The Boy Grew Older Part 5

Peter thought back. "Not such a little one," he admitted.

"Well then, watch me," she said. "See, take him like this. If you don't he's sure to cry."

"But he's crying now," protested Peter.

"That's for some other reason. It isn't because I'm holding him wrong.

All little babies cry a good deal at first. It's good for them. Any time a small baby doesn't cry a certain number of hours a day there's something wrong. You see he isn't big enough to walk, or crawl, or even roll around much and crying is the way he gets his exercise. He's getting air into his little lungs now."

"There isn't anything to be done about it?" Peter wanted to know.

"Well, of course, you must look first of all to see if there is any real reason for his crying. His skin is very sensitive. There might be a pin sticking in him. It might be that his clothes need to be changed." Miss Haine paused. "Yes, he wants to be changed now."

Peter made a step toward the door, "Oh, you'll have to learn this," said Miss Haine. "Watch me."

At the moment she seemed skilful. For the first time Peter appreciated the fact that she really was trained. But he did not know until after months of subsequent experience just what a marvel he was permitted to observe. In the course of a year or so he made progress. His improvement was tangible enough to be demonstrated in figures. Neale was given to statistics. He was the first sporting writer to keep separate averages for batters against right and lefthanded pitching. It was Peter Neale who proved years later that there were definite exceptions to the accepted theory that lefthanded batters do badly against southpaws. He was able to show that through one entire campaign Ty Cobb batted 11.692 points better against lefthanders than he did against righthanders. In much the same spirit Peter used a stop watch on himself while he was engaged in the task of changing the child. In twelve months time he was pleased to observe that his record was gradually cut down from nineteen minutes to five and a half. Later he wished it had been his privilege to time Miss Haine at this first demonstration. He was sportsman enough to admit that in all probability even his best performance after months of practice was markedly inferior to hers. Indeed he would not have been a bit surprised to learn that she had established a world's record before his very eyes. Even as a novice in the matter he knew that he had seen a marvel.

After all, in spite of Peter's ignorance of babies he did have a reportorial eye. It took him no more than a few seconds to observe that Miss Haine's phrase, "He wants to be changed," was not a particularly nice use of English. There seemed to be nothing in the world which the child wanted less. He screamed as Peter, at that time, had never heard him scream, and kicked prodigiously. Many months later when Peter had begun to perfect himself in the technique of the task he felt that perhaps he would not do at all badly in any compet.i.tion limited to partic.i.p.ants who were also parents. He was never able to challenge in any way the complete mastery of Miss Haine because she was endowed with a complete indifference. She did not allow the screaming to interfere with her efficiency in any way. The kicking never worried or angered her. She acted as if it were a natural hazard.

"There's a nice dry child for you," she said at the end of an interval which Peter subsequently estimated to have been three minutes and twenty seconds. He was also a silent child until Peter picked him up.

"Put your right hand a little lower and raise your left," advised Miss Haine. "Remember he isn't strong enough yet to hold up his head all by himself."

Peter obeyed at the moment, but he grew to have a certain contempt for all established canons of good form in regard to holding a baby. Indeed he eventually wrote an article for one of the magazines in which he maintained: "There are one hundred and fifty-two distinctly different ways of holding a baby--and all are right! At least all will do." He based this contention on the fact that the body of a small baby is soft and pliable and that a person with a strong pair of hands can get a grip pretty much any place he chooses. Still, for the moment he obeyed instructions implicitly and went down the stairs gingerly and out to the taxicab.

"That's a fine husky kid you've got there," said the driver. "Is it yours?"

"Yes," said Peter somewhat ashamed and annoyed by the fact that a suggestion of pride crept into his voice quite against his will. "It's my son."

"He certainly knows how to yell," said the driver. "I've got five but he beats 'em all."

Curiously enough the child ceased crying the instant the taxi started.

The motion of the journey and possibly the sight of the trees and the river and the ships seemed to have a certain interest for it. The mouth opened into something that might have been a grin.

"That's Grant's Tomb," said Peter before he realized that whatever interest in the proceedings the child actually had it could hardly be pinned down to the particular. Climbing the two flights of stairs which led to his apartment, Peter knocked at the door briskly. Somehow or other the baby had begun to slip through his fingers and he found it impossible to reach the pocket in his vest where he kept his keys.

There was no answer. Peter knocked again and still n.o.body came. Heaving the baby up over his shoulder he found the key after trying three wrong pockets and went into the flat. There was no one about. Kate had not arrived. Peter was alone with his son.

Panic descended upon him. He remembered, "His skin is very sensitive. A pin may be sticking into him," and he wondered if in the event of such an emergency he could possibly locate the trouble. He was still more doubtful of his ability to do anything else which might be necessary.

Even in the taxicab, Peter had not felt wholly alone. After all the driver had said that he was the father of five. This was rea.s.suring to Peter. He had a mind which hopped ahead. He had been quite alive to the arrival of a contingency upon which he would find it necessary to tap upon the window and say, "Never mind the car for a minute. What should I do now?"

Fortunately, the conduct of the baby was more admirable than anything Peter had yet known. He put it in the middle of the bed where it promptly went to sleep. Peter sat in a chair close by and watched.

Suddenly something happened which startled him. Without waking the child rolled over and buried its head in the pillow face downward. Peter knew that it would not smother. He had slept exactly that way himself for twenty-five years.

There was no clock in the house and Peter had no notion of how long he waited. Presently the child woke and began to cry petulantly. A search for pins was resented and the wailing took on its characteristic vigor.

"Don't do that," said Peter. He picked the child up, carried it to the window and back again without good results. Then he said, "Listen!"

Peter cleared his throat. "Rockabye, baby, on the tree top," he began but to no avail. He wasn't very sure of the tune. There was only one song of which he was confident. "Oh, Harvard was old Harvard when Yale was but a pup," struck up Peter. "And Harvard will be Harvard still when Yale is all gone up, And if any Eli son of a----."

Instinctively Peter began to hum the rest. It did not seem to him just the sort of song he should sing to his baby. And yet it proved exactly right. The child went off to sleep again and remained that way while Peter disentangled it. A few minutes later Kate came in. "I was thinking, Mr. Neale," she said, "that there was no clothes for the child." She stepped across to the bed. "Oh, the little angel. Now the deep sleep does be on him. I found some old things and brought them. I hope he was no trouble to you."

"No," said Peter, mopping his forehead. "He wasn't so much trouble. Have you got everything you need? I'm going to leave you some money for milk and food and things. Can you stay with him right along now till your day off?"

"I can that."

"Well, let's see. This is Tuesday. I'm going out for awhile. I won't be back tonight. Maybe I won't be back tomorrow. Anyhow I'll be back before Sunday. Take good care of him."

Peter had to steady himself going down the stairs to the street. He was shaky and wringing with perspiration. He felt as if he had pitched a nine inning game with the score nothing to nothing all the way. He just had to get out of the house. The ache which had died down the night before was back again. "I guess I've got to get drunk," thought Peter.

CHAPTER VII

When Peter reached the corner he found that it was only half-past twelve. It was much too early to get drunk. Daylight drinking had always seemed to him disgusting. As a matter of fact, he was contemplating the spree merely as a means to an end. In order to forget Maria he must think of someone else and it would suit his purpose that the other person should be someone rowdy and degraded. He would rub himself with mud to ease the numbness of his spirit. He knew that he could never do it without drinking. First many gates must be unlocked. Maria had been right when she said that Peter was afraid of s.e.x. When he was quite a small boy somebody had told him about flowers and it meant nothing to him. It had seemed merely a fairy story rather more dull than usual.

Much later a red-haired boy who lived five houses away had talked to Peter and frightened and disgusted him. After that he had run away when other boys tried to tell him anything about these mysteries. Of course his squeamishness had been marked and he became the b.u.t.t of every youngster with any talent for s.m.u.t. Finding that flight was useless Peter adopted a new system and fought fiercely with anyone who taunted him. He was bigger and stronger than most of the other boys and he soon piled up an imposing list of victims to his prowess. He fought so well that his ignorance remained almost unimpaired. Once when he was in the act of belaboring a companion who had tried to outline for him the plot of a book called "Only A Boy," a woman pa.s.sing by had interrupted the fight. She wanted to know if Peter was not ashamed of himself.

Defensively he answered that the other boy had been "talking dirty."

Immediately the pa.s.serby deluged Peter with admiration. She took down his name and address and later he received by mail a Bible, leather bound, and on the flyleaf was the inscription "To a young Sir Galahad."

Peter never took any particular pride in this gift.

He knew in his heart that his purity rested solidly on fear. He burned with curiosity. At times he actually invited lewd confidences though making every pretence of anger when they were imparted to him. Respite came to him for a year or two before he went to college because athletics became his G.o.d. He excelled all compet.i.tors in school and was generally rated the best right-handed pitcher in the metropolitan district. Baseball filled all his thoughts waking and sleeping, and in the autumn it was football, although in this branch of sport he was by no means as proficient. Indeed when he went to Harvard at the age of seventeen he was dropped from the varsity squad in the first cut and later from the freshmen.

At this particular time, when he was much more foot-loose than usual, the annual medical lecture to the Freshmen was delivered. It was known in unofficial circles as s.m.u.t One and attendance was compulsory. Very gravely and severely the old doctor unfolded his tale of horrors. The spirit was not unlike that of a traditional h.e.l.l-fire sermon. Peter heard the man half through and then fainted, toppling over from his seat across an aisle. He was carried downstairs into the fresh air and did not come back. But he had heard enough to be convinced that this s.e.x business was even worse than it had seemed in the crude and rowdy flashes which had come to him from his companions. And yet the fact that it was horrible by no means served to keep his thoughts clear of the subject. The doctor had talked entirely of the dangers and disgraces of immorality. Peter could not escape the only partially conscious surmise that unspeakable delights and wonders must lie within this circle of leaping flames. This impression was confirmed when he happened in the college library to come across a poem by Carew called "The Rapture." s.e.x seemed to him now by far the most romantic and adventurous thing in life. The fact that there were monsters and dragons to be dared made it all the more a piece with the unforgotten tales of childhood concerning giant killers and knights-errant.

Peter was no longer satisfied to be Galahad. He wanted to be Launcelot.

And still he was afraid. He found out that Columbus Avenue in Boston was a street largely given over to women and night after night he used to slink about dark corners hoping and dreading that somebody would speak to him. Whenever a "h.e.l.lo dearie" came to him out of the darkness Peter trembled. "No," he would say, "I'm sorry. I've got a very important engagement. I've got to go right along. I must go right along. Sure, I'll be here at this same time tomorrow night."

Often he would carry on some such dialogue a dozen times in an evening and then one night a woman, more stalwart and audacious than any he had yet encountered, seized him by the arm. "Sonny," she said, "I'm not going to let you waste my time. You're not going any place except with me. Now march along."

Peter marched. That was why he told Maria Algarez that he was not quite a good man himself.

For a time disillusion supplanted turmoil in the mind of Peter. He found that the romanticists were just as fraudulent as the moralists. Don Juan seemed to him as great a fake as Galahad. Besides in the spring the call for baseball candidates came along and Peter surprised the college world by being the only Freshman to win a place on the varsity nine. He pitched the second game against Yale and won by a score of 2 to 0. Life meant something after all. Bending a third strike across the knees of a man with a Y on his chest gave a dignity to existence which it had never before possessed. Peter was done with hot thoughts and cold ones.

Unfortunately he was also done with thoughts about examinations. French was his most abject failure, but he did badly enough in everything else to be told that his college days were over.

Still he was bereft of romance for no more than a month. He caught on with the sporting department of the Bulletin early in August and made an almost instantaneous. .h.i.t. Here again he found satisfaction in the gait and color of life. Women were not rigorously excluded from the scheme of things, but they were not important. He saw them in the dance halls where he went after hours and talked to them and drank with them, but they served merely as minor characters. The talk which animated this existence for Peter was all of the shop. A reporter from San Francisco, named Rusk, suddenly discovered to his amazement and delight that here was a man eager to hear his tales of newspaper work along the waterfront in the days when the coast towns were still unregenerate. Everybody else on the Bulletin was in the habit of groaning loudly whenever Rusk began, "In the old days on the waterfront----," but Peter listened with the most intense sort of interest to Rusk's entire stock of anecdotes. By and by Rusk had to make them up. He gave himself a boyhood as a jockey and also enlisted fictionally in the Spanish American war. Peter believed everything and liked everything. Four months later Rusk left the Bulletin in order to try his hand at free lancing for the magazines. His failure in that field surprised him. He had come to confuse Peter Neale and the general public.

Peter began his spree by going to the Newspaper Club. He found no one in the big room except two old men playing chess. One of them did weather and the other fish on the New York Press. They were not communicative and neither seemed disposed to be drawn into conversation. And so for a time Peter watched the game. He found it impossible to work up any enthusiasm about the issue and departed to practice pool on a table at the other end of the room. Caring nothing about performance, Peter was surprised to discover that the most difficult shots all came off.

Nothing was too hard. Even the most fantastically complicated combinations plopped the required ball into a pocket.

Far from being pleased at this Peter grew angry. He felt that Fate was ironically evening up things for him by burdening him with luck and prowess in something which made no difference and withholding its favor in all the important aspects of life. Testing out his theory he picked up a straggler, a man he knew but slightly, who happened to wander into the club at that moment.

"I'll roll you Indian dice," challenged Peter. "A dollar a throw."

Good luck continued to plague him although he knew that its attentions were not honorable! At the end of three quarters of an hour Peter was $85 ahead.

"That's enough," he said with irritation.