Part 4 (1/2)

”How you gettin' 'long, Pell? My second bucket's full, an' Susie's almost finished.”

He would reluctantly carry his weeds to the pile, and go back to the work and his dreaming.

He was a problem to his energetic father. He would start industriously enough, but the day's toll always fell far below what was expected. The parents had many conferences over him.

”I don't know what to make of the boy, Mary. I never used to loaf like Pelham does. He's as bad as a n.i.g.g.e.r.”

”He's only a boy, Paul.”

”He's got to learn to work.”

The mother sighed.

The son received ten cents a week for keeping the bedrooms supplied with coal. Several nights he had been routed out of bed, and made to stumble down to the coalhouse, while his father impatiently held the lantern, to do the neglected task. He was perpetually losing things. Hammers, saws, dewed in the morning gra.s.s, a saddle that he had forgotten to hang up,--these would furnish d.a.m.ning indictments of his carefulness.

To teach him responsibility, the three newly-purchased crates of Leghorns were put in his charge. Many a time a dried water-trough or a suspiciously pecked-up chicken-run, its last grain of corn consumed, brought him into trouble. Perhaps he had spent the afternoon whittling a dagger, or carefully cleaning an old horse-skull discovered under the green valley pines. He was very proud at the idea of possessing the chickens, and grew fond of them; but remembering to attend to them was a very different matter.

”I don't never have any time for myself, mother,” he would complain, after a scene with Paul. ”The Highland boys don't have to work all the time.”

”Your father is very busy, Pell; if you don't help him, who will?”

Continued repet.i.tion of these negligences caused tingling reminders to be applied to the boy. Paul hated to whip his son; he almost despised himself for causing suffering to a smaller human; but what was he to do?

Pelham grew familiar with the feel of his father's belt; and still did not, or could not, change his ways.

He could hardly remember when there had not been some friction between them. Consciously and unconsciously he patterned himself after his father in many things. Paul was jolly and companionable, whenever he wished to be; he was an unusually clean representative of a cla.s.s that prided itself upon its chivalry and courage. These traits the boy followed.

Then, too, his father had shown him inordinate attention, as the first son, ever since his birth. This masculine approval, added to the adulation of adoring women relatives, exalted his already high opinion of himself, made him selfishly demand more than his share.

His mother's love, for instance,--there were times when he wanted to feel he had all of it. When his father was off on business trips, he became, young as he was, the head of the house. It fretted him to be reduced again to a humble subordinate position.

He could sleep in Mary's room, when Paul was away; this privilege he lost on the return. He hardly realized how this tinged his thoughts with dislike of the father. The parents had a vast, almost a G.o.dlike, part in his life,--as in the lives of all children. Whatever daily good or ill he received, came primarily from them; his own efforts counted only as they pleased or displeased the deities. What he did not receive, he blamed upon his father; and he often dwelt upon the happy home life should Paul die, or disappear. He could earn a living for mother, and make a loving home for her....

These things created an unseen and growing breach between the two.

When he first came to Adamsville, Paul had had to go out and make business for himself. He had allied himself to James Snell, a fidgety, pus.h.i.+ng real estate operator who was familiar with the newcomer's success in Jackson. ”The Snell-Judson Real Estate and Development Company” came into existence; Paul joined the Commercial Club, the Country Club, and met here as many people as he could. Before the winter was over, he found his hands full. Perpetual application to the complications of real estate problems throughout the county was wearing; which made him less liable than ever to put up with Pelham's shortcomings. As the spring grew on, and the matter did not mend, he called his son into his room early one morning. ”You left the cow-gate unlatched last night, Pelham.”

The boy sensed the gravity of his father's tone, and grew at once apprehensive. ”I thought I shut it, father----”

”Peter had to spend an hour looking for them, this morning. This is the second time in a week.”

The boy became voluble. ”The other time, father, you know I told you----”

”Yes, you told me. You're always telling me. Did you take that scythe down to be sharpened yesterday?”

”I meant to--I'll take it this afternoon, sure.”

”You'll take it before you go to school this morning.”

”Father,--if I'm tardy,----”

”You can explain to Professor Gloster you made yourself late.”