Part 40 (1/2)

”What's Ferris?”

”He's a man I met at dinner the other night. When he was your age he was the richest child in America, and everybody fussed over him till he grew up into a wretched little creature with a black moustache and two chins. You ought to see him. He would make you laugh; and you don't get much to laugh at nowadays. I guess it isn't hygienic for a kid to laugh. Bill, honestly--what _do_ you think of things? Don't you ever want to hurl one of those sterilized bricks of yours at a certain lady? Or has she taken all the heart out of you by this time?”

This was beyond Bill, as Kirk's monologues frequently were. He changed the subject.

”I wish I had a cat,” he said, by way of starting a new topic.

”Well, why haven't you a cat? Why haven't you a dozen cats if you want them?”

”I asked Aunty Lora could I have a cat, and she said: 'Certainly not, cats are--cats are----”

”Unhygienic?”

”What's that?”

”It's what your Aunt Lora might think a cat was. Or did she say pestilential?”

”I don't amember.”

”But she wouldn't let you have one?”

”Mamie said a cat might scratch me.”

”Well, you wouldn't mind that?” said Kirk anxiously.

He had come to be almost morbidly on the look-out for evidence which might go to prove that this cotton-wool existence was stealing from the child the birthright of courage which was his from both his parents.

Much often depends on little things, and, if Bill had replied in the affirmative to the question, it would probably have had the result of sending Kirk there and then raging through the house conducting a sort of War of Independence.

The only thing that had kept him from doing so before was the reflection that Mrs. Porter's system could not be definitely taxed with any harmful results. But his mind was never easy. Every day found him still nervously on the alert for symptoms.

Bill soothed him now by answering ”No” in a very decided voice. All well so far, but it had been an anxious moment.

It seemed incredible to Kirk that the life he was leading should not in time turn the child into a whimpering bundle of nerves. His conversations with Bill were, as a result, a sort of spiritual parallel to the daily taking of his temperature with the thermometer. Sooner or later he always led the talk round to some point where Bill must make a definite p.r.o.nouncement which would show whether or not the insidious decay had begun to set in.

So far all appeared to be well. In earlier conversations Bill, subtly questioned, had stoutly maintained that he was not afraid of Indians, dogs, pirates, mice, cows, June-bugs, or noises in the dark. He had even gone so far as to state that if an Indian chief found his way into the nursery he, Bill, would chop his head off. The most exacting father could not have asked more. And yet Kirk was not satisfied: he remained uneasy.

It so happened that this afternoon Bill, who had had hitherto to maintain his reputation for intrepidity entirely by verbal statements, was afforded an opportunity of providing a practical demonstration that his heart was in the right place. The game he was playing with the bricks was one that involved a certain amount of running about with a puffing accompaniment of a vaguely equine nature. And while performing this part of the programme he chanced to trip. He hesitated for a moment, as if uncertain whether to fall or remain standing; then did the former with a most emphatic b.u.mp.

He scrambled up, stood looking at Kirk with a twitching lip, then gave a great gulp, and resumed his trotting. The whole exhibition of indomitable heroism was over in half a minute, and he did not even bother to wait for applause.

The effect of the incident on Kirk was magical. He was in the position of an earnest wors.h.i.+pper who, tortured with doubts, has prayed for a sign. This was a revelation. A million anti-Indian statements, however resolute, were nothing to this.

This was the real thing. Before his eyes this super-child of his had fallen in a manner which might quite reasonably have led to tears; which would, Kirk felt sure, have produced bellows of anguish from every other child in America. And what had happened? Not a moan. No, sir, not one solitary cry. Just a gulp which you had to strain your ears to hear, and which, at that, might have been a mere taking-in of breath such as every athlete must do, and all was over.

This child of his was the real thing. It had been proved beyond possibility of criticism.

There are moments when a man on parole forgets his promise. All thought of rules and prohibitions went from Kirk. He rose from his seat, grabbed his son with both hands, and hugged him. We cannot even begin to estimate the number of bacilli which must have rushed, whooping with joy, on to the unfortunate child. Under a microscope it would probably have looked like an Old Home Week. And Kirk did not care. He simply kept on hugging. That was the sort of man he was--thoroughly heartless.