could, but Martin got away from the
nasty boy before I could get here."
"Got away?" echoed his father. "Do you
mean to say you stood and let a boy pummel you
like that and then got away ?"
Martin grovelled lower in the driveway and
wailed unrestrainedly.
"Perhaps he was smaller," Tom suggested hope
fully, "and you didn t feel like fighting him, eh?"
"Oh no, sir," cried Bell eagerly, "he was a lit
tle bigger than Martin, Mr. Wilbour it was that
horrid boy near the pond. He taunts him every
day we drive by he s a bad one. But Martin 11
never fight him," she added proudly; "he d be
ashamed, wouldn t you, Martin?"
"I wouldn t be ashamed I would not!"
158
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
screamed Martin hysterically, kicking out at her
proffered hand. I can t fight him, but I wouldn t
be ashamed, I tell you!"
Tom looked puzzled.
"Suppose you go on up to the house, Bell,"
he suggested, "and I ll attend to Martin. Now,
Binks, sit up and talk to me. ..."
An hour later Susy looked up from the book
she was trying to persuade herself that she was
reading, and gasped at the pair before her. Mar
tin s eyes were doubly swollen, for his crying had
evidently been prolonged, and Tom was flushed
and moved to a degree she could not remember
to have seen before.
"Susy," he said sternly, "I want you to under
stand that whatever Martin may do in the matter
that has been troubling him, he does with my
consent."
Martin gulped, but in his shy glance at her his
mother could not fail to see the old look she had
missed for so many days, and wondered at it
deeply.
"Mrs. Singleton," Tom continued stiffly, "has
most unwarrantably exacted a promise from Mar
tin never to fight another boy, and as this has
become known, and as Martin felt that he could
not break his word, he was in a fair way to be
nagged and bullied to death."
11 159
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"Why, Martin, dearest," Susy began in be
wilderment, "Mrs. Singleton didn t mean that
everybody was to pick on you without your
"Excuse me," Tom interrupted severely, "but
whether she meant it or not, Susy, that is what it
amounts to."
"To turn my other cheek," Martin explained
shamefacedly, and that was this one. He point
ed to the bump. And never to hit em back. And
to go with em twain. And so they all pinch me."
"And she took pains to explain to him," Tom
added shortly, "that he would probably be more
or less martyred for it, which, of course, wouldn t
matter.
Susy twisted uncomfortably in her chair.
"Of course, it was horrid of them I ll speak
to that boy s mother to-morrow," she began;
"but, Tom, that s just what it says about the
other cheek, you know."
"I know," he answered briefly. Martin twisted
on his ankles; she felt suddenly that they were
in a horrid, impalpable league against her.
"It s in the Bible," she murmured, "and that s
what he goes there to learn she didn t make it
up. . . ."
"Exactly," said Tom dryly, "but Binks doesn t
live in the Bible, dear, he lives in this town, and
if his spirit is not to be completely broken and his
1 60
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
whole boyhood made ridiculous, he must defend
himself as every man has to. Good heavens,
Susy," he demanded, "am I a bad sort of man?
Can t you, can t any decent person, trust me to
do the right thing?"
"Of course, Tom!"
"Very well. Do you suppose I m going to let
anybody hit me in the face and not resent it ?"
"I I suppose not, Tom!"
"Then why should anybody teach Martin a
thing so eminently idiotic ? A thing that wouldn t
hold water a minute ? A thing that
"That s him whistling now!" cried Martin
huskily. "You said I could go can I, now?
Can I, father?"
Tom nodded tersely, and they were alone in
the room. Susy cried softly against the chair-
back.
"To tell your own child to go out and fight a
common boy like that!" she moaned. "I think
it s horrible, Tom!"
"The case was exceptional," he answered pa
tiently, "and he won t have to do it often, neces
sarily. I ll attend to Mrs. Singleton that s all
that worries him."
"What will she think?" sighed Susy.
Tom stared at his wife a moment, then laughed
ironically.
161
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"I don t suppose she ever ran across anybody
who took her doctrines so literally," he said at
last. "It s not common among church-goers,
you must admit, my dear."
Ten minutes passed, and then a grimy, bleed
ing scarecrow hurried into the room. It was
Binks, soiled, but master of his soul.
"He s nine years old, but I licked him!" he
crowed shrilly. "I ll bet he don t pinch me any
more!"
"Oh, Martin, will you kiss me? Oh, look at
your cheek!" Susy cried. "Oh, Tom!"
"I ll kiss you after I ve washed my face you
wait!" he assured her kindly. "It s pretty
162
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
bloody, now, for kissing. I ll come back." And
he ran out.
But a look passed between the two that did not
escape her, and she knew herself for a creature of a
different sort, a lesser breed, a riddle to them, as
they to her, eternally, inalterably.
"Oh, Tommy, why are men so strange?" she
cried bitterly, and buried her face in her husband s
shoulder.
VI
WHICH DEALS WITH COUNTRY LIFE IN AMERICA
JFTER this, as is so often the case,
since comparative calm seems wont
to hover in the wake of great crises,
life moved easily and untroubled with
the Wilbours. Martin returned with
his old-time vigor and delight to his day-school,
where his tasks were not yet sufficiently heavy
to represent a great expenditure of time or en
ergy, and, contrary to his mother s expectations,
he was not plunged into any such alarming se
ries of fisticuffs as Tom s brief consent had
seemed to imply. The initial encounter with the
bad boy by the pond (from whose presumably
enraged parents Susy dreaded retributory visits
164
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
needlessly) paved the way for a general under
standing in our hero s social circle that his widely
published vow no longer bound him; and as he
was naturally a healthy, plucky little fellow, he
soon established his proper rank the rating, as
he politely explained to his mother, to which his
age and size entitled him among his peers. More
over, he continued to attend the Congregational
Sunday-school, and if his allegiance grew a little
less vivid, his interest a little more perfunctory,
his attitude toward old Mrs. Singleton a shade
more critical, all these results may have been, as
Tom insisted they were, but the logical results of
a situation previously untenable by any reason-
165
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
able standard of measurement, and therefore de
serving an early readjustment.
Susy s own attitude toward her first-born had
surely, if impalpably, altered slightly with the
force of this new development. Hers was a
cheery, simple soul, but little disposed to analysis,
but she could not fail to perceive that Tom s un
usual and decided interference with the family
policy had brought about a distinct change in
the relationships of their little quartet.
Though she had not definitely put herself on
record as approving Mrs. Singleton s extorted
pledge, she had ranged herself instinctively, broad
ly speaking, upon the old lady s side, with a
vague feeling that custom, propriety, and certain
acknowledged principles of civilization supported
them both; and now under Martin s very nose,
so to speak, Tom had jerked custom, propriety,
and civilization itself from beneath her sex s
feet, and arrayed himself with his son against her.
She was an honest little creature, and she did
not blink the fact that Martin was himself again,
fortified by a self-respect which all his teacher s
maxims had not been able, evidently, to afford,
however abstractly justified they might have
been; nor could she forget that Tom s masculine
intuition, and not by any means her maternal
solicitude, had divined the source of the trouble
166
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
originally. She had always realized that some
how, some time, Tom must become the court of
last resort to his sons; but she had placed that
period vaguely in the future, and pictured him
arbitrating years hence, amid the mysterious
misdemeanors of young men, at which stage she
fondly imagined herself as likely to be only too
glad to shift the burden of a responsibility so un
familiar. But to have it happen now! For
Binks, whose very curls were hardly cut, to judge
her silently, weigh her with that ridiculous old
lady, and finding her wanting, gravely assume the
prerogatives of his sex and claim comprehensions
and traditions that never could be hers!
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
More than once since, his quiet "I ll speak to
father about it" had filled her with a mingled
humiliation and pride, and though she still missed
him in the school hours that were much longer
than the kindergarten s had been, there was an
element of relief in his absence.
Bell s devotion and regret were less compli
cated, and the faithful girl, deprived of so much
of her care and business, redoubled her ministra
tions in the case of Thomas, thus leaving Susy
even freer, so that her time, untaxed by the insidi
ous lures of city shopping and city amusements,
threatened to hang a little heavy on her hands.
It was then that, to the surprise of all her
friends, she developed a hitherto unsuspected
taste for those duties and pleasures of country
life somewhat loosely classed by city dwellers
under the head of "farming," and threw herself
into them with an ardor at first amusing, and
then somewhat disquieting to Tom, who had
been born on a farm, and had not the remotest
intention of returning to that environment. In
making his way back to the green spaces and
clear airs of his boyhood, he had but yielded
naturally enough to the call that rarely fails to
haunt the man of forty, and would have willingly
endured the two hours of railway travel it entailed
for the sake of the weekly vacation and the
1 68
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
chance of offering a welcome hospitality to his
friends. And when to these advantages were
added the indubitable gain for his boys, there
was no question in his mind as to the desirability
of the move, and he had wished to accomplish it
at least two years before Susy could bring herself
to agree with him. But having at last succeeded,
as far as the main outlines of his scheme were
concerned, and by a masterly policy of inaction
managed to convince Susy that the situation was
entirely of her own choosing, Tom was prepared
to settle down into the frank status of a commuter,
cheerfully suffering the high taxation which in
sured him good roads, water, and electric light,
and disinclined to pursue the question of eggs
and milk any further than the local dealers in
such produce should make necessary.
The long hours he had passed in boyhood,
kneeling disgustedly on a pine board, weeding
his uncle s mammoth vegetable garden, had im
pressed themselves indelibly upon his mind, and
even now produced, he assured his wife, such
spiritual nausea as to render the mere word
"vegetable" a combination of syllables danger
ous to utter in his presence ; while only the really
remarkable cheapness of the spotty cow offered
by their neighbor on the occasion of their estab
lishing themselves, and the vouched-for com-
169
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
petence of Myron Plummer in connection with
the useful animal, together with a loftful of fodder
for her and the horse which his early experi
ence had taught him was offered at a ridiculously
low figure had induced him to purchase the
beast, the very sight of whom (she was a highly
personal cow) filled him, as he confided to his
family, with unhappy recollections.
"Because," he added, "I know about em,
Toots, and you don t. You know they re spotted,
and you know they went two by two into the
Ark, and you know they re responsible for butter
and not eggs; and if you get as far as that, you re
doing well, for a girl that grew up under a lamp
post. But the rest is all poetry, as far as you re
concerned, and I can tell you there s mighty lit
tle poetry about a cow, really. You read in the
books how the lowing herd winds slowly o er the
lea, and all that, and you never realize that some
poor boy has to wind slowly after em but he
does. I did a good deal of winding over Uncle
William Wyman s lea, I can tell you, and it got
on my nerves. Just as I was having any luck
fishing, or getting anybody s marbles away from
him, or watching the circus get ready for supper,
or enjoying a good detective story in the barn,
I had to go for those cows. And lug in the milk,
too. And churn Saturday mornings for Uncle
170
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
William s housekeeper. They all thought they
might as well get something out of me, because
they were bringing me up, you see. When I
moved into Greenfield to live with Aunt Em, I
was a mighty contented boy, you d better believe.
"But you won t have to wind slowly after this
cow, Tom," Susy reminded him, "Myron Plummer
will. And he says she s such a good one."
"I don t doubt her goodness," Mr. Wilbour
returned coldly. "A cow as homely as she is
might better be good why not? I am merely
suggesting to you that if ever Myron Plummer
should be for any reason incapacitated, some one
will have to take his place and milk that cow,
no matter how virtuous she may be. And the
question immediately arises, who will it be?"
"Perhaps Mary knows how," Susy offered hope
fully.
"Perhaps she does," her husband admitted,
"and perhaps Bell can tune the piano, but I
wouldn t bank on either of those propositions if
I were you."
"But why should Myron Plummer be inca
pacitated?" Susy pursued with her usual optim
ism. "He seems very strong and well to me."
Tom looked thoughtfully about the veranda,
where they were sitting at the time, and cleared
his throat tentatively.
171
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"I wasn t thinking of his catching the mumps,
exactly," he said slowly, "and I don t want to
alarm you unnecessarily, Toots, so early in the
day. But I was born and brought up with hired
men, as you might say, and spent most of my
early life, it seemed to me then, doing their work
for them, and I had the chance to make an ex
haustive study of their methods and characters.
Now, as a matter of fact, I never knew a hired
man as handy and willing as Myron that didn t
drink, at one time or another, more than was
good for him. And in the case of a big, husky
fellow like him, that means an awful lot."
"Why, Tom," she exclaimed, filled with horror,
"how dreadful!"
"Undoubtedly," he agreed, "but I wasn t think
ing so much of the moral crisis at this moment as
the inconvenience to us. That s why I didn t
want to go any farther from the station I can
always walk up, you see."
Susy had sighed thoughtfully, and for some
time afterward regarded Myron Plummer with
a quite unnecessary mixture of caution and com
miseration, which she overcame finally to the
extent of requesting him to teach her to harness
Fido and apportion his daily rations a course
which amazed the good-natured fellow greatly.
Up to this point the hired man had had little
172
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
to do with his mistress. Susy was unaccustomed
to men-servants, and her few suggestions as to
that part of the menage outside the house had
been carried to Myron by her husband or Bell.
She realized vaguely that he was in many ways
the mainspring of the little establishment; that
the constant small repairs and exigencies of the
house called for his handy adjustments and prac
tical common sense a dozen time a day. His
jovial guffaw kept the kitchen in shrieks of an
swering laughter, his immaculate stable, shining
carriage, clean cow- shed, and clipped lawn were
the admiration of appreciative guests ; his shovelled
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
paths and general imperviousness to weather
made the winter, with its daily journeys station-
ward, comparatively easy ; and Susy, who for the
first year of their exile had spent a large pro
portion of her time in the city, had occasion to
think of him only at those times when mysteri
ous attacks of some unnamed malady had kept
him from his duties for two or three consecutive
days, and the consequent confusion and scurry
ing throughout the household, coupled with the
uninviting appearance of a helpful friend of the
sufferer, borrowed from the livery -stable, had im
pressed her with a sense of something out of tune
and troublesome.
The second year found her tired of the constant
travel on the train, inclined to question the value
of the amusements it purchased, more and more
interested in gathering their friends into pleasant
little parties under their gradually strengthening
roof- tree; a change which delighted Tom, and
kept the chatelaine of the establishment so busy
with her picturesque hospitality and its conse
quent visits to be returned that she ignored, with
true American insouciance, the details of the very
machinery that carried her along.
But the beginning of the third season brought
sudden and unforeseen changes, no one of which,
probably, could have had much effect on the Wil-
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
hour family, whereas taken together and acting
on each other, they produced, unrelated and
casual though they appeared, a completely differ
ent atmosphere, so that in a few weeks the head
of the house of Wilbour was rubbing his eyes in
amazement, wondering what, in his expressive
phraseology, had got into Toots.
And yet what had happened was really very
simple and apparently unimportant. Susy, in one
of her harnessing lessons, had noticed a strange,
hollow cough coming from the stable, and had
inquired of Myron Plummer what it might be.
"It s the cow," he answered promptly, "she s
been that way for two months now. I told him
about it, but he didn t give no orders, and I can t
stop her anyway I try. Of course, I don t know
how you feel about it, but if twas my cow I d
see the vet about her. He give forty dollars for
her, and she was worth fifty-five any day in the
year."
"Dear me," Susy commented, "I didn t know
cows coughed."
"No m," Myron Plummer replied politely, "I
s pose not, but they do. And they can get con
sumption just as good as you can."
"Heavens!" she cried, "then get the veterinary
this moment, Myron and the children drinking
the milk! How awful!"
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"That s the idea," said Myron placidly, "I
thought you mightn t like it, but he didn t seem
to think it mattered none to speak of he says
the German science-men ain t got it figured out
yet that it makes any difference, anyhow, the
milk not coming from the lungs, I s pose; but as
I reminded him, she ain t a German cow, and I d
just as soon be on the safe side, myself. It don t
sound like no stomach-cough to me that s all I
can say."
The veterinary agreeing with the hired man,
the cow was promptly disposed of, and Susy and
Myron fared forth upon the search for a new
one, as Tom readily agreed that since the dis
tance from the station required a horse, and the
horse required a man, the man might as well
have his time fully occupied.
"Tell Myron I ll pay fifty," he added hurriedly.
"There ought to be plenty of them around, a little
way back," and jumped for the moving train,
where a friendly bridge-table awaited him and
put the incident out of his mind.
But Susy, greatly impressed by the affair, was
not inclined to leave it so entirely to another,
and herself undertook the expedition "a little
way back," returning in triumph with a clumsy,
sad-eyed animal selected, she assured her amused
husband, largely by her own instinctive apprecia-
176
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
tion of the creature s best points, and only rein
forced by Myron Plummer s judgment. As a
matter of fact, she had been charmed by the
flattering deference to her preferences and opin
ions expressed by her escort and the interested
dairyman, and came back intoxicated with the
sense of her practical grasp of a new situation
and the consciousness of a wider field of energy
177
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
and executive power than she had believed her
self to possess.
In the swing of this elation she had agreed
wisely with Myron in his voluble regret at the
sale, which Tom had insisted upon, of the un
fortunate cow s daughter. Myron had felt this
to be wrong, as he said, all along.
"Just look if we d a had her now!" he ob
served didactically. "That would been a good
lot o money saved him, wouldn t it ? Two cows
is none too much; then when one s no good to
you, you have the other, haven t you?"
"No good, " Susy repeated vaguely, "you
mean when she had a cough?"
"I mean when she had a calf," said Myron
bluntly. "If you keep two agoin , you always
have the milk o one."
At this point, as her husband was afterward
wont to relate, a great light burst upon Susy,
and the cow, in her primarily maternal relation
to society, leaped to a place in her estimation
never before occupied by that worthy and self-
sacrificing beast. Convinced that these impor
tant truths had been lost upon Tom hitherto, or
at any rate insufficiently appreciated, and struck
suddenly by the pathos of the thought that a
hired servant was more considerate of her hus
band s income than she had been, Susy, elated
r 7 8
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
by her share in the recent purchase, rose to a new
conception of her responsibilities and addressed
Myron Plummer firmly.
"Wasn t there a calf with the new cow?" she
demanded.
"Yes m, there was," he answered with alacrity,
"and a shame to leave it, too, Mis Wilbour!
We ve got a plenty o pasture for em both, and
when you raise a calf yourself you know what
milk you re gettin , I always say."
"I ll buy the calf this afternoon," said Susy,
and from that moment her career as a landed
proprietor began.
A few days later, Tom, who came home much
exasperated, as were all the surrounding neigh
bors, by rumors of an intended baseball -ground
and amusement park in the curve of the great
post-road which ran behind their little property,
was much surprised to find that Susy, never in
the least interested in rural affairs, was quite as
well informed of the project as he, and equally
indignant at it, so that his tentative proposi
tion to join with a number of others in buy
ing various parcels of the land in question as
a protective measure met with her hearty ap
proval.
"And then we d have more pasture if we
should need it," she added, a remark which struck
179
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
him as odd at the time, though the importance
of it escaped him utterly.
As a matter of fact, there was every reason for
regarding the purchase as a good investment,
aside from its first intention, and as such Tom
was content to consider it ; but Myron Plummer
had other and wider plans, and Tom, all unpre
pared for them, was in no position to combat the
united persistence of the two when Susy laid be
fore him their scheme of a vegetable garden really
worthy of the house of Wilbour.
"Of course, as Myron says," she proceeded
volubly, " it s not really worth a man s while put
tering with a little patch like that in the back
yard, Tom. A little parsley and lettuce, and
three tomato-plants - what are they when you
really come down to it? And even that, as he
says, he had to fight hard enough to get. But
the boys eat so much now, and there s no corn
like your own corn everybody says that. Myron
says that in the place where he was before he
came here they grew the biggest lima beans in
the State and got a prize for them. He says two
or three days with a team would get that new
piece into great shape it s fine soil. And then
we could have beet-tops you re so fond of them,
and they simply don t grow them about here,
you know."
1 80
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"Beet-tops, as I ve explained to you before,"
Tom interrupted patiently, "are only the tops of
beets."
"I know; but if they won t cut them the way
you want them, you might as well say they don t
grow them like crown-roasts of lamb at the
butcher s, you know," Susy explained. "And
that Mrs. Hirschmann, on the lower road, sells
enough lettuce to pay for her
"My dear Toots!"
Mr. Wilbour clasped his hands dramatically, and
an expression of real terror checked her further
arguments.
"If Myron thinks he can manage the garden,
all right if you really want it," he assured her.
"But don t, don t, I beg and beseech of you,
Toots, let yourself be led by him or anybody else
into the frightful error of imagining for an instant
that you can pay for anything you put into a
garden by anything you sell out of it."
"But Mrs. Hirschmann "
He took her hand pityingly, and spoke in the
soothing tone dedicated to fractious patients.
"My dear girl," he began, eying her firmly,
"do you realize that that little Jew has I don t
know how many acres under cultivation, two big
greenhouses, and a grapery ? I couldn t say how
many men he employs all the year round, but
181
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
it must be a dozen, at least, judging by the list
of names he tried to ring in on us as voters in that
road-repair business. Now if it amuses his wife
to send her extra lettuce to market (in a sixty-
horse-power Panhard) can you look me in the face
and say that she is paying for anything with
the proceeds ? Why, they wouldn t buy gasolene
for the trip!"
Susy lowered her head a little and pushed out
her lip a sign that caused her husband to
shudder.
"But, Tom dear," she replied gently, "I never
said she pretended to pay for her gasolene who
would suppose so? All she pretends to pay is
the expenses of her own table lettuce!"
Tom blinked a few moments, swallowed hard,
drew a long breath, and kissed her warmly a pro
ceeding which would have indicated clearly to
any possible onlooker that years of married life
had not passed over him in vain.
"God bless you, Toots," he said politely, "no
reasonable woman could be half so pleasant to
live with I must get my train I"
From that day forth Tom saw little of Myron
Plummer, whose allegiance was wholly trans
ferred to his mistress. Susy, who had never
dreamed that such a thing could interest her,
spent long afternoons with Thomas by her side
182
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
on the old pasture wall, watching the successive
stages of ploughing, stoning, fencing, and fertiliz
ing; while Martin rode proudly behind the team
or brought nails and wire at the endless demand
of the two picturesque Italians who had become
necessary fixtures on the estate, since the fencing
could not be pushed too rapidly, because of the
neighboring cattle and horses pastured around
the garden. Myron s corn-patch and the good-
sized plot he requisitioned for potatoes seemed
enormously larger, viewed as fencable area, than
they had at first appeared; and poor Susy s face,
when the bills for woven wire, nails, hinges, picks,
shovels, and fence-posts came in, was so unaf
fectedly miserable that her husband was forced
to make light of it, in very humanity. Never
theless, she held long consultations on the subject
with Myron Plummer, and was greatly relieved
at the honest fellow s suggestion that he should
"take them two Dagoes and go off and cut fence-
poles in Hollis s swamp."
Mr. Hollis, it appeared, was anxious to have
his swamp cleared and drained, and the posts
were to be had for the merest fraction of the cost
of the first lot, so that Susy added the cheerful
sense of accomplishing a business-like stroke of
economy to the new list of experiences, and began
to read the articles on " Intensive Farming " in the
183
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
country and garden magazines with an almost
professional interest.
"It s awfully silly, as Myron says, Tom," she
explained, "to be paying out good money for
bought fence -posts when we really live in the
country and have only to cut them. And Myron
isn t afraid of work."
"N-no," Tom replied thoughtfully, "I never
said that he was. He s not afraid of working the
Italians, either, is he? He said he d only need
them five days this week, and now it will certainly
take him all next week to get that garden ready."
"But, Tom, they were getting the fence-posts
it isn t the garden, really."
"But, my dear child, if we can t have a garden
without fence-posts, then the fence-posts are part
of the garden, aren t they?"
"I suppose so," she murmured doubtfully.
"And I have always told Myron it was too far
away, anyhow he ll have to carry all the stuff
himself, you know. It will mean extra help in
the spring, always."
"Yes; but now that he got that old farm-
wagon so cheap "
"My dear girl, if you re going into this, you
might as well go with your eyes open! It s true
the wagon was cheap, but have you seen the bill
for repairing it? And do you realize that he
184
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
broke the entire underpinning of the phaeton with
all that woven-wire fencing that they tried to
haul in it before we got the wagon ? And the vet s
been here twice for Fido for his knee the first
time since we came out here, you know. And 1
doubt if the phaeton has been properly cleaned
since the garden was started. I certainly saw
that same smudge of butter on it
"I am so disappointed about the butter, Tom,"
Susy interrupted, "everybody says we ought to
have our own butter with a good cow, but really
I don t see how we can, and cream enough, too.
Myron says it s one of those big pails twice a
day, but Mary says it s all froth, and he wouldn t
want the top of the bucket for his share! If
you want ice-cream, I believe you must have two
cows, myself. And yet nobody says so. I won
der why?"
"Because they wouldn t get paid for writing
about it if they did," Tom assured her promptly.
"That s why. Don t you know that those crazy
magazines with goldenrod and sail -boats on the
covers have to make money, child? They have
to have butter, too. And how do they get it
from the money you pay ? Not much. They get
it from those advertisements you re so fond of
reading to me evenings. And what do you sup
pose those advertisers pay for space for? To
185
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
catch farmers ? Hardly. Farmers wouldn t be
farmers if they could afford to try those things
not much. They re to catch you, my dear. And
what makes you so easy ? Why, because you
think it s an easy game, that s all."
"But, Tom dear, that man that writes every
month about how his place is doing in Homes
and Gardens of America is only a beginner, and
he isn t rich at all. And he has four children.
And he simply used his common sense, he says,
and the children sold a hundred dollars worth
of early vegetables this spring from their own
greenhouse that they just ran up when they
added the sun parlor that they use for a living-
room."
: Just ran up, is good," Tom commented sar
donically. "He s a genius, that fellow. Is he the
one that made over the five - room farm - house
and built a new stable and sun parlor for eleven
hundred dollars?"
Susy nodded.
"Ah, here he is!" And Tom reached for
Homes and Gardens of America, which opened
readily at a marked page, from which he read,
following the marked paragraphs carefully:
"We decided that it was poor economy to invest
in a scrub cow, as the best always pays in the end,
so purchased a good one. Our small lot is ample
1 86
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
pasturage for her, and she well rewards the care and
petting of our youngest boy, whose especial charge
she has grown to be, by providing us with a gener
ous abundance of milk, cream, butter, and pot-cheese,
besides skim-milk for the pigs (cared for by the second
daughter) and milk to sell, which has already paid
for our churn, ice-cream freezer, and milk pans,
pails, etc. My wife takes entire care of the milk,
and considers that her great gain in health is largely
due to this simple and pleasurable task.
"Well, well, it s the same old cow I suppose
the reason you never meet her in real life is be
cause the books buy up the supply so constant
ly," he philosophized. "That s the kind to have;
there s no doubt about it, Toots. All summer she
lives on the front-yard, and in the winter they
feed her on the old magazine covers, I suppose,
for I never read of her eating anything else, cer
tainly! She just smiles and hands out milk,
cream, butter, and eggs well, perhaps not eggs
quite yet, but that s merely an oversight on Bur-
bank s part all the year round, and she does
it from generation to generation, as the choir
says, besides. I tell you, there s no eight-hour
day for that cow! And I notice she does more
every year- -some contributors, seeking the coun
try life for health and leisure, will have her run
ning the sewing-machine soon and living in a
187
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
window-box on Sixth Avenue eating the old
geraniums and extra Boston ivy!"
" Tommy!"
"That s all right, my dear, but you ll see that
in print yet, mark my words." And Tom, who
had talked himself into good humor, drew out his
fountain-pen and cheerfully signed the check for
a totally unexpected bill relative to the hire of a
team and wagon for transporting fence-posts from
Hollis s swamp to estate of Mr. Thomas B. Wil-
bour.
"But of all the things that cow will do, you
can bank on one she ll never, never be guilty of,"
he added, stepping out for a session with Myron
over the ever-increasing stable-bills, "she ll never
eat feed in the winter never! If there s one
thing the magazine cow loathes and detests, it s
winter fodder: she knows what it costs!"
Susy laughed, and abandoned the contest till
such time, she promised herself, as the garden ex
penses should relax a little ; but her faith in Myron
tottered slightly when, on the occasion of her
explaining somewhat loftily to him that Tom s
unfounded but persistent fears of financial deficit
precluded many cows in winter, the volatile hired
man shifted his ground, scratched his head, and
remarked, placidly, that there was a good deal in
that idea, and that plenty o people sold off every
188
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
fall and bought in the spring on precisely that
account.
"But, Myron, you said that there was nothing
like knowing your stock and bringing it up!" she
chided him.
"And that s true, Mis Wilbour, it certainly is,"
he agreed, with conviction; "there s nothing like
it, as fur as t goes. Then you know about your
milk."
"You know what it costs, too, Mr. Wilbour
says," Susy remarked coldly, vexed at her ally s
slipperiness.
"Haw I haw! haw!" he roared. "That s so, all
right, too! He knows a thing or two, the Boss
does."
With a confused idea that life grew more com
plicated and contradictory as one advanced further
into its deceiving depths, Susy left the stable with
a slow and thoughtful step, and brightened only
at the comforting recollection of her two black
pigs safely penned below the garden. Truly
these humble friends could not, by any means, be
justly entered on that dreadful column of figures
to which Tom added so remorselessly, even as he
smiled! To begin with, they were a free gift
from a grateful country-woman for whom Susy,
with one of her generous impulses, had trimmed
a hat in imitation of one of her own, much ad-
189
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
mired by the faded, languid farmer s wife. They
had appeared, squealing and resentful, in the back
of her old farm-wagon, and Myron Plummer had
made them a pen near the new garden and ap
proved of them highly. Martin and Thomas spent
happy hours hanging over the rough board fence,
scratching their backs, feeding them summer
apples and cookies, and dreaming fondly of the
day when Hamlet, the larger and more aggressive,
might be harnessed to the useless, shiny goat-cart.
In an evil hour Aunt Emma had written the boys
a letter describing a tame pig of her childhood
which had dragged a small express-wagon, and
Martin, undeterred by the essentially irritable
nature displayed by Hamlet from the first, never
ceased to hope that gratitude for the cookies and
apples would one day soften his hard heart, and
lead him to regard the cart with co - operative
zeal.
Hamlet and Ophelia grew daily more imposing,
and as the garden yielded exceptionally well,
considering the lateness of its planting, and the
little calf promised to rival her mother in good
qualities, Susy felt her rural interests to be more
than justified, and confided to Mary, the cook,
her newest and most cherished plan for killing
the parent pigs in the autumn, saving two out of
the future litter of piglets, selling the rest, and
190
HAMLET AND OPHELIA SAFELY PENNED IN THE GARDEN
THE BIOGRAPHY OT A BOY
packing away hams and sausage for the winter,
after the enthusiastic directions of a school friend
in Connecticut, once derided for her barnyard
interests, but now eagerly consulted. Mary,
around whose childhood cabin in the old country
the pigs had sprung up almost indigenously, found
nothing unusual or impractical in this plan, and
her mistress, delighted with this good-natured
acquiescence, promised her a small pig to send
to her brother-in-law in Harlem. Aunt Emma,
who was as pleased as surprised at this turn in
Susy s affairs, agreed with delight to come and
assist at the sausage-making, and offered to pur
chase the best of the litter for a Thanksgiving
treat for her old rector in New York; while Susy s
married sister engaged two piglings immediately,
and planned a Thanksgi ving family reunion on
the strength of exhibiting the interesting products
of the Wilbour farm.
"And if we have one (with a lemon in his
mouth) instead of a turkey, Tom, and I count the
price of it (or shall I count the price of the tur
key? I never understand about that sort of
thing) and add Aunt Emma s and sister s two,
and send one to be raffled at the Girl s Friendly
sale instead of the three dollars worth of wool
that I usually buy for an afghan and then can t
I count in the time I would have spent on the
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
afghan, Tom? perhaps you ll admit that it does
pay!" she urged breathlessly.
"If they don t go back on their bargains, and
if they pay the express, and if you don t steal
Myron s time to attend to it (it s an awful job,
Toots, and, I warn you, you re crazy to think of it :
do you know how they squeal ? You have to
have a big kettle and a whole paraphernalia, you
know are you going to buy it ?) why, then, I
admit it s all right," he answered doubtfully, "ex
cept that it s a little red apple you put in their
mouth not a lemon at all."
"How absurd! We always had
"Now, Susy, any one who can t tell a cruller
from a doughnut is incapable, on the face of it,
of judging in any such matter as this," he reproved
her gravely. "Connecticut is just full and run
ning over with these misapprehensions, and it s
no more than I should expect from you not
a bit! But I can t have the children s minds
poisoned: if we have the pig, it must be a red
apple."
But the summer waxed, and seemed in danger
of waning, without the expected pigs, and they
existed in Susy s neat blue leather account-book
alone ; though BrinkerhofTs unnumbered vowed
to attend the Thanksgiving banquet, and Mrs.
Wilbour s unique contribution to the Girl s
194
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
Friendly sale stirred up such an interest in the
proposed raffle that the curate of her old parish
took the matter to heart and actually preached
a moving sermon against the practice at an un
usually well-attended evening service, so that the
suburb where most of her girlhood had been passed
was brought to a pitch of real excitement, and the
ladies of the various church organizations, all of
which counted to a greater or less extent upon
their annual fetes and sales, formed bitter factions
for and against the gambling system brought into
such unclerical prominence by the yet invisible
offspring of the unconscious Ophelia.
Susy would have undoubtedly before this dis
cussed her plans with Myron Plummer but for
two reasons: in the first place, she considered the
hired man to be greatly in need of discipline for
what she began to believe to be his deceptive
course of action in regard to the garden. Having
gained this wish of his heart, he had practically
deserted the house and stable except for the most
necessary "chores": the phaeton no longer glis
tened like the sun ; the lawn grew rank and weedy ;
cousin Albert, who had begun under persistent
starvation and hard work at hauling stone in a
stone-boat in the new pasture, to approximate the
meekness of spirit necessary for a children s pet,
was ruthlessly torn from them at this most in-
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
teresting step and kept at hard labor in the garden ;
the Italian was found increasingly necessary as
window-washer, disposer of garbage, and deputy
performer of odd jobs; and altogether Tom s
many prophecies seemed so nearly in danger of
fulfilment that Susy somewhat illogically chose
to consider Myron unworthy her confidence. She
quite forgot for a while that unless she could en
list his sympathy and practical superintendence
in the disposal of so many porklings (for by
August all of her friends were bidding furiously
against each other for headcheese, pickled
trotters, Brinkerhoff - recipe sausages, and pink
baby roasters) the extra labor involved would
certainly eat into the profits to an alarming ex
tent, and it was only the gradual realization of
this that led her to swallow her pride and seek
him out with a view to eliciting his opinion as to
when she ought to expect to be able to fulfil her
pledges.
But, and this was the second reason for her
delay, it was becoming increasingly difficult to
see Myron at all. He was either buried in his
garden or at his meals or asleep, and any one of
these occupations was understood, by a subtle
but perfectly definite system of rules, to shroud
him in privacy and immunity from disturbance.
Tom laughed scornfully when these rules were re-
196
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
ferred to, but had never been observed to break
them, and Bell, the usual messenger, had dis
tinctly refused to infringe in the slightest degree
upon the system; so that it was only at the pa
thetic request of the Little Sisters of St. Agnes
that they might be put in a position to name
the date of their autumn bazaar, now unduly
advertised because of the triumphantly sustained
pig -raffle, that Susy made a definite appoint
ment with her hired man, and in consideration
of allowing the Italian deputy to harness Fido
and drive Tom to the station, was at length
enabled to meet him, very appropriately, by the
pig-sty.
It occurred to her that Myron had distinctly
deteriorated. His blue jumpers were stained and
torn, his old shoes tied together with twine, his
beard was stubbly, and he smelled, among other
things, of beer. Moreover, he did not seem so
anxious to please her as he had been wont, and
her plan of remarking on the untidiness of the
stable and the unprecedented requirements in the
way of garden implements faded into an attitude
of positive conciliation, in view of the extra labor
soon to be his.
"I wanted to know what you thought of the
pigs, Myron," she began, indicating Hamlet and
Orphelia, who rooted morosely in the mucky
197
THE BIOGRAPHY OT A BOY
depths, turning over bits of lemon peel and peach
pits scornfully, and refusing the least appearance
of interest in their proprietress.
"Them pigs? They re doin well enough, as
far as I can see," returned Myron Plumrner short
ly. "Those late potatoes 11 never come up in
the world, unless he ll let me rig up a pump from
Hollis s brook, an -
"Yes, I know; but I wanted to talk about the
pigs, Myron. You know Mr. Wilbour has hardly
seen them since they came, and I must take all
the responsibility."
"There ain t much responsibility to pigs but
takin their swill to em," he observed, "an they
get that regular, though it s a good deal to ask
of one man, with a horse an garden to at
tend to."
Susy repressed a number of possible replies,
and continued sweetly:
"But why don t they have any little pigs,
Myron ? Miss Emma says it is time they did,
and I ve promised her one. And several other
people, too."
"You promised Miss Emma a pig from them ?"
he demanded, staring at her, roused from his
apathy at last.
"Yes, my friend in Connecticut told me they
never had less than "
198
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"They ll never have none," he assured her
briefly.
"None? Why, Myron, what do you suppose
I took them for and bought all that feed in the
spring?"
I dunno. You never told me you were lookin
for any," he said sullenly.
"But but why, I thought if you had a pair
of pigs, they always had other pigs!" Susy cried
faintly.
Myron spat forth a stream of tobacco, and
smiled coldly.
"So they do, but not
when they re brothers,
as a gen ral thing," he
said briefly ; you d orter
a mentioned it before,
I sh d a thought."
Have they always
been I mean, did you
always know ..." Susy
sighed helplessly.
"I guess they hain t
changed much, Miss
Wilbour, sence they
come," he remarked,
and the contempt in his
tone, though unveiled,
199
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
seemed to poor Susy only just, and she watched
him turn on his heel without a murmur.
"Only, how shall I ever tell the Little Sis
ters of St. Agnes?" she wailed softly "and
Tom!"
VII
WHICH DEALS WITH OUR COMMON NEIGHBORS
AND HOW TO KNOW THEM
USY turned sadly from the uncon
scious and misnamed Ophelia, an
angry flush growing deeper and
deeper in her cheeks as the humili
ating truth of her position grew
clearer and clearer to her.
"Horrid thing!" she murmured impatiently;
what difference would it have made to her which
she was, anyway! I ll just have to buy the St.
Agnes girls a pig, now. But Sis and Aunt Emma
oh, what shall I do ? Sis will tell everybody ; I
know she will!"
"Does he want I sh d keep on feedin all the
stock with oats?"
201
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
A gloomy and somewhat argumentative voicx
at her elbow startled her.
"Oats? Oats?" she repeated vaguely.
"There s five head o stock into that pasture
now, and no rain for three weeks," Myron went on
sourly. "/ d no what to give em, if not oats.
Taint enough pasture, anyhow you look at it.
But he kicks at the feed-bills, and I got t get
some more bags t -day. / d no what he thinks
they re goin to live on. That goat eats enough
for two."
"We should never have kept that goat," Susy
said with dignity, "but since we did so, he must
be fed, of course."
"Oh, all right it don t make no difference to
me," Myron replied; "it s yours an his business.
But I jist thought I d speak of it, since oats is
gone up, anyhow. It would a paid to a had
more pasture."
"But we bought all that land, Myron," she re
minded him.
"You bought fer the garden an pasture," he
returned implacably, "and now he won t fence in
but the garden, really, cause that bit o pasture
ain t anything to call pasture, you might say.
An I needed more for corn, anyhow."
"But, Myron, how could we possibly use any
more corn?"
202
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"It s just as well to plant a little more as not
to," he persisted, chewing a straw obstinately,
"and anybody 11 tell ye so. If you re going to
have a garden, y might s well have one."
Susy walked away from him in silence, too
vexed and discouraged for any further discussion.
"I am very much disappointed in Myron
Plummer," she confided to Drabble and Lappy,
who by dint of stolidly attaching themselves to
her and following her everywhere had succeeded
in winning a grudging but definite place in her
affection. "I can t think why I used to like him
so much he s perfectly horrid."
She walked up from the stable, slowly, because
of the heat, passing carelessly under the pergola,
a white-pillared reality now, with its vines well
started once the chief pride of her soul, but less
interesting, somehow, now that it was a fact ac
complished. Along the quaint path of "herring-
boned" red brick, by the sweet-peas, fragrant on
their neat brush screen, past the flowery nas
turtiums, crawling like smoldering fire over the
bit of old stone wa 1 that Tom had cleverly kept
standing for them, the mistress of all this warm
bloom and well-kept sweetness walked dispiritedly.
"Some one will have to pick all those flowers,"
she complained softly to the spotty dogs, "and
we were so afraid they wouldn t grow, once!"
203
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
Drabble and Lappy sniffed suddenly and
growled a little. A strange dog a Boston bull
pup was sitting on the broad veranda steps
regarding them with the cynical malevolence
peculiar to that species.
"Whose dog are you? (Be still, Drabble get
down, Lappy!) Somebody must have come,"
she murmured, not too hospitably, and, calling to
Martin to keep the peace on the veranda, slipped
in by the side porch for a furtive glance at her
hair in the sideboard mirror.
On the threshold of the dining-room she paused
in amazement. Across the room, on his knees
before a corner cupboard of mahogany, from
whose open doors poured a river of blue-and- white
china, there squatted a plump gentleman whose
back, at least, was entirely unknown to her.
Though not to be called fat, he verged, neverthe
less, on plumpness, and as he delved busily among
the platters and ginger-jars in the lower half of
the corner cupboard he puffed audibly. His hat
lay beside him; seen from the rear, he exhibited
all the attitudes of some celebrant of a strange
religious ceremony.
For a moment Susy trembled, her throat con
tracted for a scream, her legs bent for flight ; but
even as she wavered in the doorway it occurred
to her that it was not the course of a sneak-thief
204
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
to establish a palpably strange bull pup at the
front door of the house of his selection, nor to
pitch upon the middle of a warm summer after
noon to look over old china in a suburban dining-
room. The cheerful clatter in the kitchen behind
her, the bright sunshine all about her, strengthened
her nerves, and, advancing a few steps, she clinch
ed her hands securely and addressed the kneeling
stranger with a fair degree of firmness.
"What are you doing there? Who are you?"
she demanded.
The man hitched about awkwardly on his
knees, disclosing a pair of brown, short-sighted
eyes behind nose-glasses, a roundish, clever face,
and a smooth-shaven, combative chin.
"He looks like the bulldog!" Susy thought
parenthetically.
"Are you Mrs. T. B. Wilbour?" he asked in a
crisp, hectoring voice, quite as if he expected to
bring his hostess to book and rather enjoyed the
job. "I ve been waiting over an hour, and as
my time is fairly valuable, I decided to lose no
more of it."
"I am Mrs. Wilbour, yes," Susy answered cold
ly. "May I ask what you are doing with my
china?"
The man laughed abruptly; not in the least a
pleasant or a humorous laugh, but such a laugh
205
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
as may be heard almost any night in the theatre
when intense and biting irony must be conveyed
to the farthest seats in the topmost gallery.
"Very good!" he exclaimed, "very good, in
deed! Ha, ha!"
Then, as she stared at him in unconcealed sur-
206
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
prise, he spoke again, still kneeling, and meeting
her eye with an intentional firmness which seemed,
somehow, to put her curiously in the wrong.
"When I tell you that my name is Carmichael,
M. Carmichael," he said with meaning, "you may
possibly find yourself enlightened, madam."
Susy shook her head vaguely, in such unmis
takable stupidity and sincerity that the man
pointed a small willowware tea-cup reprovingly
at her in his irritation.
"Come, come!" he cried, "do you mean to say
that the name Carmichael conveys no association
to your mind?"
Across Susy s memory flashed the old rhyme:
" There was Mary Seaton and Mary Beaton,
And Mary Carmichael and me "
She would have ceased to be Susan Wilbour had
she not giggled suddenly at the idea.
But this little bubble of laughter proved too
much for her guest s self-control.
"Ah!" he snapped out angrily, "I see you do re
member, after all ! Now perhaps you will tell me
what you have done with my furniture, madam!"
"Your furniture?"
Susy tried to be serious, but the effort was too
great, the little, irritable man too funny. It was
quite evident that he was not crazy he was, as
207
THE BIOGRAPHY Or A BOY
she expressed it afterward, just like anybody else,
only crosser. A more imaginative woman would
undoubtedly have begun to consider the possi
bility, at least, of being frightened, but Susy was
not given to fearing the worst, and her instinct
assured her that the extraordinary gentleman now
on his knees before her was as sane as herself.
"I haven t the least idea what you are talking
about," she said at length, choking back another
hysterical giggle "the only furniture we have is
our own."
Indeed !" he returned ironically. Then where
have you disposed of what you found in my house
when you moved into it three years ago, may I
ask?"
Susy s face fell; a conscious blush rose slowly
to her forehead.
Why are you the were you the -was it you
that"
Mr. Carmichael rose triumphantly from his
knees and dusted them with marked neatness.
"My family has owned that farm for three
generations," he said. "This property originally
belonged to them, too."
Susy glanced hastily around as if expecting to
find M. Carmichael written on the walls.
"But but the liveryman told us a Mrs. Brun-
dage lived there," she began hesitatingly. "We
208
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
wrote to her, but it came back from the dead-
letter office."
"She was in Australia," said Mr. Carmichael.
"She died there last year. Mrs. Brundage was
my old nurse, and lived in my house during the
three years my family and I spent in Europe.
She was a very worthy woman," he continued
severely, "but unbusinesslike, I am sorry to say,
and we did not learn till last year that she had
left to join her son in New South Wales. The
liveryman is a new-comer here; anybody else
could have told you who owned the Carmichael
place."
"Er won t you sit down?" Susy suggested un
comfortably. "I we were sorry about the fur
niture, but it couldn t be helped very well. We
described the place carefully to the man that
moved us, and then when we got here it was
wrong. I m afraid he was rather rough with
them he was vexed to find so much more than
my husband told him there would be we wrote
and offered to do anything we could, but most of
the things were so old
"Old!" Mr. Carmichael exclaimed angrily, "I
should say they were old, indeed! That was
family furniture, madam heirlooms ! Absolutely
unreplacable, much of it. And do I understand
that it has been destroyed?"
14 209
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"Not at all," said Susy with dignity, a dis
gusted recollection of the bamboo easel and the
Rogers group, not to speak of Niagara by Moon
light, hardening her heart "not at all, Mr. Car-
michael. We put back everything. As soon as
we found that they had moved us wrong
"Moved you wrong!" he interrupted irascibly.
"What an absurd affair! And where were you,
pray, while the moving was going on ? You were
there, I suppose ? You knew it was not the farm
you had bought?"
"I we they didn t require ... I was at
Buffalo Bill!" she explained shamefacedly.
"Buffalo Bill!" he cried furiously. "Why, in
the name of everything sensible, were you at
Buffalo Bill when you were moving?"
"They were exceptional movers," poor Susy
murmured.
"So it appears," he said acidly. "They evi
dently moved my furniture very thoroughly. It
is only fair to inform you, Mrs. Wilbour, that I
shall bring suit for damages immediately. Though
I no longer believe that you disposed of the furni
ture yourselves," he added abruptly "I have
been over the house sufficiently."
Susy swallowed hard.
"I am not in the habit of stealing furniture,"
she said with what she hoped was dignity, "but
2IO
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
if I were, Mr. Carmichael, I shouldn t begin with
what we found in the Brundage house, I assure
you. They may be valuable to you, but I m
afraid very few people will agree with you. I
think my husband still has the letter the moving
people wrote him when he told them they would
be responsible for any damage to the things they
threw out into the barn. They said that they
were perfectly willing to be responsible for their
own mistake, but that, as far as damage went,
those were hard things to damage. That bamboo
easel, for instance, was very shaky before
"Bamboo easel!" cried Mr. Carmichael furiously
"bamboo grandmother!"
Susy started backward ; the man literally jumped
at her. But even in his excitement she observed
that he carefully jumped over the blue-and- white
china.
"That hideous truck is none of it mine, madam
as you know perfectly well!" he stormed.
Where is my furniture ? Where is the Car
michael sideboard ? Where are the Moreland
prints ? Where is the hall seat ?"
"Do you mean that that the things weren t
yours?" Susy asked wonderingly. "Whose were
they, then?"
The little man spun around, on the tips of his
toes, literally, with rage.
211
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"Good God!" he spluttered, "do you suppose
that I know whose they are, if you don t ? I never
saw such horrors in my life! I suppose you d say
next that that picture of Niagara by Moonlight is
mine!"
"It certainly isn t ours," Susy returned with
some irritation, "and I don t know why you
should take it for granted that we know anything
about it, anyhow. Everything was moved back
exactly where it was found my nurse has a very
good memory, and she superintended it as soon
as we discovered that we were in the wrong house.
I moved a great many of the things myself, so I
know. I never saw them before or since I m
happy to say," she added viciously.
Mr. Carmichael grasped his hair with both
hands, just as Signor Caruso does when operatic
exigencies drive him to despair. Susy felt really
sorry for him.
"Bell!" she called, stepping to the door (and
the rapidity with which the faithful girl appeared
indicated her interest in the situation), "will you
please explain to this gentleman what sort of
furniture you found in the Brundage house when
we moved there?"
"You mean them grayish sort of portraits of
the old gentleman and lady, Mrs. Wilbour, and
the jointed yellow chairs that was broke, and the
212
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
waterfall that Mr. Wilbour thought looked better
sideways, and "
"There, there that s enough!" said Mr. Car-
michael nervously. "Do you mean to tell me
that there was no Chippendale sideboard in the
dining-room?"
"All the things were chipped," Bell replied
promptly. "I passed the remark to the old man
that was moving he complained a good deal of
what was there that it was no wonder the folks
didn t care what become of them. That group of
statuary, now, that was sort of light-brown color,
with the lady and the baby and the boy with the
basket, that was specially nicked. If Mr. Brund-
age thinks we nicked it, he s mistaken." And she
looked coldly at the heap of china on the floor.
"There is no Mr. Brundage," their visitor in
formed her gloomily, "he died before you were
born. And I wish that infernal Rogers group
had smashed before I laid my eyes on it!"
Bell looked inquiringly at her mistress, and
Susy began to explain, while Mr. Carmichael sank
into Tom s carving-chair, his head in his hands.
"This gentleman is Mr. Carmichael, Bell, and
Mrs. Brundage was his old nurse. But she went
to Australia, and and now he can t find his
things," Susy ended, none too lucidly, but with
a firm trust in Bell s comprehension.
213
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"Then maybe the nurse took em to Australia,"
Bell suggested promptly.
Susy glanced hopefully at Mr. Carmichael, but
he only shook his head impatiently.
"Nonsense!" he said shortly. "In the first
place, she wouldn t want them. In the second
place, she was devoted to us, and she knew how
we valued them. She was put in the house as
caretaker. In the third place, I happen to know
what she took to Australia, for I sent on her
things myself. Before we left, I had her store all
her property in the barn, and when we got the
letter last year that she had started suddenly, on
the news of her brother s wife s death there, and
never expected to come back, I wrote to a New
York firm and had them pack all her stuff and
send it out after her. I know that she took noth
ing but a steamer-trunk, for the postmaster told
me so ; and I know that everything was cleaned
out of the barn, because the bill was very large
but the man gave it especial care, he said, and
packed all the large pieces separately. I have his
receipts and the freight-receipts from Australia.
His name was Slide."
"Of Slide & Bumpus?" Susy cried breath
lessly.
"Why, yes, I believe that was the firm," said
Mr. Carmichael.
214
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"It was Mr. Bumpus that moved us!" she gasp
ed. "Isn t that strange!"
"It s all strange," he agreed wearily, "all very
strange, indeed ! Everybody seems very business
like and clear from blame but where is my furni
ture? Brundage got hers, you have yours; I
have proof that Slide only took out of the town
what corresponds to the freight-receipts. What
became of mine ? Who brought all that rickety
lumber and stuck it about in my house?"
He looked helplessly from one to the other,
but they could only shake their heads.
"Did you write to Mrs. Brundage?" Bell asked
at length.
"The poor old lady never read it," he answered;
she died very soon after she got there. But her
brother wrote me a very good letter, thanking
me for the things, which came in very useful, he
said. So I know they got theirs. I took the
entire charge of them, you see. They filled the
barn, nearly, Slide wrote me. Brundage left her
well off, I suppose."
Bell put the end of her apron into her mouth
and chewed it vigorously, a habit which always
accompanied unusual mental excitement with her.
"Would that brother know what her things
looked like?" she demanded.
I don t know ... he hardly could, though, for
215
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
he moved to New South Wales when he was a mere
lad, now I think of it, long before Brundage mar
ried," Mr. Carmichael replied, far from resenting
this catechism it seemed, and only grateful, ap
parently, for the interest it implied.
"Then do you know what I think?" Bell burst
out, cramming quite an appreciable proportion of
her apron into her mouth, and articulating with
a corresponding elocutionary effect.
No. What ?" Mr. Carmichael responded dully.
He seemed beyond theorizing himself, so dazed
had the facts left him.
"I believe," Bell announced triumphantly,
"that Mrs. Brundage was living with her own
furniture all along, and stored your things in the
barn, unbeknown to you, and that it was them
you had boxed and sent to the brother! And if
she left hurried, she never had time to change
em! And the brother never knew!"
"And these things are hers!" Susy added eager
ly, "the crayons and Niagara and the bamboo
chairs."
Mr. Carmichael stared at Bell as at an oracle;
his short-sighted eyes positively started from their
sockets.
"Then my furniture my sideboard my hall
seat my Morlands are in Australia!" he moaned.
"I ll bet you a dollar they are!" the nurse an-
216
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
swered, pursing her lips from which she re
moved the apron firmly.
"Heavens above!" said Mr. Carmichael.
The two women maintained a sympathetic si
lence; even Bell s loquacity failed before such
misfortune. The very sounds from the kitchen
had ceased, and they regarded each other in the
midst of an unnatural quiet, which was broken
suddenly by the irritable bleat of Mildred, tethered
near the house for the purpose of cropping the
lower lawn. As the goat s flat, discontented cry
shivered across to them, Mr. Carmichael drew his
hand over his forehead.
"Brundage has a sheep-ranch in Australia," he
remarked bitterly. "Perhaps he keeps the wool
in my carved oak wedding-chests!"
They shook their heads respectfully, and again
silence fell. Now a gentle rattling was heard and
the crack of a whip, and presently a loud, long
bray announced that Cousin Albert was at the
kitchen door with his load of vegetables from the
garden. Mr. Carmichael drew a heavy, sighing
breath.
"Poor old Brundage!" he said sadly. "She
used to drive me in a donkey-cart."
It occurred to Susy that the associations of
their home were not likely, at this rate, to raise
their guest s spirits, and she began to pick up
217
THE BIOGRAPNY Of A BOY
the china briskly, motioning Bell, .whose sym
pathetic nature was fast sinking into gloom, to
help her.
"Of course, you know, Mr. Carmichael, Bell s
idea may be entirely wrong," she began, "and
your things may be somewhere else. We can t
be sure."
"My dear Mrs. Wilbour," he said solemnly,
"there is no more doubt in my mind at this mo
ment as to the whereabouts of that furniture than
than oh, well, there s no doubt about it at all!
That s why Slide wrote that the pieces were heavy
and difficult to crate of course they were ! There
were four pine -apple beds and an enormous
mahogany dining - table. Those wedding - chests
alone Well, well, I must get right back and
tell Mrs. Carmichael. She ll feel terribly ter
ribly. I really don t know how she ll take it-
she s not as self-possessed as I am, you know-
not nearly! More excitable. Dear, dear, dear!"
He bustled about the room nervously, alter
nately clapping his straw hat on his head and re
moving it, while the two women watched him
curiously. It seemed, somehow, that they had
known Mr. Carmichael a long time.
Nor did this impression fade on making the
further acquaintance of his family. Mrs. Car
michael was a merry, bird-like little person, equal-
218
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
ly at home in lodgings in Vienna, a house-boat on
the Hudson, an Adirondack camp, or a country
farm-house. Their little daughter Ursula had
lived in all these places, and of her six years no
two had been passed in the same surroundings.
She, like her mother, was an ardent Christian
Scientist, and was first seen by Tom and Susy on
the occasion of their initial call gravely spelling
out from the somewhat cryptic volume of that
faith dark sentences directed to the healing of a
large yellow An
gora cat, who lay
coughing and
choking doleful
ly beside her. To
any one accus
tomed to his spe
cies, it was per
fectly evident
that he was suf
fering from an accumulation of hair -balls, due
to an unreasonable attention to his toilet, but
the teaspoonful of butter recommended by Susy,
219
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
who had extended first aid to the injured for
many years to just such a cat in her sister s
house, was received with such scorn that the
visitors fled hastily to the veranda, where wicker
furniture, light grass-rugs and cool awnings strove
to mitigate the interior decorations now known
as "poor Brundage s horrors." Now that they
were thus classified, strangely enough, they ceased
to annoy the Carmichaels, who, released from any
responsibility in connection with them, began to
find them more amusing than otherwise, and
pointed them out, with a variety of interested
comment, to their guests.
Mr. Carmichael was engaged, though not, as
Tom remarked, to the point of nervous prostra
tion by any means, in the fire-insurance business.
It was evidently not an exigent occupation, for it
left him free to spend most of his time in scouring
the country in quest of old furniture, for which
he had the scent of a bloodhound, unearthing
choice bits from the most unlikely places, and re
storing them, in a completely equipped carpenter s
shop which he had established in the barn, with
the skill of a cabinet-maker. He was extremely
fond of children, and took a great fancy to Martin,
whom he carried about with him on his trips,
took to every country circus within a radius of
twenty miles (little Ursula walking or driving
220
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
gravely between them, with a hand given to each)
and instructed in the mysteries of fishing, egg col
lecting, and camping, till the boy became his de
voted admirer and slave, quoting him at every
turn, and falling so completely under his in
fluence that Susy must inevitably have grown
jealous had she not been so wrapped up in her
new farming interests, and become accustomed,
moreover, to Martin s absence from the family
circle of late, through his new school-life and his
growing independence. Thomas, always less dif
ficult to manage and more openly affectionate,
was rapidly taking his older brother s place, and
it was he who followed her about now from
stable to garden, from garden to cellar, while
Martin boiled the gypsy kettle and hunted sum
mer apples with the roving Carmichaels along
every lane in the country, and Mrs. Carmichael
plunged into village politics and lobbied tirelessly
in the interests of rural free - delivery, district
nursing, road repairs, and school-boards.
It was a great disappointment to poor Susy
that none of these new neighbors had turned out
in the least as she had planned. From one of the
earliest land -owners in that part of the country
she had expected unlimited assistance, advice, and
co-operation in the details of what Tom called her
"return to the soil"; and lo! the people most
223
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
fitted to guide her deliberately evaded their op
portunities, and presented the spectacle of such
complete detachment from their surroundings as
to amaze even the least enthusiastic suburbanite.
When Susy drove over to ask advice as to a
milk-room from the daughter-in-law of the owner
of the famous Carmichael Jerseys, whose exhibi
tions in butter, milk, and cheese had stripped
county fairs of all their blue ribbons, she found
her telephoning to one of the large New York
dairy companies for extra cream, and all her
guest s horrified expostulations and reminiscences
of the neat, whitewashed cellar - compartment
under their feet brought forth only a tolerant
smile from the bright, wren-like eyes.
"My dear girl," she replied good-naturedly,
hanging up the receiver and beginning a postal
card to her poultry- man in Washington Market,
"I ve been all through this, you know. There s
no harm in it, if you can afford it, but we re saving
for Ursula s college education, you see, and ever
since I gave up farming my hair has kept brown-
there, over my ear, it grew white, when I took an
interest in the milk."
"Now you re silly, Edith."
"Silly, my dear? That shows how little you
know. I m quite in earnest. Shall I ever forget
those awful pails and pails and pails of milk when
224
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
nobody wanted any, and then how we had to
beg a pint from these horrid country milkmen
when poor baby was literally starving? And
when one saw their barnyards ugh All the
cows dry at once, or else all too young to milk,
and not a servant who d take care of it or knew
how, anyway
"But you must have had the old mother cows,"
Susy argued.
"Yes, indeed, we had them," Mrs. Carmichael
agreed promptly, "but what good was that?
Every heifer we had married above her station,
as you may say quite advantageously, you know
and so her babies were high-grade stock, and
she had to be sold and we had the babies to raise.
What did that mean ? Calf-meal and hominy and
skim-milk, my dear. And every heifer more and
more particular, till Matthew wouldn t look at
anything less than a prize-winner to marry her
to! And of course that was all right, from one
point of view. But it took one man, for the cows
alone. Father Carmichael sunk a small fortune
in his dairy. Take my advice, my dear if you
go beyond one cow, you re lost."
Susy sighed uneasily.
"It s perfectly true that we haven t had any
cream this summer, it s been so dry," she admitted.
"And won t have, till you order a pint a day
is 225
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
from the Highfield Dairy Farm," said Mrs. Car-
michael cheerfully. "We have it a lot in sum
mer; it costs less than feeding the cows through
the winter Oh, Mat, Mat! Stop the vegetable
man, won t you? He s going out, and I didn t
tell Hulda about the tomatoes!"
Mr. Carmichael, with Martin hanging by one
hand, Ursula swinging on the other, and a beau
tiful little inlaid table strapped to his shoulders,
sent a cheerful hail in the direction of the lanky
figure in a soiled linen-duster, bowed over on the
high seat in front of his baskets.
"Be aisy with em now, Eph, and if you can t
be aisy, w r hy be as aisy as you can," he admon
ished the peddler good-humoredly, as the man,
with a sly glance at Susy, began to explain how
little he made on such trifling sales as his, and
how his business had barely paid him this year.
"It s too bad about you, Eph it really is. I ve
felt so for years (you know this table s pure Sher
aton, Deedy ; I got it for a dollar and a quarter) .
The only thing I can t understand is why you ve
kept in the business so long. Just living for
others, I suppose. They say there s a lot in it,
once you get started, and by George, Eph, you
make me believe it! I remember you telling my
mother once why you couldn t sell currants any
cheaper by the crate than the basket, the year
226
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
our bushes didn t bear. The good woman died
convinced that she d sent you to the poorhouse!"
Eph grinned consciously.
"I was awful fond o your mother, Mr. Car-
michael, an that s a sure thing," he said, piling
peaches busily from one basket into another.
"Sorry, Mis Carmichael, but peaches is riz since
last week. Up-state crop all gone, y know.
Six cents a basket is every bit I get there ain t
nothing into it, really, f r me."
Mr. Carmichael sighed sympathetically.
"There it is again!" he said. "You ought to
have a monument put up for you, Eph, you cer
tainly ought. And the same with all you people
around here. You re too generous too forgetful
of your own interests! If I didn t know about
your daughter at the Normal School, and your
son s motor-cycle, and that last mortgage you
bought up, I d feel you ought to get at least
seven cents on our peaches! Look out for the
specked ones, Deedy!"
Eph chuckled admiringly.
"There ain t much gets by you, I bet, Mr. Car
michael," he said, cheerfully, " y ain t back two
months yet, and up with all the gossip. But
that s yer mother, all over again. I ll never for
get the good turn she done me, though, that year
the crows ate my corn twice runnin d you
227
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
member that ? Reg lar pest of em, there was
that year. If I got five bushel, I done well, an
two plantin s at that. The children was little
then, an couldn t be left, an your mother she
says t m wife: You send em right over to me,
Ali da, an I ll look after em in the wash-house
while I m preservin , an you c n go help Eph scare
off those crows.
You ll never get
any corn any oth
er w r ay.
A sight of
preservin your
mother did, Mr.
Carmichael."
I think she
canned every
thing but grass,"
said Mrs. Car
michael with a
sigh.
"I guess that s so," the vegetable man assented.
Member that year the moles got under your
melon hills, Mr. Carmichael, and et ev ry last
one ? Poor ol Mis Carmichael I c n see her
now, leanin over her porch railin an tellin me
about it.
I feel to give up ground fruit altogether, Eph,
228
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
she says t me, it s terribly discouragin ! Over
an above the fondness of Mr. Carmichael for
melons, I had so counted on the rinds for pre
serves! But moles was something fierce that
year, an that s a fact."
Susy frowned uneasily.
"There seem to have been a great many bad
years for different things in this part of the
country," she observed, with a questioning glance
at the vegetable man.
He smiled amusedly at the others.
"Why, bless your heart, ma am," he returned
tolerantly, " tain t this part o th country, per-
ticklerly. Crops is the dickens, anywhere. That s
why I give em up and bought di-rect from Noo
York I d a darn sight ruther depend on Fulton
Market than Providence, as I tell my wife. It s
more regular, s you might say."
Mr. Carmichael chuckled appreciatively, and
remarked tentatively, as Eph marked down his
day s sales in a dingy blank-book and adjusted
the old sail-cloth over his fruit :
"Mrs. Wilbour s thinking of going into farm
ing a little, Eph that s why she s interested."
"You don t say so!" said the vegetable man,
heartily, "well, that s good, now. There s fine
land about here, ma am, and that piece you ve
bought, down by the post-road, old Deacon Car-
229
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
michael prized very high, I c n tell you. 1 only
wish somebody d give me as many bar ls o
potatoes as the old gentleman put bar ls o
fertilizer onto that southwest field o yours ! Well,
I must be gettin on," and his old horse adjusted
herself to her particular loping gait.
Susy scowled and stared coldly at the pure
Sheraton table, dangled temptingly before her
by its proud owner.
"I think people in the country are simply dis
gusting," she declared. "They re perfect hypo
crites that s all they are! First they tell you
all the horrid things they can think of, and then
in the next breath advise you to go ahead ! Myron
Plummer is just like that, exactly."
"Well, that is a fine piece of land Wilbour
bought," Mr. Carmichael urged, "and as Eph
says, grandfather did a lot for it. It s fine
pasture."
"Yes, and why did you sell your share in it,
then?" Susy demanded quickly. "You won t
even keep one horse and with all your land,
too."
"Not while I can sell as well as I did that
piece, and rent the rest," he returned comfort
ably, "not while the liveryman will keep a horse
and buggy for me for twenty-five dollars a month,
and send it up half a dozen times a day if I want
230
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
it. / don t want to lie awake nights thinking up
things to keep Myron Plummer busy no, thanks."
"Susy wants ehickens," Mrs. Carmichael ob
served, producing a pocket-camera and dexter
ously taking a snapshot of Martin and Ursula,
who leaned effectively against the vine -covered
stone posts of the entrance-gate.
Her husband turned a pitying glance on Susy.
"Does she, really?" he asked. "Well, well,
well! I do beg and pray that you won t discuss
it with her, Deedy. Chickens are like measles:
they ve got to be had, and you might as well get
it over. What good did reasoning do you ?
What good did it do when I showed you mother s
chicken-book and the amount she sunk in em?
Father always said he could have bought the land
the court-house stands on if it hadn t been for
mother s chickens!"
"Oh yes," Susy burst out, "but your mother
bought fancy stock and bred prize-winners that s
different. Now, if you take just two or three
dozen ordinary fowls "
"My poor child," said Mr. Carmichael kindly,
"don t waste your breath don t! You see, I ve
been all through this. If my mother hadn t made
a success of two or three dozen ordinary fowls,
you would have promptly replied that it was be
cause she didn t go into it scientifically and im-
231
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
prove the breed! Oh, I know you! There s only
one way to get the chicken fever out of your
system, and that s to have em. There s an in
cubator out in the old wash-house I ll sell it to
you cheap."
"I don t want it," she answered scornfully,
"incubators are foolish. Wherever we visit that
they have them it s all they talk about, and the
waitress or the coachman or the poor host him
self has to jump up and lower the heat or open
some slide every other minute. No; two or three
dozen ordinary
"That s all right," he interrupted firmly, I
know all about that. But I ll bet you here and
now whatever you pay me for the incubator that
you buy it, just the same."
"I heard her asking Myron Plummer about
turkeys yesterday," pursued Mrs. Carmichael
maliciously.
"Turkeys!"
Mr. Carmichael s eyes bulged in amazement.
"For the Lord s sake! Well, you are going it!
Does Wilbour expect to get the Sugar Trust into
his corporation work, may I ask? He ll need it."
"But nobody raises them now around here,"
poor Susy began defensively, "and they ought
to pay, the Suburban Home says."
"Of course nobody raises em," he said, im-
232
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
patiently, "and why not? Think a bit, Mrs.
Wilbour. If it paid, wouldn t they? Do you
know that, next to the horse and the cow and the
hen and the pig, the turkey is the most skittish
of God s creatures ? Do you know that they hate
you and despise you and get laryngitis purposely,
and croup, and have to wear rubbers in the spring
and mufflers in winter ? Do you know that they
can fly miles and demonstrate their abilities
early and often ? Do you know
"Oh, well, I never meant to get them this year,
anyhow," said Susy hurriedly. "And all those
things aren t true of ducks, you can t say that!
Anybody can keep ducks, Myron says."
Mr. Carmichael shook his head hopelessly.
"Oh, all right, ail right!" he cried despairingly,
"go on your own way! Just ask Myron, from me,
w r hose ducks he means, that s all! Of course,
somebody must keep all the ducks that run away,
so perhaps Myron means that he has his eye on
some special brood! I never could keep them,
but that s because they always liked somebody
else s pond better. Around here they don t say
keep ducks they say raise ducks, you ll
notice. That means they raise the price for
neighbors boys to hunt them up."
"Nonsense!" Susy declared bravely, "they re
cheap."
233
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"Of course they re cheap," he returned de
risively. "They re cheap in the first place, be
cause, if you have any sense, you don t buy them
you wait till somebody else s come on your
property. They re cheap after that, because
they re not there. Those are the only cheap
ducks, Mrs. Wilbour somebody else s!"
Susy put out her lower lip.
"Come, Martin, we must go," she said decided
ly. "Say good-bye to Ursula and come directly.
I sha n t believe in anything if I stay here any
longer."
"Oh yes, you will," the cynic shot at her as
she left the gate, "yes, you will, dear lady you ll
believe in the Adams Ex
press Company : it s the best
thing about the country!"
VIII
WHICH DEALS WITH A LITTLE SCIENCE AND A
GREAT DEAL OF HEALTH
HEI\ T you re not going, Tom?"
Susy looked doubtfully at her hus
band.
"Not going? I tell you, I can t
go, Susy. It s not that I m not
perfectly willing to, but I must be in court at
eleven. So how can I?"
"Well, but, Tom, the funeral isn t till half-past
two, and you said yourself you expected to be
through at one."
Mr. Wilbour shouldered into his rubber coat
discontentedly.
"It s pouring," he said shortly.
235
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"I know. But just think, dear; suppose he
should have left something to Martin Aunt Em
ma insists that he has just think how it will
look!"
"But I m not named after him," Tom argued
sulkily.
"Oh, Tom, you re as bad as Martin, every bit!
You talk just like him, sometimes."
"My dear girl, if you knew how I hated funer
als! And Aunt Em is perfectly morbid about
it she ll insist on going to the grave if she goes
in a canoe!"
Well, what if she does ? It s not as if you went
to one every week I must say, Tom, I think
you re awfully childish about it. And Martin
named after him
"It wasn t particularly after him, Susy. I ve
told you before. It s an old family name, and
there were too many Thomases, and I ve always
been rather proud of that first old boy Martin
the first. Uncle Mart just happened to be the
one in that generation. I didn t like to see it
die out, that s all. I never saw Uncle Mart half
a dozen times in my life. And a rain like
this"
"Oh, the rain!"
"That s all very well, Susan Wilbour " Tom
struck an attitude and brandished an umbrella
236
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
menacingly but you listen to me and mark my
words : I am not going to carry a frock-
coat in and change in the office, you know.
Neither will I put on that idiotic black tie some
body left out on my chifTonnier. If I do go, I ll
go as I am. And there s only one possible train
to Englewood I can get. And as far as going to
the grave goes, I can tell you here and now that
while I am willing to risk anything up to and
including bronchitis for the heathen rites known
as a family funeral, I draw the line at double
or single pneumonia. Do I make myself
clear?"
"Oh yes, you make yourself clear enough.
He s not my uncle, anyway. It s no affair of
mine. But, as I say, if he should have remem
bered Martin
"If I m named after him, why can t I go to the
funeral ?"
A third voice entered the conversation, for
whose somewhat strained tone the sleety October
rain must be regarded as largely responsible, and
the eldest of the Wilbour children sauntered into
the hall.
"Nonsense!" said Tom shortly. "Why aren t
you at school ? Or are you waiting to drive in
with me ? You d better stir a little lively, my
lad I ve lost one train already."
2 37
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
"Oh, I m not going to school," said Martin
placidly. "I m talking about the funeral. Can t
I go, mother? Where is he going to leave me
Uncle Mart, I mean. Bell said he d leave me
somewhere, she thought."
"Now you see, Susy, the result of this indis
criminate chatter about a thing that s in bad
taste enough, anyhow, "Tom began majestically.
"I don t approve of this sort of thing at all. No
one is going to leave you anywhere, Binks, unless
I leave you behind this minute. Get your books
and hurry."
"But I m not going to school, father. There
isn t any school."
Tom stopped in the middle of turning up his
trousers, but Susy anticipated his remarks.
"As a matter of fact, Tom, there isn t," she
interposed hastily. "There were eight cases of
mumps yesterday morning, and I ve heard of two
more since. They ve closed it was the only
sensible thing to do. I ll explain it later. Do
hurry, or you ll miss this one!"
Tom kissed her hastily, and dived through the
chilly sleet to the shelter of Myron Plummer s
covered station wagon, where all previous argu
ments melted into the brief he devoured all the
way to his office.
His case was successful, and the rain had sub-
238
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
sided before he met Myron again, but even these
ameliorations were not quite sufficient to account
for the quiet satisfaction of his manner at dinner,
where, relieved of his damp clothes, comforted
with roast chicken, his favorite salad, and a fluffy
apple-dumpling, and insensibly soothed and sur
rounded by the sweetness of Susy s demeanor
(she had assumed a new tea-gown, and felt that
she had been unreasonably insistent in a matter
which really concerned her husband and his sense
of duty far more than herself) he settled himself
to his black coffee and a twisted light - brown
cigar from a very special box, and leaned back,
smiling at his wife.
"Well, Tootsie, what do you think has hap
pened, after all?" he asked.
Why, I don t know, dear what do you mean ?
(I think I ll do the next dozen plain, with just
one big initial in the centre, wouldn t you ?) Are
you going to get that railroad case?"
"Possibly there s a chance. But that s not
it. Aunt Em was right about the old gentleman,
Toots."
"The old gentleman?" Susy had completely
forgotten the morning s conversation by now, and
held her embroidery at arm s-length to catch the
effect, serene in the knowledge that the window-
screens were at last down, dusted, and put away,
16 241
nib BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
the wood-cellar neatly filled, the driveways trim
med and raked, and the place generally in order
for the winter.
"Yes, Uncle Mart. He left Binks quite a little
sum."
"Oh, Tom! How good how much?"
"What do you think?"
"Why, dearest, how can I tell? As much as
a a thousand ? Not that he needed to, of course,
but Aunt Em says he could well afford it."
"Oh, dear me, yes, he could afford a lot if he d
wanted he cut up very well. But he split it up
among a lot of fool missionary societies and a
college in India."
"Then it wasn t a thousand?"
"No o it was more."
"Oh, Tom!"
"It was quite a lot more."
"Tom!"
"It was ten."
"Ten thousand ? Tommy, really ? Oh, dearest,
what a pity you didn t go, after all! Though
of course you couldn t have possibly known I
don t mean that ..."
Tom gazed at her with the never-failing amuse
ment that ten years contemplation of her mental
processes still afforded him. He shook his head
silently for a few seconds, then spoke.
242
TOM KISSED HER HASTILY AXU DIVED THROUGH THE SLEET
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
"But I did go," he remarked easily. "How
did you think I knew all about it? I did go."
Oh, did you ? How good of you Tom, I am
pleased! It didn t really matter about the grave,
of course
"But I went there, too."
She patted his knee enthusiastically.
"And I was so cross!" she murmured con
tritely. "I do hope you haven t caught cold!
And as busy as you are, they couldn t have ex
pected you to dress
"But I did," he assured her patiently. "I did
dress. Aunt Em came to the office to go with
me, and I was explaining that I hadn t any place
to change, and that new clerk we ve got he s
just about my size and awfully anxious to make
good with the firm said he could fit me out in
a minute, he had the frock he d worn to a wed
ding in a suit -case, and I changed in his room,
and he went out and got me a tie and gloves.
Aunt Em was pleased, and my silk hat was there,
anyway."
"Tommy Wilbour, how lovely!" Susy sat
upon his knee and kissed him warmly, while he
stared at the ridiculous color in her cheeks.
"Well, what do you think of that?" he begged,
finally, addressing the fire, apparently, and en
deavoring to take her ruffling of his side hair in
245
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
the spirit in which it was meant. "What do you
think of that ? I believe, Susan Wilbour, you are
more pleased that I packed myself into Hill s
vest than that Binks has ten thousand of his own !
It must be darn queer to be a woman!"
"Not at all, Tom you don t understand. I m
delighted about the money, of course. Think of
it ten thousand! How pleased Aunt Emma
must be! But it would have been so unfeeling
if, after all, that
"I had worn a dark-green tie? I suppose so.
The other legatees would have broken the will by
now, undoubtedly. But it was decent of the old
gentleman, wasn t it, now? He said he appre
ciated the way we d felt about the name, and,
from all he d heard, Binks was safe to be a chip
of the old block. Aunt Em wrote him all about
that turning-the-other-cheek business, it seems,
and he wrote back to her that it did all three of
us credit you and me and Binks, he meant and
that he d had a good laugh over it."
"What shall we do with it, Tom? Put it in
the bank or invest
"My bank is busted," a quiet voice inter
polated, "and, anyway, I d rather buy a ranch
in Australia. I know of a good one. Did you
bring the money home? Shall I be called Uncle
Mart now?"
246
" AUNT EM WAS PLEASED
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
They started nervously, for they had supposed
themselves alone in the room; and yet it would
have been manifestly unfair to accuse a person
of sly eavesdropping who lay placidly at full
length on a rug not two feet away from them,
his head supported by his elbows, a large book
under his nose.
"The way you keep quiet lately, Martin, is
simply nerve-racking!" his mother exclaimed un
easily. "You just appear in places, like Indians
and ghosts and burglars! I can t see why it is
that boys either walk like a an avalanche, or
else glide about the w r ay you do nowadays!"
Martin looked gratified.
"If I was an Indian, you d be dead before you
knew it, wouldn t you?" he asked cheerfully. "I
practise it nights, barefooted. I think I ought
to have gone to that funeral, though. Bell said
a black tie wouldn t have been much of an ex
pense, and twould have shown respect."
Tom stiffened angrily in his chair.
"Really, Susy," he began, "I must say that
Bell occasionally forgets
"But, Tom, dear, just think how long she s
been here! She feels like one of the family, you
know. And she ll be so glad about Martin s
money."
Tom sighed resignedly.
249
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"Then I know what she ll do," he declared:
"she ll burst into tears and say she had him from
the bottle!"
"She does that every once in a while now,"
Martin added thoughtfully. "Bell acts awful
funny nowadays. But I think I might have
gone to that funeral."
"There, there, Binks, don t talk any more
about it."
Tom s tone was good-natured but decided, and
Martin returned contentedly enough to his book;
the incident was apparently closed.
But the mischievous little imp that haunts the
mother of small children (his name is "Why-let-
well-enough-alone?") prompted Susy to her un
doing, and with the kindest intention in the
world she leaned over and patted her son s
shoulder.
"Little boys don t go to funerals, dear," she
said. "They re not very pleasant. Father had
to go, but he didn t really want to he didn t
enjoy it."
"Father don t like chocolate-cake," Binks re
turned, a slight shade of resentment in his tone;
"but I do, as it happens."
Now such an apparently irrelevant remark from
Thomas would have produced no result, conver
sationally ; his communications were of tener than
250
"SHE LL SAY SHE HAD HIM FROM THE BOTTLE
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
not of this slightly jerky character, and only the
funniest of them provoked discussion in a family
circle sated with his peculiar form of repartee.
But Martin was, if anything, painfully adult of
late in his grasp of social situations, and such an
inconsecutive answer had all the effect, from him,
that it w r ould have had from any one two feet
taller.
"Chocolate-cake!" Susy echoed vaguely.
"And the phonograph, too," Martin went on,
a distinct grievance now audible in his voice. "I
know he don t like that, either, but I do I love
em; and that s why I think I might have gone
and him stayed home. Marches especially. You
hear the drum and everything."
Tom scowled with pardonable confusion.
"What s the matter with you, Binks, any
way?" he demanded. "You re talking non
sense. Nobody said anything about chocolate-
cakes or phonographs, though it s quite true I
detest them both. But they have nothing to do
with funerals."
Martin cocked his head knowingly. "Oh,
haven t they?" he said with a sly satisfaction,
adding impudently, "but they have, as it hap
pens."
"I must say, Susy, that of all the things that
boy has picked up lately, as it happens is the
253
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
most tiresome," Tom complained irritably. "It
seems to me he says nothing else. You don t
know what you re talking about, Martin you ve
got funerals mixed up with some other form of
social dissipation, I assure you. It s quite true
that odd things are seen there, occasionally, but
the two you mention are among the last I should
look for. I think I ll put the money in Hart-
well s Trust Company, dear. The old fellow will
be pleased as Punch to begin with, you know,
and then, it wouldn t be a bad thing, anyhow."
"The funeral I went to there was chocolate-
cake and the biggest horn - thing I ever saw on
a phonograph how do they get that talk into
the phonograph, father?"
"Why, Martin, you never went to a funeral.
You mustn t be so obstinate, dear, it annoys
father. You mean the strawberry festival fes
tival, not funeral," Susy admonished.
Martin closed his book definitely and sat up
cross-legged on the rug, his jaw set firmly, the
light of battle in his eye.
"If you say that again, you ll be contradicting,"
he began forcefully. "When I say funeral, I
mean funeral. A strawberry festival is ten cents
a plate for children and only one piece of cake.
A funeral, you get all you want. At the festival
you had to pay five cents, and the phonograph
254
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
was all talking a darkey and an Irishman and
a dog having a fight. At the funeral, it was just
music. And a woman that sang, too."
"Whose funeral was it, Binks?" Tom asked
quietly.
"Whose? Whose?" Martin repeated in a puz
zled tone. "What do you mean? Who owned
it ? God, I suppose. You can t own a funeral,
can you?"
"Father means, who had died?" Susy explained
tremulously, but he still looked puzzled.
"I didn t see any one dying," he said thought
fully, "everybody was alive that was in the
library and the dining-room, too. There were
some stuffed birds on the top shelf, though."
"There, you see," Susy burst out in relieved
tones, "it s all a mistake you went to some
party or reception, dear. Funerals always have
there has to be oh, dear, Tom, how horrid!
But I suppose he ll have to see a coffin some day."
"Oh, I know all about coffins," Martin assured
her tolerantly, "there was one came next door
to the school last week, when the cook died, and
the man let me bury one of the boys in it. He
buried me, next. It was in that wagon with little
doors in the back. The cook was so fat they
couldn t carry her down the back stairs. It was
at recess-time they came, and all of us ran round
255
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
to the back porch window you could see beau
tifully!"
"Oh, Tom!" his mother gasped.
"But this was a funeral it was different," he
pursued instructively. "They had tea at one
end of the dining-room table and chocolate at the
other. With whipped cream. Ursula and I had
two cups each. Don t you remember, I brought
you some flowers that day? They were from
there. They had lots and lots of flowers."
"I believe he s been to one of Edith s Christian
Science funerals, Tom!" Susy exclaimed sudden
ly. "You know they don t have any any
"Any corpse?" Tom suggested ironically, to
be quite honestly overwhelmed by her simple
affirmative.
When she added, deprecatingly, "And really,
in a great many ways, dear, it must be much
pleasanter for everybody . . ." he burst into
unrestrained mirth.
"Especially for the one that didn t die I be
lieve you!" he assured her. "I d a lot rather not
be dead at my funeral, if you ask me. I d prefer
even chocolate-cake and a phonograph. But do
you think, seriously, Toots, that this sort of thing
is good for Binks?"
We ell " Susy poked her contemplative dim
ple with its customary finger "I don t just know
256
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
what to do, dear. He s over there all the time
he s perfectly devoted to Ursula, you know and
I can t quite tell him to believe almost everything
he hears there, but not that sort of thing, can I ?
You see, Mr. Carmichael doesn t have anything
to do with it it s only Edith and Ursula. And
they are certainly very well they re hardly ever
sick, you must admit."
"But so is Carmichael, isn t he?"
"Well, yes, I suppose so."
"Then why must I admit anything?"
Susy removed the customary finger and as
sumed the expression of one about to clear her
mind.
"Yes, I know," she said thoughtfully, "and I
must say that when it s a case of contagious
disease it s pretty hard on the rest of us. It was
Ursula s mumps, you know, that closed Martin s
school."
"No!"
"Yes. Didn t I tell you about it? Martin,
kiss father good-night now, and start up-stairs."
"I know more about Science than father does,
if you re going to talk about that," grumbled
Martin, "and I don t see why I can t sit up till
after nine o clock when I m more than nine
years old ! Ursula eats her whole dinner with the
family not just vegetables, and if the pudding
257
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
is plain. Her mother says you waste a lot of
time worrying about mine and Thomas s stum-
micks: if you d just declare the truth and have
a little trust, the Divine Love would take care
of our stummicks all right!"
Susy gasped.
"Don t say stummicks, Martin stomachs,"
she began uncertainly.
"Perhaps that s part of the system," Tom sug
gested coldly. "I notice the Divine Love, by-the-
way, didn t do much for Carmichael s stomach
that night the fish was off color he was far the
worst of any of us."
"Father Carmichael just spreads error all the
time you can t do anything with him!" Martin
explained eagerly. "He promised Ursula she
could treat him from four to five for that fish,
and he d just be quiet, and then at five o clock he
was all well and went out for a walk, and Mother
Carmichael was so glad, and all the while the up
stairs clock had stopped, and it was from five to
six they were really treating him. So Mother
Carmichael was cross, and Ursula s about given
him up, she says."
Tom chuckled.
"Good-night, Binks," he said abruptly, and Mar
tin, with many backward and appealing glances,
dragged himself reluctantly from the room.
258
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"The maddening part of it was," Susy resumed
easily, "that Ursula really had the lightest case
of mumps I ever heard of. She gave them to lots
of children in the school, and so they really had
to close. They had them hard, too. But she
was really hardly uncomfortable. I thought Edith
was quite unreasonable about it, for she knew all
the while she had them when she sent her."
Knew ?" Tom queried reprovingly. I thought
there was no such thing in that lingo no mumps,
nor anything else."
"Oh, well, there s not, in one way," Susy an
swered vaguely, "but whatever she may believe
as a Christian Scientist, of course as a a person,
you know ... I mean, everybody knows what
mumps are."
"That seems to be the difficulty," Tom said
dryly. "It might have been very unpleasant if
it had been scarlet fever, for instance. They
ought to live in a town together, then nobody d
care a a hurrah what they declared or spread
or claimed. But it s harder on the benighted
unbeliever, as a matter of fact, than anything
since the Inquisition."
"You do put things so strongly, Tom!"
"That s all right; but I never happened to have
had the mumps, Susan Wilbour, and I can tell
you here and now that I m not anxious to begin.
17 259
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
And it s simply ridiculous to hear Binks pattering
off all that nonsense. I want it stopped."
"That s all very well, Tom, but what are we
going to do ? You talk as if he was a baby or
Thomas. When he was little I always knew
where he was and what he was doing, but it s dif
ferent now. He s at school all day, and off with
Mr. Carmichael and Ursula Saturdays, and often
Sundays, for that matter; and that s certainly
better than being with those rough boys that
play ball up the road. Of course, I don t approve
of all of Edith s ideas, but the trouble is, he isn t
old enough to explain all that to; don t you see?
Why, Tom, I don t know what Martin is thinking
any more! He s so quiet, and he just closes his
lips and walks off; but he doesn t even trouble to
argue, sometimes. It s just like anybody else ..."
"I see." Tom looked thoughtfully at his wife.
"You mean he s an individual."
"Yes, that s what I mean," she said, relieved.
"He s a a regular person, now. And he likes
different people. I don t care for Ursula much,
myself of course, I don t pretend to know any
thing about girls but she seems so self-con
scious and managing to me. But Martin adores
her: everything she does is right. / should think
she d be very hard to live with."
Tom chuckled.
260
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
k
"You talk like a prospective mother-in-law,"
he warned her. "Look out! You may be living
with her yet."
"Never!" Susy cried with spirit. "Please don t
talk so, Tom! It s it s awful!"
"Oh, she s a good enough little thing! You
exaggerate her bad points. Carmichael will
knock all that nonsense out of her." And Mar-
261
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
tin s financial windfall renewed their happy
plans.
But the next Sunday, when they lunched with
the Carmichaels, he sympathized more fully with
Susy than he had expected to. On entering the
hall, which to Susy s never-ending discomfort still
presented Niagara by Moonlight and the offensive
bamboo easel to astonished guests, they had en
countered Ursula weeping silently by the big
yellow cat, who lay, extended limply on a hideous
Brussels rug, in a doubtful state of recovery from
what had evidently proved a more than un
usually serious indisposition.
"I suppose you re declaring the truth ?"
Susy began disgustedly.
The child nodded mutely and stared fixedly at
her pet, whose tawny sides heaved distressfully.
"Now, Ursula, I tell you plainly and for the
last time," Susy went on firmly, kneeling by the
exhausted animal and lifting its eyelid with a
practised hand, "unless Cassar gets something
done for him, he s going to die, and you won t
have any cat any more. You re old enough to
understand that perfectly, and I made up my
mind the last time that never again would I
work over him with butter and brandy and warm
blankets, only to have you say, \vhen I brought
him round, that he had begun to be better just
262
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
as I came, and that you had demonstrated on
him it s too ridiculous! I felt so sorry for the
poor animal that I didn t care how sneaky you
were about it, but I m not going to play that
game any more. If you want Cassar cured this
time, you ve got to ask me to do it, and admit
afterward that I did do it, and promise you ll try
to feed him properly after this and remember his
olive-oil every week. Now, will you?"
Ursula looked stubborn.
"God made Cassar," she said.
"Very well," Susy returned impatiently, "and
God made you, too, I suppose ; but if your stom
ach was all full of little balls of hair, the way I
told you Cassar s was, you d find that nothing
but castor-oil would get them out."
The cat stretched feebly and turned a glazed
eye upon his little mistress. Ursula snatched him
to her little breast.
"Oh, Caesar, Cassar, why can t you believe?"
she moaned. "Love is all around you, Caesar;
why can t you trust it?"
Tom snorted violently and Cassar choked ; Mar
tin, who had stolen silently into the group from
some mysterious hiding-place, looked sympa
thetically at his friend, and, squatting beside her,
fixed Cassar with the eye of the Ancient Mariner.
He appeared to be muttering spells, and Tom
263
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
scowled deeply upon his first-born. The group
was altogether tragic and formidable.
"I m not at all sure that I can cure him this
time," Susy remarked imperturbably, "he seems
very low. You ll have to make up your mind,
Ursula. And your father s right there in the
doorway, so you can t deny that all this happened,
as you usually do, you know. Anybody can see
that Caesar is a very sick cat. Shall I get some
brandy?"
"Come, come, Ursula," Tom added, "don t be
a little donkey. When Caesar s well, love is all
that s needed, I ve no doubt; but now he s really
sick, and you d better have a doctor, hadn t you ?"
Ursula looked wildly at Martin, bitterly at
Susy, and shamefacedly at her father. Then, as
Cassar began to pant alarmingly, she staggered to
her feet and thrust him into Susy s arms.
"Take him!" she gasped. "He hasn t had any
body but God for seven years but take him!"
And the solemn procession moved out to the
laundry, where frenzied chokings and splutter-
ings, followed by a few feeble wails and then a
great calm, informed the unbeliever that a brutal
empiricism had triumphed again over all the
subtleties of the spirit.
Unfortunately the actual success of the opera
tion was not quite sufficient to lift the cloud of
264
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
discomfiture produced by the inadmissible meth
ods employed, and Binks and Ursula devoured
their chocolate ice-cream in reproachful gloom.
It may be a little unreasonable in four adults to
allow the mental depression of two children to
a fleet them, but any one who has sat through a
similar banquet knows that this state of things
is quite possible, and when the ruffled though
superior mind of Mrs. Carmichael lost itself in
polemic and explanatory musings, it was felt that
the luncheon was not wholly a social success, and
guests and hosts alike had become a little em
barrassed.
This was not helped by Tom s third refusal of
sponge-cake, a delicacy pressed upon him with
cheerful persistence by the waitress.
"I never eat it, Katy," he explained at length,
"it doesn t agree with me never did."
"It s a very reliable recipe," the hostess urged,
descending suddenly from the clouds of tran
scendental thought which were popularly supposed
to be indicated by her present fixed expression.
"It s been three generations in my family, and
we ve always given it to the children."
"I don t doubt it," Tom assured her gallantly,
"and it looks delicious, but really, I might just
as well eat a bath-sponge, Mrs. Carmichael. I ve
never been able to manage it, somehow."
265
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
Ursula looked up with her peculiar, oblique
glance.
"Never mind, Mr. Wilbour," she said gently,
and the amazed Tom felt somehow that she was
distinctly forgiving him for some unremembered
sin, "never mind. Go right ahead, and I ll take
care of it!"
" Take care of it, " Tom repeated wonderingly,
"You dcVt understand me, kiddy. I mean that
this particular kind of cake seems to if you ll
excuse the frankness of the remark seems to
swell up like a dry sponge in what the poet so
felicitously calls my inside workin s and makes
me very uncomfy. And not having your er
powers of hypnotic suggestion, I just have to
grin and bear it."
"Yes, I know," Ursula replied mildly, while a
curious expression grew upon her father s face
"I know; but you go ahead and eat it, just the
same; I ll take care of it for you."
Martin regarded the intrepid child with deep
admiration.
"That s how I eat peanut -brittle, father," he
added encouragingly, "it used to make me feel
awful queer most gen rally, but sometimes I eat
a box at a time now."
Tom s color grew slowly deeper probably from
the unconscious holding of his deep breaths.
266
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"Do I understand you to mean that you are
prepared to assume the responsibility for my diges
tion of this sponge-cake?" he demanded formally.
Mr. Carmichael looked conservatively at his
plate; his wife appeared to resume her presence
at the table, and regarded her daughter with im
personal approval. .Susy stared in utter amaze
ment.
"Yes," Ursula repeated gently, "I ll attend to
it, Mr. Wilbour. You go right along."
Tom gripped his napkin firmly and eyed the
child with cold decision.
"My dear young lady," he began, and at his
tone even Miss Carmichael jumped slightly, "for
forty-two years, now, I have attended to my own
digestive processes, and I think, if it s all the
same to you, that I ll just worry along in my old
feeble-minded way. Probably it leaves a great
deal to be desired from a professional point of
view like yours, but it s the best I can do, and
I m afraid you ll have to let it go at that."
Aft rr this episode no one suggested the Wil-
bour s departure, but, on the other hand, no one
deprecated it, and as Tom freely admitted that
he had no appetite for his usual cigar, the trio left
very soon after Katy, somewhat depressed her
self by now, had served them with finger-bowls.
Martin had intended to remain and join Ursula
267
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
and her father on their accustomed Sunday af
ternoon stroll, but this was vetoed by Tom, and
at his short,
"Come, Binks, hop up, now no arguing! the
young gentleman climbed resentfully into the
small front seat, absurdly outgrown by now, his
features set in a decided pout.
"I cannot understand what Edith is thinking
of!" Susy announced finally, when the short drive
had been accomplished in almost utter silence
and they were alone in the library again, Martin
having established himself with a book in the
drawing-room. "This is really too much!"
"I m glad you look at it that way," her hus
band answered briefly, "because as far as I m
concerned, Toots, nothing Binks is going to learn
from your famous rough boys by the pond is
going to handicap him for life like this particular
brand of tommy-rot. I d far rather lead him by
the hand to the pond to-morrow."
"Oh, dear, Tom, you don t know how rough
they are!"
"No I ve never sported with them, myself, if
that s what you mean; but if it s the ice-man s
boy, and that odd-job man s and the teamster s
youngsters, I can judge pretty well; and, honestly,
dear, I doubt if they ll contaminate him so ter
ribly, anyhow."
268
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"But, Tom, they do use such language!"
"What do they say?"
"Gracious, / don t know! But Bell heard them
once, and she
"My dear girl, my respect for Bell is great,
but you know she s only a children s nurse, when
all s said and done. She can t possibly judge
about how much a ten-year-old can stand. And
you know, Susy, there are lots of things the boy
has got to hear that you and Bell won t like.
You ve got to make up your mind to it sooner or
later. A decent boy works em out of his system
one way or another, but unless you shut him into
a barrel and feed him through the bung-hole, as
somebody said, you can t prevent his knowing
em."
"Do you want him to know them, Tom?"
"No, I can t say I do, exactly," Mr. Wilbour
answered honestly, "but I ve got nothing to do
with it, you see, dear. It s one of those things
that you simply can t regulate. If you think that
the language that frightened Bell is a monopoly
of those rough boys by the pond, you re very
much mistaken. It s not an exclusive product
of ponds, I assure you, dear. We get over it,
though. And I must say that it s going to be a
lot healthier for Binks to absorb a little of that
sort of grimy vocabulary while he s playing ball
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
and exercising generally, than it s likely to be if
he hangs around that morbid little idiot while
she s digesting other people s sponge-cake for
em!"
"So you see what I mean, now!" Susy s ap
parent irrelevance expressed a certain relief, and
her husband understood her readily enough.
"Oh yes, of course, if she does that sort of
thing often," he agreed disgustedly. "Til take
care of it, indeed heavens above!"
"Yes, yes," Susy said hastily, anxious to avert
the impending tirade, "but about Martin, dear.
Bell s going to feel awfully about those boys
the ice-man s son really swears, she says. I don t
know what she will say when I tell her you want
him to play with them."
Tom shifted uneasily in his chair. "Don t
misunderstand me, Toots," he began. "I don t
say I d pick those boys out as my one best bet,
as it were far from it. As a matter of fact, you
can t pick boys out, ever. Certainly not in this
country, anyhow. I shouldn t like to think he d
never have any other companions. But he will:
he s sure to. And how do you know how much
swearing he s heard, anyway ? Do you think he d
come home and confide it to you and Bell as soon
as he d acquired it ? I can tell you I didn t hasten
to impart every addition to my vocabulary to
270
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
Aunt Em! Not much. And I don t think I m
particularly profane."
"Why, Tom, of course not!"
"Very well. Don t you suppose I heard all
the words you and Bell are worrying about ? But
I can usually struggle through an ordinary con
versation without them, you know."
"Oh, dear me, Tom," she sighed, "what a re
sponsibility boys are, aren t they? I see what
people mean when they re afraid of having them."
"Well, I don t know."
Tom looked thoughtful.
"I d rather have Binks on my mind than
Ursula I tell you that, Tootie!"
"Yes, in some ways, I suppose so," she ad
mitted.
"You see, it s not what the boy hears but what
he does that counts, dear. It s that young lady s
actions that get on my nerves. Now if Binks says,
as I hope he can (by and large, and more or less,
you know) that he hasn t done anything he d be
ashamed to have you know, I d trust him. But
if he ever says that he hasn t heard anything he d
be ashamed to have you hear, he s a little liar
you can be sure of that!"
At this Susy only murmured inarticulately, and
there was a short, troubled silence.
"Of course, I believe that you know about all
271
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
that, dear," she began at last, "and I think, my
self, that he s been a little too mueh at the Car-
michaels , though I m very fond of Edith in a
great many ways, and Mr. Carmichael has been
very kind to Martin and taught him lots about
trees and animals and all that sort of thing."
("Oh, Carmichael s all right!")
"But we mustn t forbid him to go there en
tirely, all at once. It will be a regular grievance
with him, and he does take things so seriously,
Tom."
"Certainly not I shouldn t dream of it. And
you ll find it will be all right if you give him a
little longer rope, Susy, and let him branch out
for himself more, he ll drop all that nonsense of his
own accord. A little of the girl business is good
for em, anyway," Mr. Wilbour concluded mag
nanimously "a mixed diet s always best."
But he had not reckoned sufficiently on his
son s firmness of disposition (a firmness described
by Susy as a combination of Brinkerhoff decision
of character and Wilbour obstinacy) which was,
moreover, pointed by a certain sulkiness not ob
served in either of these families. Moreover, Mar
tin had always displayed a marked tendency
toward the formation of habits which, once set
tled, were very difficult to break without some
distinct crisis, and no one would have been safe
272
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
in fixing a date for his release from Ursula s pros
elytizing influence had it not been for the unex
pected appearance on the scene of the never-to-
be-forgotten Miss Carmer.
Miss Carmer was portly and pink and placid.
She had pepper-and-salt hair of the dank, flat
variety, which lay flat from a pink part that bi
sected her head. She had a double chin, and
every intention, apparently, of acquiring a triple
one at no distant date. She spoke seldom and
gently but not from any undue softness of dis
position or flaccidity of mind, for she was a wom
an of very definite and determined convictions.
Upon her convictions, in fact, and her determina
tion depended her livelihood, for Miss Carmer was
what used to be called a "healer," though at the
period of this narrative she preferred to be known
as a "demonstrator." Mrs. Carmichael had been
much pleased with one of her lectures, and had
hospitably invited her for a week s unprofessional
visit before her autumn labors should begin. For
Ursula s mother, though small and spare, was the
fortunate possessor of a constitution of steel, and
beyond the mysterious attack of something broad
ly described as nervous breakdown, on the occa
sion, eight years ago, of her third house-moving
in one year, had never required the services of any
of the high-priestesses of her then-acquired faith.
273
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
It was during the course of this visit that Mar
tin, lunching with his friends, had become deeply
impressed with the big, silent woman, whose prac
tical good sense and calm banality of disposition
appeared in every one of her few words, and
struck the cynical observer as singularly at vari
ance with the mystical curiosities of her extraor
dinary convictions. For one so bitterly opposed
to the usually conceded weight of the material
functions of life she certainly absorbed an amaz
ing quantity of nourishment, a state of affairs de
scribed less elegantly by Mr. Wilbour; but on
the other hand, as Susy pointed out with some
acumen, to manage such frequent and thorough
refections without any attendant symptoms of
indigestion implied a justified reliance upon some
superhuman power and abilities far beyond the
normal.
Martin had passed his life among talkative
people, and it was probably the sphinx-like placid
ity of Miss Carmer, coupled with Ursula s awed
accounts of her marvellous pow r ers, that so at
tracted him, for to do the lady justice, she never
referred to her unusual endowments herself, and,
indeed, confined her exertions to eating and pon
derously rocking to and fro on the veranda,
speaking, in the words of the juvenile classic, only
when she was spoken to.
274
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
During the luncheon in question Ursula had
been voluble in the description of one of her
schoolmates, who had fallen a victim to a mis
placed confidence in the decorative qualities of
poison-ivy, and paid for the vanity of appearing
in a red wreath of it by a shocking condition of
the usual puffy and painful countenance.
"I told her," observed the young disciple dog
matically, "that if she had told Miss Carmer
about it, she needn t have had that nasty lauda
num sopped on at all, but Miss Carmer could have
demonstrated right from our piazza, and you
could couldn t you, Miss Carmer?"
"I could if I had been called upon," Miss Car
mer replied briefly.
"Do you mean it wouldn t have itched?" Mar
tin inquired abruptly.
" Certainly not," replied the demonstrator
placidly.
"Wouldn t she scratch it once not once?" he
insisted.
"I do not think there would be any necessity,"
the reservoir of mental power responded.
Martin said no more, but appeared sunk in
thought, and left the house alone, to Ursula s
surprise.
A few hours later to be precise, at the end of
the time required for his arrival after the after-
is 275
THE BIOGRAPNY OF A BOY
noon session of his school he leaped up the veran
da steps where the family were gathered to cele
brate the somewhat formidable function of Miss
Carmer s afternoon tea, and sank panting and
cross-legged at her substantial, square-toed feet.
"Hurry up, Miss Carmer, hurry up!" he cried
eagerly, "if you ll demonstrate right away father
11 see you, driving by, and then he ll see you real
ly can do it!"
"What do you mean? Demonstrate what?"
Miss Carmer inquired with some distaste, with
drawing her neat skirts, and casting a displeased
glance at her cooling and threatened tea-cup.
"Why, don t you know?" he demanded, sur
prised and disappointed. "Can t you tell? I
thought you could. Ursula said you didn t care
if the door was shut, or if it was even in a dif
ferent house, and the graveyard isn t any farther
away than anybody s house might be . . ."
"I haven t the least idea what you are talking
about. Don t jog my plate, please," said Miss
Carmer coldly.
Martin drew a long breath. He felt distinctly
less heroic and interesting, somehow, than before
this disconcerting conversational shower-bath,
and the expression of his hostess was no aid to
his first enthusiasm.
"Why, it was the poison-ivy," he explained,
276
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
less vivaciously but still trustful. "I poison aw
ful easy, and I was quite hot when I rubbed it in;
it grows on the Piscopal graveyard wall, you
know, on the way home, and I rubbed it in well;
I knew you wouldn t care about that. Then
that girl s father and mother could see for them
selves and mine, too," he added, pushing out
his lip in a characteristic manner all too familiar
to one who knew him well. "Will you do it out
here? You d better begin now, though, for it s
itching like the dickens, Miss Carmer!"
There was a deadly silence. Ursula s round
eyes alone contributed to his self-respect, for the
Carmichaels sat petrified with horror, and Miss
Carmer, as she deposited her cup and plate heavily
on the piazza rail and rose slowly to her feet,
looked at him as though he were some noxious
insect. A dark flush spread over her broad, calm
face, and her voice broke from its usual practised
placidity as she shook her finger at him quite in the
manner of the unregenerate and faithless citizen.
"Do you mean, you bad little boy, that you
have deliberately applied poison-ivy to your face
as as a test?" she cried, puffing out her cheeks
portentously.
Martin nodded dumbly.
"Then I hope that you. will be well punished
for such shameful behavior!" she declared. "I
277
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
never heard of anything more disgraceful /
should certainly refuse to treat you!" And she
swept majestically to her room.
"The kid s game, anyway, Toots," said Tom
the next day, looking down thoughtfully at the
bandaged, feverish little object writhing among
its laudanum-soaked pillows, two dots of eyes
like shoe-buttons just glimmering above the
swollen cheeks. "As a matter of fact, he s a
what-do-you-call-it a martyr to Science, if you
want to look at it that way. And Lord knows
he s punished enough."
Susy shook her head helplessly.
"I don t know what to do with him," she whis
pered sadly. "Did you ever know a child that
took things so literally? He is so set, Tom!
Ursula would never do a thing like that, you
know. And she really believes it."
"Pooh! she hasn t got the nerve," the martyr s
father returned with inexplicable pride. "The
little devil certainly gave the woman her chance,
you must admit."
Susy sighed, and approached the sofa with a
cooling draught.
"No, Martin, no pudding," she said firmly;
"the doctor says you must not overload your
stomach, with your temperature, dear."
278
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
From the puffed lips behind the soaked cotton
came a distorted murmur.
"God made my stomach!" declared the victim
obstinately.
Tom gulped wildly, a prey to conflicting
emotions.
"That s all right, old man," he said at length,
"so He did. But He made your brains, too, you
know, and if you ll use em a little, He ll do as
much for you in the end, you ll find."
And it seemed to him that Martin caught his
meaning.
IX
WHICH DEALS WITH THE CHANCES AND
CHANGES OF THIS MORTAL LIFE
T was a fresh April morning, clear
and fine a skyful of woolly white
clouds above and the tender green
grass of an early spring already
firm under foot. To Mrs Wilbour,
neat and taut in a business-like, short tweed skirt,
an unmitigated high, stiff collar, and competent
gauntleted driving-gloves, the day would once
have been a day for a lazy morning expedition
with Fido, Martin, and Thomas tucked in beside
her, Lappy and Drabble gambolling behind, per
haps even a picnic luncheon in a warm hollow
some few miles off. It is certain that she would
have hummed a little tune on her way to the
280
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
stable, and called the attention of its oecupant
to the gracious state of the weather and the gen
erally amusing character of life in the mounting
spring.
But those days were no more. Mrs. Wilbour s
hasty glance at the firmament had produced no
further emotional result than a conviction that
the chickens had better be turned out directly,
and thus allow the double advantage of healthy
exercise after a long rainy period, and an oppor
tunity for whitewashing the roosts, which con
viction she promptly imparted to Harvey Roper,
who shared with Myron Plummer the responsi
bilities of the now much-extended establishment.
Nor was there to be observed upon Harvey s face
a trace of the tolerant amusement that marked
for so long Myron s relations with his mistress.
On Susy s consulting the little watch in her leather
wristlet and suggesting that she had expected
to find the stable-work done by now, Harvey
agreed humbly that there was some reason in her
expectation, and that he guessed he was a little
behindhand, maybe.
And if there are more than three horses ahead
of Fido at the blacksmith s, Harvey," she con
tinued, "don t wait, but go for the ice directly.
We can t spare all day for it. Take the old
station-wagon with one seat, and bring back
281
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
Myron s phosphates and your own hominy. I ll
go down for Mr. Wilbour myself with Princess
and the phaeton. That man is coming at five
to look over the heifer, and I didn t put any price
on her I d like to see what he ll offer. If he
wants to bring over those young peach-trees he
spoke of, and put them in himself, we might con
sider that instead of cash. But he ll have to be
responsible."
"Yes m," said Harvey respectfully. "Do you
want I sh d catch Martin s guinea-hens again?
They re off, and I can t promise when I ll be able
to get em they re awful cute about hidin on
me. He ain t fed the goat for two nights runnin ,
either, and his guinea-pigs is in a condition, I c n
tell you! O course, I m willin to tend to em
all, Mis Wilbour; tain t that, but you told me to
tell you, and so I do."
"Certainly, Harvey, that s quite right. And
Saturday morning, too it s disgraceful! Do you
know where he is?"
Without waiting for an answer, Susy pulled a
little silver whistle from her belt and blew a shrill
blast. A moment later there came a patter of
feet, and Thomas, trousered and shirted now, and
astonishingly tall, his plump, baby lines all gone,
trotted obediently through the barn-yard, where
a wire enclosure restrained the ducks from any
282
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
farther excursions than their own generous tank
afforded, stopped to pat the tiny new calf that
nozzled for his little brown thumb, and sucked
at it to his vociferous delight, and stood obedient
ly before his mother.
"Have you done your work, dear? Is the
veranda all clean ? Are the puppy s pans empty ?"
"Yes, mother," the youth responded virtu
ously, "I m all done my works all of them; but
Martin, he won t do nothing at all
("Anything.")
" anything at all, he won t do, and he s reading
a magazine-book on the kitchen porch, and he s
going to have a frosted cake just the same. Can t
Thomas have a frosted cake just the same, too?"
"Certainly not," she answered, decidedly; "the
cakes are for luncheon. If you are hungry at
half-past ten, you may have bread-and-butter.
Tell Martin to come directly to me in the hay-
barn. Did he hear the whistle?"
"Yes, he did heard it, and he said he was too
big to come like a puppy, he said, and he thought
he might get a headache if he earned in the sun-
Harvey chuckled, and Susy left the stable with
dignity.
"And don t ask me for a new carriage-sponge
this month, Harvey, if they are to be used for the
stable stairs," she said severely, " for they cost a
283
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
little too much. They tell me in the kitchen that
the strainer of the milk-pail is broken again, and
that they have to use two cheese-cloths I should
much prefer to know about these things when
they happen. And the laundry man says that he
cannot be responsible for Mr. Wilbour s shirts if
they stick out of the end of the wagon in a rain
storm. That is certainly reasonable. Come,
Thomas, mother will take you with her to see
Mrs. Carmichael, after I ve finished up here. Is
that the strap of the mail-bag, Harvey, on the
harness-room floor?"
"Yes m," said Harvey meekly, picking up the
offending strap and glaring revengefully at the
misused carriage-sponge, "I guess it is. Martin,
he was asking if he could have it to put around
an old dress-suit case he had out here for me to
mend."
"For you to mend!" Susy paused in the door
disgustedly. "How often have I asked you,
Harvey, not to pay any attention to Martin when
he takes up your time that way? It s one thing
in the winter, when there s more time, but now
it s ridiculous. What does he want of a suit-case,
anyway?"
"I don t know, Miss Wilbour; he said some
thing about needing one very bad, and I said
there was that old one in the loft that Mr. Wil-
284
TME BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
hour spoiled, packin it full o wet bathin -suits,
so he swarmed up n got it, and I was just givin
him a little help with it, that s all."
At this point Martin was observed on the drive
way, lagging along with a twisty, awkward gait
recently acquired by him, to his mother s intense
annoyance. In one hand he held a tattered maga
zine ; from the other depended the rapidly length
ening tail of a ball of heavy twine, which he
dragged, somewhat ill-ad visedly, by the end farth
est from the ball. His expression was one of deep
injury, not materially lightened by his mother s
pardonable chiding.
Martin Wilbour, are you crazy ? Where is the
rest of that cord?"
"I don t know," he replied placidly. "Thomas
said I wasn t to wait a single minute, but come
right away, so I came just as I was. Did you
want me?"
"I want you to act like a sensible boy and not
a baby. Go and wind up that cord."
With many shufflings and sighs Martin re
traced his steps, like some allegorical character,
and appeared presently with a bulging pocket.
"Now, Martin (please hold your shoulders more
even; look how straight Thomas stands), I want
you to make up your mind, once for all, on the
subject of these pets of yours. When Mr. Car-
285
THE BIOGRAPHY Or A BOY
michael gave you the guinea-pigs, you were per
fectly delighted with them and nearly stuffed
them to death; now you neglect them terribly.
The guinea-hens you could have had quite a lit
tle money from if you had attended to the eggs
and chicks; father offered to buy them regularly
of you, he s so fond of them. But here it s the
fourth time they ve run away this week, and you
can t even help Harvey hunt for them."
"Oh, well . . . why do all my pets have to be
guinea-pets, anyway? I ll bet they don t like
to be called that, and that s why they run away.
You know, Myron called that big Italian a ginney
and he nearly brained him with his shovel
"Martin!"
"Well, that s what Myron said they just won t
stand it. So it isn t lucky for pets, maybe."
"That s absurd, Martin it s not the same
thing at all."
"Why isn t it the same thing at all?"
"Well," she admitted, "if it is the same word,
which I suppose it is, it certainly doesn t apply
to pets. They re not likely to brain you with a
shovel. Now, I m going to make a definite rule,
Martin, and you ll find that I mean it. If you
can t take care of your pets, they will be taken
away."
"Taken away?"
286
NOW, MARTIN, PLEASE HOLD YOUR SHOULDERS
MORE EVEN "
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"Disposed of."
Susy looked at him with the air of one who
finishes a situation absolutely; she had no doubt
of the result.
Martin pursed his lips and eyed her calculat-
ingly.
"How disposed of?" he said slowly.
"Oh, I don t know I ll decide that later. I
mean that you will be deprived of them; that s
the main thing."
"Oh, I don t mind about that. I don t want
em. But I think you ought to buy em off me.
They re mine."
" Buy them of me! Why, Martin Wilbour!
What do you mean?"
"I mean they re too much trouble. They re
nice enough to have, but I forget them so."
"But that s just it; you ought not to forget
them."
"Oh, well, I d rather forget them. I don t
think there s as much fun to em as there is
bother. What s the good of em, anyway?"
Susy stared at him doubtfully; there was ob
viously nothing criminal in his preference, but
she had not for long wanted to spank him so
thoroughly.
"I don t know what to make of you, Martin,"
she began at length. "Are you in earnest?"
289
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"Why, yes," he said negligently. "Did you
think I was fooling? I wouldn t be able to tend
to em, anyway," he added with apparent irrel
evance.
"It seems to me you say nothing but any
way, " his mother observed. "All your remarks
end with it. I don t think your father will want
you to be without any duties, however, Martin.
If you don t care for your pets, we must find
something regular for you to do ; he doesn t want
you to grow up as irresponsible as you are now."
He shot a curious look at her.
"I should think children would be about as
much trouble as pets," he remarked casually.
"I can assure you they are," she replied with
an absent glance at her watch. "Come, Thomas,
if you want to take a drive with mother."
They left Martin busy with the straps and
buckles of the bulging old suit-case, Thomas will
ingly deserting an elder brother who frankly
found him in the way and deliberately escaped
his offered company, Susy with a vague feeling
that Martin was so changed she hardly knew what
tone to take with him, and that there must be
some way, if she only knew it, of training him
into the consecutive habits she found so necessary
to her present busy life. But it was not to be
denied that Tom and Mr. Carmichael managed
290
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
him better; often, indeed, she had applied to the
latter to use his influence with the boy in one of
his obstinate moods, and seldom in vain.
She herself, oddly enough, appeared to have
won an almost corresponding position with Ursu
la; though she was not yet particularly fond of
the child, her practical, quick decisions impressed
the little creature far more than her mother s
philosophical theorizings, and the knowledge of
this could not fail to soften Susy s heart toward
her by little and little.
Mrs. Carmichael was stretched comfortably on
a couch upon her up-stairs veranda, wrapped in
a long coat, imbibing a late cup of morning choco
late. She smiled gently at her guest s almost
accusing air of trig busyness, waved her to a seat,
and fell into a more than usually prolonged fit of
meditation, while Susy, more ruffled than she
knew by Martin s unexpected flank movement in
the matter of his pets, poured forth her tale of
duties and responsibilities, concluding virtuously:
"And so I don t see how we can possibly get
away, Edith, even for Sunday. You and Mr.
Carmichael seem to run off whenever you want
to"
"Why, of course we do why not ? We haven t
invented all these stable and barn - yard duties,
you know. Of course, if you d rather do them ..."
19 2QI
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"Oh, dear! you begin, and you can t stop! I
do want to do them, of course, or I wouldn t!
But sometimes it seems as if Martin might be
right. He told me to-day about those guinea-
pigs that there wasn t as much fun to them as
there was bother!"
"I quite agree with him," said Mrs. Carmichael
placidly " have for five years. And do you
know, my dear Susy," she went on, looking sud
denly with one of her keen, bird-like glimpses
straight at her guest and losing utterly for the
moment her air of transcendental re very "do
you know that you re getting just a little like
the other back-to-the-soil people I know just
a little priggish about it?"
"Priggish? I? Why, Edith Carmichael, what
do you mean?"
"I mean precisely what I say, my dear. There s
nothing particularly virtuous in growing your own
oats, you know. If you like to do it, all right;
but you re fast getting to the stage where you
thank God that you re not as other men are who
don t. It s that I complain of in all you people.
You get it into your heads, somehow, that you re
making tremendous sacrifices for your particular
fads and ought to be admired for your magnifi
cent attitude, whereas, as a matter of fact, it s
just like most fads a matter of taste. If you d
292
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
rather buy a car-load of guano than go for a
week-end to Atlantic City, why, that s your
affair. We wouldn t, that s all."
Susy looked somewhat consciously at the floor,
and her hostess, refreshing herself with a swallow
of chocolate, continued, with a distinct air of
clearing her mind :
"It s not as if Tom was a farmer, you know.
He s not; he s a lawyer, and makes a good in
come at it. If you want to spend it on a country-
place, well and good; but if you really want to
save it for him, as you imply so constantly, you d
much better put it in the bank, I can assure you.
Not that I am arguing for a moment that you
ought to save it, you know. In fact, I distinctly
293
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
believe you oughtn t, unless he plans to retire
early. I d spend it, and get all the fun I could out
of it but don t put on so many airs over it. You
collect heifers, and Mat collects tables, and as far
as the investment goes, on the scale you both do
it, he is really doing better. He can prove it to
you, if you like."
"We came into the country for the children,"
Susy began defensively.
"Stuff and nonsense!"
Mrs. Carmichael sat up on her couch.
"Supposing you did, you got on very well for
the first two years, didn t you ? That was all
right, that part of it. But the children don t
need all those rods and rods of stone walls and all
that swamp-draining, do they? Just admit that
you and Tom like it and can afford it, and would
rather do it than go to the opera, and I haven t
a word to say. But don t look so virtuous when
Mat and I patronize the livery-stable and hear
Pagliacci that s all ! "
Susy looked thoughtful.
"But Edith," she began, "don t you really
believe
"No, I don t. I know what you mean, of
course : developing a country-place is better and
more respectable than horse-racing, certainly.
But it s no better, in your case, than anything else
294
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
that does no more harm. What I believe you do
is just this, Susy: I believe you unconsciously
compare it in your mind with what the Sunday
papers call the social whirl, and congratulate
yourself that you re not wasting your time on
what is known as the empty round of dinners
and operas and receptions and dressmakers that
a certain set of people have identified themselves
with in all the great cities of the world. But
that class is so small and you never belonged
to it, anyway, did you ? As I understand it,
you got tired of the little you did of it, and
took this up because you liked it better, on the
whole.
"Just as I got tired of travelling, for a while . . .
fora while ..." she repeated musingly, "and came
back here for a change. But anybody would
think that you had abandoned the hollow joys
of society and decided to raise pigs to the glory
of God whereas I think I ve really done more
for the country by pushing the rural free delivery
back five miles, and keeping that vile saloon-man
off the school-board, than you have with your
corn-silo, that only benefited yourself, when you
come to that.
"I only mention this," she concluded apolo
getically, "because you do act so, of late, Susy,
as if you were so noble! I m perfectly willing to
2 95
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
admit that I only wanted the fun of trying to run
local politics and I did, and it was fun!"
She settled back among her pillows and drained
her cup. Susy, who had never heard her friend
make so long a speech in the course of their ac
quaintance, was far more impressed by this one
than as if her husband or Tom had been respon
sible for it, and remembered suddenly that Edith
was famous for her occasional "papers" in the
local women s club.
"I see what you mean," she admitted after a
moment. "Tom says I m getting rather snippy
whatever he means."
"He means just that," Mrs. Carmichael as
sured her, "though, of course," she added consci
entiously, "he s awfully proud of all your exec
utive ability, and all that. He told Mat he never
dreamed you had it in you."
Hostess and guest became thoughtful at this
and stared at the blue sky, where the white
clouds raced.
"Mat s getting very restless," Edith announced
abruptly. "I m prepared for anything nowadays."
"Anything?"
Susy felt a distinct qualm ; she had grown much
attached to these interesting if somewhat erratic
neighbors, and relied more than she realized on
their friendly good-humor.
296
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"Of course, I can t tell, but when he gets this
way in the spring I always feel that something s
in the wind. That s why I m taking plenty of
rest now."
Susy rose a little dispiritedly; this visit had
given her much food for thought, and the list of
duties on her little leather tablets seemed, some
how, less important and attractive than the pict
ure of her friend s cushions and chocolate among
the blue and white and green of the fresh, tempt
ing day. It was on just such a day that she and
Tom had driven Martin to his first school, long
ago how long it seemed, now ! How jolly
they had been, and what nonsense they had
talked it seemed as if they never talked
anything but plans and bills and farm affairs
now . . .
She unhitched Princess capably, and climbed
into the wagon, still thinking. Along the road
there trudged a familiar figure only a little un
usual from the absence of a small boy and girl,
one hanging at either hand a cracked, gilt-edged
mirror under his arm.
"How are you?" he called cheerily. "Grand
day, isn t it? See the eagle on this? I had to
pay six dollars for it. I tell you, prices are going
up, about here it s time I moved!"
He fell into a steady, swinging walk beside the
297
THE BIOGRAPHY OT A BOY
phaeton (a favorite habit of his) and continued
his customary desultory monologue.
"Yes, sir, it s time I kicked off the dust of this
sophisticated spot we re going to, by the way-
did you know it ?"
"Not really, Mr. Carmichael?"
Susy s voice showed her regret, and he acknowl
edged it with a whimsical nod.
"Yes, sir, I think we ll be off by the end of the
summer."
"Where are you going?"
"Well, I rather think I ll try Australia," said
Mr. Carmichael calmly.
Susy jumped and twitched her reins nervously.
Why, Matthew Carmichael what do you
mean?"
Why not ? " he returned imperturbably . Aus-
tralia s a good place. And then I could look
up my stuff, that poor old Brundage got, you
know. I ve never got over those wedding-chests,
to tell the truth. Then I d like to look into this
ranch business a bit. Brundage s brother only
needs a little capital to make a really good thing
of his, he writes me, and I d like to take a try
at it."
"But but why, I never heard of anything
so absurd! You hate farming you set Tom
against my sheep
298
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"Oh, well, there s nothing in it here," he in
terrupted, "it s too pottering. It s a very differ
ent story over there. And the climate would do
wonders for Deedy, I think."
Susy gasped.
"Does she know about it?"
"No-o," he answered thoughtfully, "I don t
believe she does, now I think of it I didn t men
tion it. But I have an idea she suspects some
thing s up, more or less. She s about ready to
start, too, I imagine. Deedy gets very restless in
the spring drops all her fads, you know, and
fusses around. I can t describe it exactly, but
I always know."
Susy burst into laughter.
"You are the strangest couple I know!" she ex
claimed. "You call it a fad to stay in one place,
like a sensible, normal family, then?"
"Why, yes, I suppose I do," he said seriously.
"It s just a matter of taste, isn t it?"
They were silent for a few yards, and then he
put his hand on the wheel.
"I turn off here," he said. "There s an old
square piano down this road I want the legs of.
I hope you ll let Martin come over a lot till we go
Ursula will miss him badly. You you wouldn t
think of letting us take him along, I suppose?"
"Good gracious, no!" she cried. "The idea!"
299
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"I supposed not," he soothed her hastily, "but
I can t help thinking it would be a great chanee
for the little fellow betw r een you and me we
aren t likely to stay there forever."
Susy pulled Princess up abruptly.
"I think you are raving crazy!" she declared.
Why should it be a good thing for a ten-year-old
boy to leave his home ? What place could be bet
ter for him?"
Mr. Carmichael smoothed the tarnished mirror
reflectively with his cuff.
"Oh, I don t know," he said vaguely. "That s
only an American idea, you know. It depends
a lot on the home and the boy, I should say, my
self. The men around New York seem to see so
little of their boys I ve always noticed it. And
women can t bring boys up not properly speak
ing, you know. And Martin s outgrown that
school of his, Mrs. Wilbour he really has. You
ought to know it. He s a corking little fellow
perfectly corking. I d give anything for one like
him; but there s no denying he s pretty obstinate."
"I know," Susy admitted soberly; "we ll miss
you with Martin a lot."
"I suppose Ursula s over at your place now,"
he said, turning to go and showing by his sudden
brusqueness his masculine dread of having inter
fered in affairs not his own. Susy understood
300
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
and was grateful for the quick change ; every one
seemed unaccountably bent upon opening her
eyes to unpleasant truths to-day.
"I suppose so," she answered carelessly.
"They re probably hunting for you. Good-bye!
Good-luck with the piano-legs!"
At the door Bell met her. "Mr. Wilbour won t
be out till to-morrow, Mrs. Wilbour," she informed
her. "He s got a board meeting to-night, he tel
ephoned, and he ll be at the club, if you want him."
Susy s face fell. She had counted on Tom s
sympathy in the matter of the Carmichaels de
fection, and now something seemed to be looming
up vaguely in Martin s future something that
troubled her, but for which she found no name
nor remedy.
"How disgusting, Bell!" she complained.
" Yes m," said Bell, lingering and looking at her
oddly.
"Do you want anything, Bell?"
"I didn t, Mrs. Wilbour, first-off," the nurse
began, "but since Mr. Wilbour s not going to be
home to dinner, I might as well get it over first
as last, I suppose. I s pose it 11 be a surprise to
you, Mrs. Wilbour, but I m thinking of making a
change."
"Making a change?" Susy echoed stupidly.
"How, Bell?"
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
and
tons
and
Leaving, said Bell
briefly, and put her
apron in her mouth.
Susy stared sadly
at her.
"Why, Bell why,
Bell, what is it?" she
eried. "Anything lean
help? Is it money?"
"Goodness, no, Mrs.
Wilbour," the girl as
sured her warmly, "of
course not ! I don t
earn my money as it
is. That s one reason.
You see, Mrs. Wilbour,
I m a child s nurse,
when you come down
to it, really, and who
is there for me to
nurse ? Martin I don t
see from morning till
night, off with that
Ursula as he is, and
those wild, rough boys,
even Thomas can do all his back but-
now, every one. His father insisted on it,
I taught him, but it was like slapping me in
302
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
the face. I passed the remark to Myron Plummer
at the time."
"Why, Bell!"
"Yes m. And then when you went in and out
so much, there was packing for you and hustlin
you off and hookin you up, and your clo es was
more dressy, anyway. But now it s shirt-waists
from morning to night, and mostly animals to
take care of, and I never was no vet rinary sur
geon, Mrs. Wilhour, I tell you the truth."
"Why, but, Bell," Susy rallied, "if it s elab
orate dresses you want, I could get a few, you
know!"
"Oh no, Mrs. Wilbour," Bell replied seriously,
"you needn t to bother it wouldn t be any use.
There s another reason, too, you see: I m think
ing of getting married."
"Oh, Bell, really? How nice!" Susy s gener
ous pleasure shone in her face, and Bell gulped
responsively.
"Then, of course, you don t want any better
reason for leaving, Bell, dear! I m so glad! Why
didn t you say so at first ? Who is it ?"
Bell coughed and lifted a dry corner of her
apron to her mouth, but thought better of it and
smoothed her garments flat.
"Well," she said tentatively, as if prepared to
change the object of her affection in case he should
33
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
not prove generally satisfactory, "it was Myron
Plummer, Mrs. Wilbour."
Susy stared frankly at her.
"Myron Plummer?" she repeated. "Myron?
Why, Bell, how how very interesting!"
"Yes m," said Bell quietly. "He s been at me
a long time, but I always said not until Thomas
could button his own back, I shouldn t feel justi
fied in leaving."
Susy drew a long breath of relief.
"Then we sha n t really lose you, after all, Bell,"
she began, "and Mr. Wilbour will start a cottage
near the garden directly. If Myron had been
married, he would have built one long ago. He
wants some one near the melons."
"Yes m," Bell returned uncomfortably, "but
that s another thing. Myron said for me to tell
you you know what a man is! He s leaving,
too."
"Myron!"
It seemed to Susy that the bottom had dropped
out of existence ; her world was crumbling around
her.
"Where is he going?" she asked shortly.
"Well, he did think of Australia," Bell said
tentatively, with the implication that he might
make it China or the North Pole if that should
appeal more to Susy.
34
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"With Mr. Carmichael?" Susy queried sharply.
"Now, Mrs. Wilbour, you mustn t think that
there was any urging," Bell declared earnestly.
"You know that wasn t the way of it. Mr. Car
michael mentioned Australia last winter, just ac
cidental like, in talkin about the goat, and My
ron s been wild to go there ever since he was a
boy. He s been beggin him ever since then to
take him out there, if he went, and for the longest
while Mr. Carmichael just laughed, and then he
said he couldn t think of it, twould look as if he d
got him away from you, and he wouldn t do that
for the world and all, and I said the- same. But
then Myron said he d pay his own passage and
mine, too, and go, whether or no, and hunt up
Mr. Carmichael when he got there. And of course
Mr. Carmichael couldn t prevent that, Mrs. Wil
bour."
"No," Susy agreed dully, "no, of course not.
Why does Myron think he ll like Australia?"
"I don t exactly know all the reasons," the
nurse answered confidentially, "but he s dread
ful anxious to see those kangaroos that are out
there, and
"How utterly absurd!"
"Yes m. But he is. They were in some geog
raphy he used to study, when he was a boy, and
you know what a man is," Bell repeated resigned-
35
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
ly. "And then he s always wanted sheep to
handle, he says. He was dreadful disappointed
that time you decided not to have the sheep
"It was Mr. Carmichael that persuaded us
against them," Susy interrupted coldly.
"Yes m. But that wasn t any of Myron s busi
ness, of course. Mr. Carmichael knows all about
Myron, and he d be his head man and sort of look
out for his interest, he says, if he went in with
Mrs. Brundage s brother. And Myron says that
would suit him down to the ground."
There was a short silence.
"But you mustn t think, Mrs. Wilbour, that
we d leave you in a bad fix," Bell began again.
"Myron says he wouldn t of left you before, when
you were more helpless, like, but now you don t
need him, really, he says; you can run the place
yourself. And Harvey s all broke in to take
Myron s place, and Harvey has a cousin up-State
that would love to come and do the stable-work.
It s very different now from what it was last year."
"Yes," Susy agreed drearily, "it certainly is.
You mustn t think I m nasty about it, Bell I
hope you and Myron will be very happy. Of
course, you know we ll miss you terribly terri
bly. Why, just think, Bell, you ve been with
me ten years!"
The two women looked at each other uncer-
306
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
tainly, then with a common impulse fell into each
other s arms and cried refreshingly, and in the
real sorrow of losing this faithful friend all Susy s
bitterness at the manner of the loss was washed
away, together, somehow, with her growing load
of the day s discomforts. In a generous glow of
enthusiasm for Bell s trousseau and emigrating
outfit, for which she promptly announced herself
responsible, the last bits of the morning passed,
and she ate the dainty luncheon served with re
morseful care by the nurse with a curious sense
of chastened growth in spirit, a feeling of enlarged
experience that made this morning seem a long,
long stretch of time.
She found herself very tired after luncheon,
and her hour of rest, snatched by Tom s stringent
orders, at this point, turned into three of solid,
dreamless sleep, at first, broken finally by strange
reminiscent visions.
The years rolled back in these mysterious min-
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
utes that can hold so much, and she seemed to
be at once herself, with all their accumulated ex
perience and the self of six years ago. She and
Tom, Aunt Emma and Martin, relived their funny
family life of Binks s babyhood; she listened, half
weary, half amused, to his interminable stories,
once he had found his slow-moving tongue; she
argued with Bell over the propriety of Aunt
Emma s psychological experiments with the quaint
little creature who had been hardly more than an
animate doll to her then, it seemed, in the light
of her present responsibilities; she and he and
Tom hung over the squirrels in the park, or
wrestled spiritually with schemes of infantile pun
ishment. Even further back the misty curtain
rolled, and in puzzled half-memory that confused
his dramatic babyhood with Thomas s uneventful
past, she listened awe-struck to his first, his very
first extraordinary ejaculations, heard the nurse s
anguished gasp as he slipped beneath the soapy
wavelets of * his rubber bath-tub under Aunt
Emma s unpractised handling, blushed hot again
at Bell s reproof as she and Tom, singing mock-
heroic duets above his cradle, had moved him to
sudden roars of terror. Who was she that Susy,
or this ? She had been so impractical then, so
light-minded, they all said, and now, who was it
that had just scolded her for her tiresome thrift
308
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
and a dogmatic round of duties held up for a test
to everybody else? Who had blamed her about
her baby, Binks ? Who wanted to take her baby
to Australia? Babies never left their mothers,
surely !
A discreet but ceaseless knocking at the door
of her room mingled with her dream, and, lo! it
was at once the throb of the screw that drove the
steamer to Australia, with tiny Binks in a gray
squirrel-cap stretching out his arms to her at
the broad stern, and the tap of Aunt Emma s
foot against her sofa, as that good woman in
formed her niece s mind from dull histories and
literary classics, in those last waiting days before
ever Binks w r as, and she lay wondering what it
would be like to be his mother. . . .
She struggled awake.
"Come in! What is it? Why, it s dark!" she
murmured, and Bell entered, softly, but more
quickly than usual, and breathless, even for her.
"Oh, Mrs Wilbour! Mrs. Wilbour!" she whis
pered hissmgly, "are you awake?"
"Yes, yes," Susy muttered drowsily, only half
conscious as yet, and dimly confusing the warm
blanket under her chin with Binks s downy, warm
baby head, so that a wave of tenderness for him
swept over her and she sat up suddenly.
"Where s Martin, Bell?" she asked, wide awake
39
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
now and eager for him, as she had not felt for
many months. "Tell him to run in and see me,
if he s here, will you?"
"Oh, Mrs. Wilbour, that s what I came for
Martin s eloped!"
Susy stiffened on her bed.
"What did you say?"
"He s eloped, Mrs. Wilbour. Isn t it awful?"
Susy slipped off the bed and threw apart all
the curtains, letting in what late afternoon light
there was.
"Are you crazy, Bell? Do you mean he s run
away? How do you know?"
"I mean eloped," Bell persisted. "They left a
letter. Mr. Carmichael brought it, and he s wait
ing to say he ll beat through the woods, and will
you send the horses different ways to catch them,
because they had money, he thinks, and maybe
they took a train."
"They they?" Susy queried, hastily slipping
on her clothes and twisting up her hair with one
hand while she tried to smooth out a crumpled
piece of paper with the other. "Who are the
other boys?" with a confused recollection of lads
enticed by the glories of cheap detective stories
and tales of Indian adventure.
"You don t elope with other boys, " Bell in
formed her impatiently. "Don t you know what
310
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
elope is ? Him and that nasty little Ursula are
off together, and goodness knows if we ll see them
again forever. She s cunning as a fox, Myron
says."
Susy shook her head impatiently.
"Oh, Bell, how childish you are! Infants of
that age can t elope How how idiotic! Pick
up that collar-stud, please."
You ll rind Martin can," Bell insisted. "If
he says they ve eloped, they have, and that s why
he mended the dress-suit case. His white duck
suit is gone, and Mr. Wilbour s other razor, and
that smelly shaving-soap Ursula used to poke
her fingers into, and Thomas s harmonicum, and
she s took her mother s best lace nightgown, the
Carmichaels s Katey says she was givii.g em a
long sermon in the kitchen a day or two back
about the lovely underclothes her mother took
when she ran away with her father you know
the Carmichaels ran away to be married."
Susy s head swam.
"Oh, Bell, do stop talking, please! How can I
think? Ought I to telegraph Mr. Wilbour?"
"Mr. Carmichael says no, ma am, not to. Not
till night, anyhow he thinks he can trace em
out he s about sure they didn t go on any train,
because his livery-boy meets every one, and he
knows em well. And that s all he s worried
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
about. And if by any chance they did, he says
Mr. Wilbour can hunt em up better right in
New York."
Her first real alarm caught Susy. She read the
crumpled note in Ursula s round, childish hand,
half comprehendingly.
"DEAR DADDY AND MOTHER, Martin and me
are elopping. I took a lace nightgown just like you
and daddy. Martin brok the bank. I know daddy
and you are going somewhare and Martins parronts
will not go ther. So we are elopping. When the
baby conies and looks like you you will forgiv us
like gramma Carmichael did you and daddy. If I
do not see you before then I will say goodby and I
am your loving little daghtur Ursula Humphreys
Carmichael, but my name is Wilbour now of coarse."
Susy burst into hysterical laughter and ran
down the stairs.
"Oh, let me go with you send Myron through
the woods!" she begged of the pursuing parent
before her, who sat, half alarmed, half ashamed,
in a two-wheeled dog-cart before the door.
In a Hash the same picture came to both of
them : the long, dark hours up and down the
country roads till moonrise, following the lan
tern s glimmer; the hope that took moving shad-
312
THE BIOGRAPHY OP A BOY
ows for realities; the sickening disappointments;
the few pedestrians to question; the haunting,
careless, omnipresent motor-cars ; the horrid black
pond at the end of the vista, that frames every
father s and mother s vision of their runaways.
"All right jump in!" he said briefly. "Some
how I have a feeling for the Old North Road-
have you?"
"I haven t any at all," poor Susy confessed.
"I never did seem to have those kind of feelings!"
They drove on at a slow trot along the echoing
road; little red lights began to peep out in the
scattered houses; evening had drawn in. The
frogs set up a strident, chilly pipe; it seemed to
Susy that she could never again hear their morbid
cry without a sinking sense of fear sternly sup
pressed.
"I ll give em five miles six, seven, each di
rection," Mr. Carmichael said abruptly. "They re
good walkers, but that suit-case would hold em
back, and they had a big lunch-basket besides."
They drove on for nearly an hour, peering from
side to side, inquiring here and there at a farm
house. In that silent hour Susy thought of many
things, and not by any means of the children
only. Many matters in her life slipped into a
different aspect; many duties took on different
proportions. There appeared to have been placed
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THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
a period, incomprehensibly, perhaps, but definite
ly, to a certain chapter of her life, and she felt
a vague sense of change wrenching, but not
wholly unpleasant.
It was hardly a surprise to her when on their
hailing a man in a covered cart looming up in the
darkness with,
"Hello! have you seen a boy and girl with a
suit-case?" an oddly familiar voice replied heart-
ily:
"You bet I hev! It takes you, Mr. Carmichael,
to track things out ! I was puttin along s fast s I
could to tell yer!"
"Why, it s Eph!" Mr. Carmichael exclaimed,
and the good-natured vegetable man roared a
jovial assent.
"They re all right, the young ones are," he as
sured them again. "Go right along the way
you re goin and stop off at that old barn your
father bought at the Miller auction member?
Just take a peek in the door an see w r hat ye see!
That bull pup o yours is settin there, an I guess
he means business, all right. I wa n t afraid
ter leave em. I guess you ll be some relieved,
though, Mis Wilbour. But, shucks! you can t
lose a Carmichael!"
He clattered by them, and the dog-cart raced
along the road and drew up before the deserted,
3 J 4
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
ramshackle barn. Mr. Carmichael detached the
lantern in silence, and they peered in excitedly.
Full in the rays of the round tin reflector lay
the most remarkable group that can ever have
gratified the resentfully loving eyes of fond though
deterring parents.
Martin and Ursula lay side by side on a piled
couch of thin hay; their heads all but touched,
and rested on the reclaimed dress-suit case with
a curious Japanese effect. Ursula was lost, save
for her mussed blue hair-ribbon, in billows and
folds of an elaborate lace nightgown; one grimy
hand protruded from a rose-knotted ruffle, one
dusty russet shoe escaped the delicate hem. Laid
neatly out beside her sleeping lord were a razor,
a large porcelain jar of shaving-soap, and a nickel
harmonicum. At their feet, in the relative posi
tion of the carved hound on a stone Crusader s
bier, sat a brindled bulldog, watching a half-eaten
chocolate-cake.
The father and mother looked at each other and
burst into irrepressible laughter. The lovers woke,
stared, rubbed their eyes, and grinned sheepishly.
"How d you know where we were?" Martin
demanded curiously, while Ursula fingered the
ruffles of her nightgown with conscious pride in
her suitable appearance.
A revulsion of feeling caught Susy,
3*5
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BOY
"Martin Wilbour," she said severely, "before
we leave this barn you must give me your solemn
promise never to do this again. Will you?"
Mr. Carmichael was gathering up impedimenta
in a practical way and rescuing his daughter from
her draperies.
Martin drew his toe stubbily along the dusty
floor.
"N no," he said slowly, "I won t for I might.
I think I d better not."
They looked at each other in frank dismay; it
was a dangerous deadlock, and both knew it.
Mr. Carmichael whistled softly and led the un
resisting Ursula to the dog-cart; the bulldog fol
lowed them. Susy and her son confronted each
other in silence, and neither seemed able to move
or speak, even when a second wagon dashed up
to the barn and a man sprang out and rushed
toward them. The moon swam up from a cloud
and poured through the door, and Susy fell upon
the man.
"Tom! Tom!" she cried joyfully, and then:
"Oh, Tom, you must manage him he won t
mind me any more!"
She could not have told how they got into the
old phaeton, nor when the others left them be
hind. But her head was on Tom s shoulder and
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THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
Martin s on her knee, and they were talking in
low tones over his sleeping weight.
" and first Edith scolded me for neglecting
you and being generally nasty, and then Mat
said they were going, and I forgot about Edith.
And then Bell and Myron came, and I forgot the
Carmichaels. And then Martin and Ursula, and I
forgot Bell. But they were all true, Tom, and oh,
Tom, am I sacrificing everybody? Am I horrid?"
"My dearest girl!" He kissed her very gently
in the moonlight, and patted her hair comfort
ingly. "We re getting a little stale, Toots dar
ling, to tell the truth, both of us," he said slowly.
"I ve felt so for some time. Old Hart well told me
as much to-day. He wants me to take July and
August off. Not working on the place, he says, but
off. You know I only took two weeks last year.
But I didn t know how you d feel about it ....
"And, dear, I may as well tell you I ve done
a rather high-handed thing about Binks, but
there was no time to consult you, and and any
way, I want you to think it s best. The board
meeting was only half an hour, after all, and
that s why I got out so early. Elliot was there-
one of my classmates, and we got talking about
our boys his youngest is just Binkie s age. He
sends him every summer to a vacation camp for
little fellows run by one of his young teachers
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THE BIOGRAPHY OT A BOY
they hunt and fish and drill and get a lot of dis
cipline generally. He won t take but fifteen
this young Westcott and he has fourteen booked
now; I didn t dare wait, for it struck me it was
the very thing for the boy. Elliot says he s won
derful with them. And I always meant to send
Binks to Elliot, some day. It s the best school I
know; he s a fine man one of the best men the
college ever sent out. Would you object?"
"No, Tom," she answered simply, "I think it
might be a very good thing."
He drew a long breath.
"That s good," he said. " By-the-way, Ballan-
tyne s boy, that went to Mrs. Trayner s, has gone
for two years. He starts in with Elliot this fall."
"Why not let Martin do that, too?" she sug
gested quietly.
"Would you think of it, dear? I should like
it of all things, but I was afraid you wouldn t.
You see, I trust Elliot perfectly, and the vacations
are long. And he s developing very fast, dear."
"Yes, I know. And, Tom, I was thinking . . .
would you like it if I asked Aunt Emma to come
for July and August and look after Thomas and
the place and you and I go away together?"
"Would I like it! Tootie, would you would
you?"
"Of course we could go abroad, but I thought
320
THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
it might be nice to go to Maine again do you re
member what good times we had at Wishemun-
keewa?"
"Toots, you are certainly the sweetest . . ."
"And I could get some new clothes, and Aunt
Em won t spend half on the place we d be tempted
to, you know. She d love to come perfectly love
to, and she gets on beautifully with Thomas. Do
you remember, Tommy, how Martin jumped on
your fishing-rod at Wishemunkeewa and broke it,
and you went out to spank him, and he told you
you couldn t spank with a curved stick?"
Tom chuckled softly.
"I ll never forget that."
Martin did not move his head from her knee, but
his voice broke startlingly clear in the still night.
"I woke up," he said. "If I can go to Mr.
Westcott s Indian camp, I ll promise never to
elope again- never. I know all about it. Craig
Ballantyne told me. You have to have a flannel
sleeping-bag and a bar of soap and six t wels
each. They wear moccasins. If you don t tell
the truth, he fires you."
"I don t think he ll fire you, Binks," Tom said
affectionately.
"No. But there s one thing you d better learn
right away don t say Binks any more, please,
father."
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THE BIOGRAPHY Of A BOY
"We usually say Martin, dear, don t we?" Susy
reminded him softly.
"You mustn t say that, either." He raised
his head.
"Then, what?" they asked in bewilderment.
He sat up proudly.
"You must call me Wilbour now," he said;
"that s what they ll say at Elliot s young
Wilbour! "
They stared at each other.
"Tommy," she whispered, in a hush, "is it really
true? Is everything changed as much as that ?"
"Nonsense," he said gayly, "nonsense, sweet
heart! It s only Binks that s grown up we re
just the same."
And again they kissed each other in the yellow
moonlight.
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