In a Little Town Part 6

Parents cannot fool their children long, and the Grout youngsters had learned at an early date that Pop always forked over when he was nagged into it. Any of the children in trouble could always write or telegraph home a "must have," and it was always forthcoming. There usually followed a querulous note about "Sorry you have to have so much, but I suppose it costs a lot where you are. Make it go as far as you can, for I'm a little pinched just now." But this was taken as a mere detail--an unfortunate paternal habit.

That was Pop's vice--his only one and about the least attractive of vices. It was harrowing to be the children of a miser--for he must have a lot h.o.a.rded away. His poor talk, his allusions to notes at the bank and mortgages and drafts to meet, were just bogies to frighten them with and to keep them down.

It was most humiliating for high-spirited children to be so misunderstood. Pop lacked refined tastes. It was a harsh thing to say of one's parent, but when you came right down to it Pop was a hopeless plebeian.

Pop noticed the difference himself. He would have doubted that these magnificent youngsters could be his own if that had not implied a criticism of his unimpeachable wife. So he gave her all the credit. For _Mere_ was different. She was well read; she entertained charmingly; she loved good clothes, up-to-the-minute hats; she knew who was who and what was what. She was ambitious, progressive. She nearly took up French once.

But Pop was shabby. Pop always wore a suit until it glistened and his children ridiculed him into a new one. As for wearing evening dress, in the words of Gerald they "had to blindfold him and back him into his soup-and-fish, even on the night the Italian Opera Company came to town."

Pop never could take them anywhere. A vacation was a thing of horror to him. It was almost impossible to drag him to a lake or the sea, and it was quite impossible to keep him there more than a few days. His business always called him home.

And such a business! Dry-goods!--and in a small town.

And such a town, with such a name! To the children who knew their Paris and their London, their New York and their Washington, a visit home was like a sentence to jail. It was humiliating to make a good impression on acquaintances of importance and then have to confess to a home town named Waupoos.

People either said, "I beg your pardon!" as if they had not heard it right, or they laughed and said, "Honestly?"

The children had tried again and again to pry Pop out of Waupoos, but he clung to it like a limpet. He had had opportunities, too, to move his business to big cities, but he was afraid to venture. He was fairly sure of sustenance in Waupoos so long as he nursed every penny; but he could never find the courage to transplant himself to another place.

The worst of his cowardice was that he blamed the children--at least, he said he dared not face a year or two of possible loss lest they might need something. So he stayed in Waupoos and managed somehow to keep the family afloat and the store open.

When _Mere_ revolted and longed for a glimpse of the outer world he always advised her to take a trip and have a good time. He always said he could afford that much, and he took an interest in seeing that she had funds to buy some city clothes with; but he never had funds enough to go along.

That was one of mother's grievances. Pop bored her to death at home and she wanted to scream every time he mentioned his business--it was so selfish of him to talk of that at night when she had so much to tell him of the misbehavior of the servants. But, greatly as he annoyed her round the house, she cherished an illusion that she would like him in a hotel.

She had tried to get him to read a certain novel--a wonderful book mercilessly exposing the curse of modern America; which is the men's habit of sticking to their business so closely that they give their poor wives no companionship. They leave their poor wives to languish at home or to go shopping or gossiping, while they indulge themselves in the luxuries of vibration between creditor and debtor.

In this novel, and in several others she could have named, the poor wife naturally fell a prey to the fascinations of a handsome devil with dark eyes, a motor or two, and no office hours.

_Mere_ often wondered why she herself had not taken up with some handsome devil fully equipped for the entertainment of neglected wives.

If she had not been a member of that stanch American womanhood to which the glory of the country and its progress are really due, she might have startled her husband into realizing too late, as the too-late husbands in the novels realized, that a man's business is a side issue and that the perpetuation of romance is the main task. Her self-respect was all that held _Mere_ to the home; that and--whisper!--the fact that no handsome devil with any kind of eyes ever tried to lure her away.

When she reproached Pop and threatened him he refused to be scared. He paid his wife that most odious of tributes--a monotonous trust in her loyalty and an insulting immunity to jealousy. Almost worse was his monotonous loyalty to her and his failure to give her jealousy any excuse.

They quarreled incessantly, but the wrangles were not gorgeously dramatic charges of intrigue with handsome men or painted women, followed by rapturous make-ups. They were quarrels over expenditures, extravagances, and voyages.

_Mere_ charged Pop with parsimony and he charged her with recklessness.

She accused him of trying to tie them down to a village; he accused her of trying to drive him to bankruptcy. She demanded to know whether he wanted his children to be like children of their neighbors--clerks in small stores, starveling tradespeople and wives of little merchants. He answered that she was breeding a pack of sn.o.bs that despised their father and had no mercy on him--and no use for him except as a lemon to squeeze dry. She answered with a laugh of scorn that lemon was a good word; and he threw up his hands and returned to the shop if the war broke out at noon, or slunk up to bed if it followed dinner.

This was the pattern of their daily life. Every night there was a new theme, but the duet they built on it ran along the same formulas.

The children sided with _Mere_, of course. In the first place, she was a poor, downtrodden woman; in the second, she was their broker. Her job was to get them things. They gave her the credit for what she got them.

They gave Pop no praise for yielding--no credit for extracting somehow from the dry-soil of an arid town the money they extracted from him.

They knew nothing of the myriad little agonies, the ingenuity, the tireless attention to detail, the exquisite finesse that make success possible in the melee of compet.i.tion. Their souls were above trade and its petty nigglings.

Jno. P., who was now known as J. Pennock, was aiming at a million dollars in New York, and his mother was sure that he would get it next time if Pop would only raise him a little more money to meet an irritating obligation or seize a glittering opportunity. Pop always raised the money and J. Pennock always lost it. Yet Pennock was a financier and Pop was a village merchant. And now Pen had come home unexpectedly. He was showing a great interest in Pop's affairs.

Gerald was home also unexpectedly. He was an artist of the most wonderful promise. None of his promises was more wonderful than those he made his father to repay just one more loan--to tide him over until he sold his next picture; but it never sold, or it sold for a mere song.

Gerald solaced himself and _Mere_ solaced him for being ahead of his time, unappreciated, too good for the public. She thanked Heaven that Gerald was a genius, not a salesman. One salesman in the family was enough!

And Gerald had beaten Pen home by one train. He had greeted Pen somewhat coldly--as if Pen were a trespa.s.ser on his side of the street. And when it was learned that Julie had telegraphed that she would arrive the next day, both the brothers had frowned.

Pop had sighed. He was glad to see his wonderful offspring, but he had already put off the grocer and the butcher--and even his life-insurance premium--because he had an opportunity by a quick use of cash to obtain the bankrupt stock of a rival dealer who had not nursed his pennies as Pop had. It was by such purchases that Pop had managed to keep his store alive and his brilliant children in funds.

He had temporarily drawn his bank account down to the irreducible minimum and borrowed on his securities up to the insurmountable maximum.

It was a bad time for his children to tap him. But here they were--Jno.

P., Jerry, and Julia--all very unctuous over the home-coming, and yet all of them evidently cherishing an ulterior idea.

He watched them lounging in fashionable awkwardness. They were brilliant children. And he was as proud of them as he was afraid of them--and for them.

II

If the children looked brilliant to Pop he did not reflect their refulgence. As they glanced from the photographer's proof to Pop they were not impressed. They were not afraid of him or for him.

His bodily arrangement was pitifully gawky; he neither sat erect nor lounged--he slumped spineless. Big spectacles were in style now, but Pop's big spectacles were just out of it. His face was like a parchment that had been left out in the rain and had dried carelessly in deep, stiff wrinkles--with the writing washed off.

Ethelwolf, the last born, had no ulterior idea. He always spent his monthly allowance by the second Tuesday after the first Monday, and sulked through a period of famine and debt until the next month. It was now the third Tuesday and he was disposed to sarcasm.

"Look at Pop!" he muttered. "He looks just like the old boy they put in the cartoons to represent The Common People."

"He's the Beau Brummel of Waupoos, all right!" said Bayahtreatshe, who was soon returning to Wellesley. And Consuelo, who was preparing for Va.s.sar, added under her breath, "Mere, can't you steal up on him and swipe that already-tied tie?"

Had Pop overheard, he would have made no complaint. He had known the time when they had thrown things at him. The reverence of American children for their fathers is almost as famous as the meekness of American wives before their husbands. Yet it might have hurt Pop a little to see Mother shake her head and hear her sigh:

"He's hopeless, children! Do take warning from my misfortune and be careful what you marry."

Poor _Mere_ had absolutely forgotten how proud she had been when Johnnie Grout came courting her, and how she had extracted a proposal before he knew what he was about, and had him at the altar before he was ready to support a wife in the style she had been accustomed to hope for. She remembered only the dreams he had not brought true, the harsh realities of their struggle upward. She had worked and skimped with him then. Now she was like a lolling pa.s.senger in a jinrikisha, who berates the shabby coolie because he stumbles where the roads are rough and sweats where they are steep.

Julie spoke up in answer to her mother's word of caution:

"There's one thing better than being careful what you marry--and that's not marrying at all!"

The rest of them were used to Julie's views; but Pop, who had paid little heed to them, almost collapsed from his chair. Julie went on:

"Men are all alike, Mere. They're very soft-spoken when they come to make love; but it's only a bluff to make us give up our freedom. Before we know it they drag us up before another man, a preacher, and make us swear to love, honor, and obey. They kill the love, make the honor impossible, and the obey ridiculous. Then they coop us up at home and expect us to let them run the world to suit themselves. They've been running it for thousands of years--and look at the botch they've made of it! It's time for us to take the helm."

"Go to it, sis," said Ethelwolf. "I care not who makes the laws so long as I can break them."

"Let your sister alone!" said _Mere_. "Go on, Julie!"

"I've put it all in the address I read before the Federation last week,"

said Julie. "It was reported at length in one of the papers. I've got a clipping in my handbag here somewhere."

She began to rummage through a little condensed chaos of handkerchiefs, gloves, powder-puff, powdery dollar bills, powdery coins, loose bits of paper, samples, thread, pins, b.u.t.tons--everything--every-whichway.

J. Pennock laughed. "Pipe what's going to run the world! Better get a few pockets first."