Part 13 (1/2)
The President sat up very straight in his chair. ”The children--the children.” He remembered now--they were the children from the incurable ward at Saint Margaret's.
He sank back with a feeling of great helplessness, and closed his eyes again. And there he sat, immovable, his finger still marking his place in the report of the United Charities.
The Oldest Trustee sat alone, knitting comforters for the Preventorium patients. Like many another elderly person, her usual retiring hour was later than that of the younger members of her household, undoubtedly due to the frequent cat-naps s.n.a.t.c.hed from the evening.
The Oldest Trustee had a habit of knitting the day's events in with her yarn. What she had done and said and heard were all thought over again to the rhythmic click of her needles. And the results at the end of the evening were usually a finished comforter and a comfortable feeling. This night, however, the knitting lagged and the thoughts were unaccountably dissatisfying; she could not even settle down to a cat-nap with the habitual serenity.
”I don't know why I should feel disturbed,” and the Oldest Trustee prodded her yarn ball with a disquieting needle, ”but I certainly miss the usual gratification of a day well spent.”
She closed her eyes, hoping thereby to lose herself for the s.p.a.ce of a moment, but instead-- She was startled to hear voices at her very elbow; a number of persons must have entered the room, but how they could have done so without her knowing it she could not understand. Of course they thought her asleep; it was just as well to let them think so. She really felt too tired to talk.
”Mother's undoubtedly growing old. Have you noticed how much she naps in the evening, now?” It was the voice of her youngest daughter.
”I heard her telling some one the other day she was five years younger than she is. That's a sure sign,” and her son laughed an amused little chuckle.
”I can tell you a surer one.” This time it was her oldest daughter--her first-born. ”Haven't you noticed how all mother's little peculiarities are growing on her? She is getting so much more dictatorial and preachy. Of course, we know that mother means to be kind and helpful, but she has always been so--tactless--and blunt; and it's growing worse and worse.”
”I have often wondered how all her charity people take her; it must come tough on them, sometimes. Gee! Can't you see her raising those lorgnettes of hers and saying, 'My good boy, do you read your Bible?'
or, 'My little girl, I hope you remember to be grateful for all you receive.' Say, wouldn't you hate to have charity stuffed down your throat that way?” and the oldest and favorite grandson groaned out his feelings.
”That isn't what I should mind the most.” It was the youngest daughter speaking again. ”I've been with mother when she has made remarks about the patients in the hospital, loud enough for them to hear, and I was so mortified I wanted to sink through the floor, And you simply can't shut mother up. Of course she doesn't realize how it sounds; she doesn't believe they hear her, but I know they do. I wonder how mother would like to have us stand around her--and we know her and love her--and have us say she was getting deaf, or her hair was coming out, or her memory was beginning to fail, or--”
The Oldest Trustee smiled grimly. ”Oh, don't stop, my dear. If there is any other failing you can think of--” She opened her eyes with a start. ”Goodness gracious!” she exclaimed. ”My grandson is in college five hundred miles away, and my daughter is abroad. Have I been dreaming?”
The Meanest Trustee unlocked the drawer of his desk and took out a cigar. He did not intend that his sons or his servants should smoke at his expense; furthermore, it was well not to spread temptation before others. He took up the evening paper and examined the creases carefully. He wished to make sure it had not been unfolded before; being the one to pay for the news in his house, he preferred to be the first one to read it. The creases proved perfectly satisfactory; so he lighted his cigar, crossed his feet, and settled himself--content in his own comfort. The smoke spun into spirals about his head; and after he had skimmed the cream of the day's events he read more leisurely, stopping to watch the spirals with a certain lazy enjoyment. They seemed to grow increasingly larger. They spun themselves about into all kinds of shapes, wavering and illusive, that defied the somewhat atrophied imagination of the Meanest Trustee.
”Hallucinations,” he barked to himself. ”I believe I understand now what is implied when people are said to have them.”
Suddenly the spirals commenced to lengthen downward instead of upward.
To the amazement of the Meanest Trustee he discovered them s.h.i.+fting into human shapes: here was the form of a child, here a youth, here a lover and his la.s.s, here a little old dame, and scores more; while into the corners of the room drifted others that turned into the drollest of droll pipers--with kilt and brata and cap. It made him feel as if he had been dropped into the center of a giant kaleidoscope, with thousands of pieces of gray smoke turning, at the twist of a hand, into form and color, motion and music. The pipers piped; the figures danced, whirling and whirling about him, and their laughter could be heard above the pipers' music.
”Stop!” barked the Meanest Trustee at last; but they only danced the faster. ”Stop!” And he shook his fist at the pipers, who played louder and merrier. ”Stop!” And he pounded the arms of his chair with both hands. ”I hate music! I hate children! I hate noise and confusion! Stop! I say.”
Still the pipers played and the figures danced on; and the Meanest Trustee was compelled to hear and see. To him it seemed an interminable time. He would have stopped his ears with his fingers and shut his eyes, only, strangely enough, he could not. But at last it all came to an end--the figures floated laughing away, and the pipers came and stood about him, their caps in their hands out-stretched before him.
He eyed them suspiciously. ”What's that for?”
”It is time to pay the pipers,” said one.
”Let those who dance pay; that's according to the adage,” and he smiled caustically at his own wit.
”It's a false adage,” said a second, ”like many another that you follow in your world. It is not the ones who dance that should pay, but the ones who keep others from dancing--the ones who help to rob the world of some of its joy. And the ones who rob the most must pay the heaviest. Come!” And he shook his cap significantly.
A sudden feeling of helplessness overpowered the Meanest Trustee.
Muttering something about ”pickpockets” and ”hold-ups,” he ferreted around in his pocket and brought out a single coin, which he dropped ungraciously into the insistent cap.
”What's that?” asked the head piper, curiously.
”It looks to me like money--good money--and I'm throwing it away on a parcel of rascals.”