Part 4 (1/2)

Mrs. Rudinsky often glanced at David's teacher, to see how her husband's stories were impressing her. She was too shy with her English to say more than was required of her as hostess, but her face, aglow with motherly pride, showed how she partic.i.p.ated in her husband's enthusiasm.

'You see yourself, ma'am, what he is,' said David's father, 'but what could I make of him in Russia? I was happy when he got here, only it was a little late. I wished he started in school younger.'

'He has time enough,' said Miss Ralston. 'He'll get through grammar school before he's fourteen. He's twelve now, isn't he?'

'Yes, ma'am--no, ma'am! He's really fourteen now, but I made him out younger on purpose.'

Miss Ralston looked puzzled. Mr. Rudinsky explained.

'You see, ma'am, he was twelve years when he came, and I wanted he should go to school as long as possible, so when I made his school certificate, I said he was only ten. I have seven children, and David is the oldest one, and I was afraid he'd have to go to work, if business was bad, or if I was sick. The state is a good father to the children in America, if the real fathers don't mix in. Why should my David lose his chance to get educated and be somebody, because I am a poor business man, and have too many children? So I made out that he had to go to school two years more.'

He narrated this anecdote in the same simple manner in which he had told a dozen others. He seemed pleased to rehea.r.s.e the little plot whereby he had insured his boy's education. As Miss Ralston did not make any comment immediately, he went on, as if sure of her sympathy.

'I told you I got my citizen papers right away when I came to America. I worked hard before I could bring my family--it took me four years to save the money--and they found a very poor home when they got here, but they were citizens right away. But it wouldn't do them much good, if they didn't get educated. I found out all about the compulsory education, and I said to myself that's the policeman that will keep me from robbing my David if I fail in business.'

He did not overestimate his visitor's sympathy. Miss Ralston followed his story with quick appreciation of his ideals and motives, but in her ingenuous American mind one fact separated itself from the others: namely, that Mr. Rudinsky had falsified his boy's age, and had recorded the falsehood in a public doc.u.ment. Her recognition of the fact carried with it no criticism. She realized that Mr. Rudinsky's conscience was the product of an environment vastly different from hers. It was merely that to her mind the element of deceit was something to be accounted for, be it ever so charitably, whereas in Mr. Rudinsky's mind it evidently had no existence at all.

'So David is really fourteen years old?' she repeated incredulously.

'Why, he seems too little even for twelve! Does he know?--Of course he would know! I wonder that he consented--'

She broke off, struck by a sudden thought. 'Consented to tell a lie' she had meant to say, but the unspoken words diverted her mind from the conversation. It came upon her in a flash that she had found the key to David's mystery. His note was in her pocketbook, but she knew every word of it, and now everything was plain to her. The lie was this lie about his age, and the person he wanted to s.h.i.+eld was his father. And for that he was suffering so!

She began to ask questions eagerly.

'Has David said anything about--about a little trouble he had in school the day he became ill?'

Both parents showed concern.

'Trouble? what trouble?'

'Oh, it was hardly trouble--at least, I couldn't tell myself.'

'David is so hard to understand sometimes,' his father said.

'Oh, I don't think so!' the teacher cried. 'Not when you make friends with him. He doesn't say much, it's true, but his heart is like a crystal.'

'He's too still,' the mother insisted, shaking her head. 'All the time he's sick, he don't say anything, only when we ask him something. The doctor thinks he's worrying about something, but he don't tell.'

The mother sighed, but Miss Ralston cut short her reflections.

'Mrs. Rudinsky--Mr. Rudinsky,' she began eagerly, '_I_ can tell you what David's troubled about.'

And she told them the story of her last talk with David, and finally read them his note.

'And this lie,' she ended, 'you know what it is, don't you? You've just told me yourself, Mr. Rudinsky.'

She looked pleadingly at him, longing to have him understand David's mind as she understood it. But Mr. Rudinsky was very slow to grasp the point.

'You mean--about the certificate? Because I made out that he was younger?'

Miss Ralston nodded.