Part 19 (2/2)
”Father!” he said weakly.
”Justice!” said Judge Dalrymple with dry lips. ”How did you get here?
Where have you been all this time?”
”Out west,” replied Justice.
”Why didn't you tell us where you were??” asked the Judge, sitting down heavily again.
”I merely followed your instructions,” replied Justice with dignity. ”You told me to get out; that you didn't ever want to hear from me again, and I took you at your word.”
”I was a fool, a blind fool, and in a great rage when I said that. I didn't mean it,” said the Judge, in a choking voice.
”But you said it, nevertheless,” replied Justice, ”and I was hot-headed and went.”
”What have you been doing all this time?” asked the Judge curiously.
”Roughing it,” replied Justice, in the tone of one who has great adventures to tell, ”until I came here and turned into a professor.” A humorous twinkle lit up his eye as he mentioned the word ”Professor.”
In a daze of astonishment father, mother and I watched this unexpected meeting and reconciliation between father and son. In due time we had all the story. Judge Dalrymple had set his heart on having his oldest son, Justice, become a lawyer like himself, and go into his law firm as junior partner. But Justice had no liking for the law. All he wanted to do was tinker with electrical things. It was the only thing in the world he cared for. When he got through college and his father insisted upon his entering the law school he flatly refused. There was a scene and he and his father quarreled bitterly. His father told him he could either go to law school or get out and hoe for himself and he chose the latter. He left home. All the while he had been in college he had been working on an electrical device to enable deaf men to receive wireless messages. He now went to work on this and finished it, and, boylike, thought his fortune was made. But it seemed fortune had turned her back on him. He had no money himself to market the device and he could not succeed in interesting anyone with capital. He spent many weary days, going from one place to another with his invention, only to meet with failure on all sides. He had always had delicate health and the long hours he had spent indoors working on his beloved experiments finally told on him and he developed a throat trouble which made it impossible for him to stay in the north. One day, in a moment of great discouragement, he threw his invention into the New York harbor and sorrowfully gave up his dream of being an inventor. He was down and out but still too proud to write home and ask help from his father. He had a chance to act as chauffeur for a party of ladies who wanted to tour the west and in this manner he made his way to Texas. He worked there on a sheep ranch for a number of months; then, seized with a desire to see the country, he worked his way through the Territory and into Arkansas, and finally into the towns.h.i.+p of Spencer, where he was attacked by robbers one night on the road, robbed of all his belongings and left lying there with his head cut open. Then it was that he had wandered into our stable, was found, and nursed back to health.
Our climate agreed with him so well that he decided to stay for a while, and got the position of teaching in the high school at Spencer, which wasn't very hard work. The long walk or drive in the open, back and forth every day, and his sleeping in the airy shack, gradually worked a cure to his throat, and brought back the health he had lost through overwork and disappointment.
Besides--just listen to this, will you--he said that I had given him such an amazing new outlook on life that he wanted to stay as near to me as he could and learn my philosophy. He had been utterly discouraged when he came, had lost his grip on things, and didn't care a hang what became of him, but I had put new life and ambition back into him. Imagine it! My philosophy!
He had resolved to have nothing more to do with his father after he had turned him out, and dropped the name of Dalrymple, going by the name of Justice Sherman. His full name was Justice Sherman Dalrymple.
Thus ended the mystery of the scholarly sheep herder. The son of _my_ Judge Dalrymple! I couldn't believe it, but it was true beyond a doubt. I _did_ know a hawk from a handsaw, after all. No wonder he had looked so sad sometimes when he thought no one was watching him, with such memories to brood over! No wonder he had acted so queerly when I told him what we had done to Antha and Anthony up on Ellen's Isle. They were his younger brother and sister!
Judge Dalrymple was speaking to Sherman again. ”So you threw your invention into the New York Harbor, did you?” he said regretfully. ”It's too bad, because some one to whom you showed it has been writing and writing to the house about it. I couldn't forward the letter because I had no idea where you were. The Government wants to try out your invention. I never dreamed that those fool experiments you were forever making amounted to anything. I see now you were wiser than I. Come home, boy, and tinker all you like. We'll throw the lawyer business into the discard. Could you build up your thingummyjig again?”
At this astonis.h.i.+ng news Justice began whooping like a wild Indian.
”Could I build it up again?” he shouted. ”Just give me a chance. Just watch me!” He seized me around the waist and began jigging with me all over the floor.
”Save the pieces,” I panted, sinking into a chair and making a vain attempt to smooth back my flying hair.
Then I noticed that Judge Dalrymple was looking at me with eyes filled with awe, not to say fear.
”Girl, what are you?” he asked in a strange voice. ”Are you Fate? Every time I come in touch with you, you work some miracle in my household.
First you perform a magic in my two younger children, and then when I attempt to make some slight return for your great service and seek you out, I find that you have also drawn my other child to you from out of the Vast and worked as great a miracle in him. Are you human or superhuman, that you can play with people's destinies like that? Under what star were you born, anyway?”
”Weren't any stars at all,” I replied, laughing. ”The sun was s.h.i.+ning!”
O my Winnies, what a day this has been! The sun rose exactly as on any other day, without any warning of what was coming, and yet before he set the world had been turned topsy turvy for five people! Isn't life glorious, though? Mercy, but I'm glad I was born!
Breathlessly yours, Katherine.
<script>