Tales of the Jazz Age Part 43

"Babies always wear those," said the nurse primly.

"Well," said the old man, "this baby's not going to wear anything in about two minutes. This blanket itches. They might at least have given me a sheet."

"Keep it on! Keep it on!" said Mr. b.u.t.ton hurriedly. He turned to the nurse. "What'll I do?"

"Go down town and buy your son some clothes."

Mr. b.u.t.ton's son's voice followed him down into the hall: "And a cane, father. I want to have a cane."

Mr. b.u.t.ton banged the outer door savagely....

2

"Good-morning," Mr. b.u.t.ton said nervously, to the clerk in the Chesapeake Dry Goods Company. "I want to buy some clothes for my child."

"How old is your child, sir?"

"About six hours," answered Mr. b.u.t.ton, without due consideration.

"Babies' supply department in the rear."

"Why, I don't think--I'm not sure that's what I want. It's--he's an unusually large-size child. Exceptionally--ah large."

"They have the largest child's sizes."

"Where is the boys' department?" inquired Mr. b.u.t.ton, shifting his ground desperately. He felt that the clerk must surely scent his shameful secret.

"Right here."

"Well----" He hesitated. The notion of dressing his son in men's clothes was repugnant to him. If, say, he could only find a very large boy's suit, he might cut off that long and awful beard, dye the white hair brown, and thus manage to conceal the worst, and to retain something of his own self-respect--not to mention his position in Baltimore society.

But a frantic inspection of the boys' department revealed no suits to fit the new-born b.u.t.ton. He blamed the store, of course--in such cases it is the thing to blame the store.

"How old did you say that boy of yours was?" demanded the clerk curiously.

"He's--sixteen."

"Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought you said six _hours_. You'll find the youths' department in the next aisle."

Mr. b.u.t.ton turned miserably away. Then he stopped, brightened, and pointed his finger toward a dressed dummy in the window display.

"There!" he exclaimed. "I'll take that suit, out there on the dummy."

The clerk stared. "Why," he protested, "that's not a child's suit. At least it _is_, but it's for fancy dress. You could wear it yourself!"

"Wrap it up," insisted his customer nervously. "That's what I want."

The astonished clerk obeyed.

Back at the hospital Mr. b.u.t.ton entered the nursery and almost threw the package at his son. "Here's your clothes," he snapped out.

The old man untied the package and viewed the contents with a quizzical eye.

"They look sort of funny to me," he complained, "I don't want to be made a monkey of--"

"You've made a monkey of me!" retorted Mr. b.u.t.ton fiercely. "Never you mind how funny you look. Put them on--or I'll--or I'll _spank_ you." He swallowed uneasily at the penultimate word, feeling nevertheless that it was the proper thing to say.

"All right, father"--this with a grotesque simulation of filial respect--"you've lived longer; you know best. Just as you say."

As before, the sound of the word "father" caused Mr. b.u.t.ton to start violently.

"And hurry."

"I'm hurrying, father."

When his son was dressed Mr. b.u.t.ton regarded him with depression. The costume consisted of dotted socks, pink pants, and a belted blouse with a wide white collar. Over the latter waved the long whitish beard, drooping almost to the waist. The effect was not good.

"Wait!"

Mr. b.u.t.ton seized a hospital shears and with three quick snaps amputated a large section of the beard. But even with this improvement the ensemble fell far short of perfection. The remaining brush of scraggly hair, the watery eyes, the ancient teeth, seemed oddly out of tone with the gaiety of the costume. Mr. b.u.t.ton, however, was obdurate--he held out his hand. "Come along!" he said sternly.

His son took the hand trustingly. "What are you going to call me, dad?" he quavered as they walked from the nursery--"just 'baby' for a while? till you think of a better name?"

Mr. b.u.t.ton grunted. "I don't know," he answered harshly. "I think we'll call you Methuselah."

3

Even after the new addition to the b.u.t.ton family had had his hair cut short and then dyed to a spa.r.s.e unnatural black, had had his face shaved so close that it glistened, and had been attired in small-boy clothes made to order by a flabbergasted tailor, it was impossible for b.u.t.ton to ignore the fact that his son was a poor excuse for a first family baby. Despite his aged stoop, Benjamin b.u.t.ton--for it was by this name they called him instead of by the appropriate but invidious Methuselah--was five feet eight inches tall. His clothes did not conceal this, nor did the clipping and dyeing of his eyebrows disguise the fact that the eyes under--were faded and watery and tired. In fact, the baby-nurse who had been engaged in advance left the house after one look, in a state of considerable indignation.

But Mr. b.u.t.ton persisted in his unwavering purpose. Benjamin was a baby, and a baby he should remain. At first he declared that if Benjamin didn't like warm milk he could go without food altogether, but he was finally prevailed upon to allow his son bread and b.u.t.ter, and even oatmeal by way of a compromise. One day he brought home a rattle and, giving it to Benjamin, insisted in no uncertain terms that he should "play with it," whereupon the old man took it with--a weary expression and could be heard jingling it obediently at intervals throughout the day.

There can be no doubt, though, that the rattle bored him, and that he found other and more soothing amus.e.m.e.nts when he was left alone. For instance, Mr. b.u.t.ton discovered one day that during the preceding week he had smoked more cigars than ever before--a phenomenon, which was explained a few days later when, entering the nursery unexpectedly, he found the room full of faint blue haze and Benjamin, with a guilty expression on his face, trying to conceal the b.u.t.t of a dark Havana.

This, of course, called for a severe spanking, but Mr. b.u.t.ton found that he could not bring himself to administer it. He merely warned his son that he would "stunt his growth."

Nevertheless he persisted in his att.i.tude. He brought home lead soldiers, he brought toy trains, he brought large pleasant animals made of cotton, and, to perfect the illusion which he was creating--for himself at least--he pa.s.sionately demanded of the clerk in the toy-store whether "the paint would come oft the pink duck if the baby put it in his mouth." But, despite all his father's efforts, Benjamin refused to be interested. He would steal down the back stairs and return to the nursery with a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, over which he would pore through an afternoon, while his cotton cows and his Noah's ark were left neglected on the floor.

Against such a stubbornness Mr. b.u.t.ton's efforts were of little avail.

The sensation created in Baltimore was, at first, prodigious. What the mishap would have cost the b.u.t.tons and their kinsfolk socially cannot be determined, for the outbreak of the Civil War drew the city's attention to other things. A few people who were unfailingly polite racked their brains for compliments to give to the parents--and finally hit upon the ingenious device of declaring that the baby resembled his grandfather, a fact which, due to the standard state of decay common to all men of seventy, could not be denied. Mr. and Mrs.

Roger b.u.t.ton were not pleased, and Benjamin's grandfather was furiously insulted.

Benjamin, once he left the hospital, took life as he found it. Several small boys were brought to see him, and he spent a stiff-jointed afternoon trying to work up an interest in tops and marbles--he even managed, quite accidentally, to break a kitchen window with a stone from a sling shot, a feat which secretly delighted his father.

Thereafter Benjamin contrived to break something every day, but he did these things only because they were expected of him, and because he was by nature obliging.

When his grandfather's initial antagonism wore off, Benjamin and that gentleman took enormous pleasure in one another's company. They would sit for hours, these two, so far apart in age and experience, and, like old cronies, discuss with tireless monotony the slow events of the day. Benjamin felt more at ease in his grandfather's presence than in his parents'--they seemed always somewhat in awe of him and, despite the dictatorial authority they exercised over him, frequently addressed him as "Mr."