Part 6 (1/2)
”Rummy chap,” said Norris.
The older people came in to greet the boy they had known all his life, to ask the innumerable usual questions, to say the inevitable things through dinner.
Afterwards, when the last fragments of sunset burned through and across the water, they gathered on the piazza. It was that dreamy hour when women find it easy to be silent and men to talk. Madeline and her mother sat close, with hands restfully clasped in their joy at being together.
Mr. Elton eyed the two young men from his vantage of years of shrewd wisdom. Both the boys were clean-shaven, after the manner of the day, a fas.h.i.+on that seems to become clean manliness, vigorous and self-controlled. Both were good to look at; but here the resemblance ended, for d.i.c.k's long slender face and body lithe with its athletic training, was alive and restless, as though he found it difficult to keep back his pa.s.sion for activity; Ellery, big but loosely joined, had the dogged look of one that held some of his energy in reserve. A good pair, Mr. Elton concluded, and felt a sudden spasm of longing for a son--not that he would have exchanged Madeline for any trousered biped that walked, but it would be a great thing to own one such well of young masculine vigor as these.
”It's going to be great fun for us old fellows to sit back and watch you young ones,” the elder man e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. ”There are several good-sized jobs waiting for you.”
”That's a good thing,” said d.i.c.k. ”When there's nothing to do, n.o.body'll do it.”
”And it will be a tame sort of a world, eh? Well, thank the Lord, it's none of our responsibility any longer. You've got to tackle it. The new phases of things are too much for me, with a brain solidified by years.”
”You might at least help us by stating the problem,” said Norris.
”You see, it's like this. Until a few years ago every census map of the United States was seamed by a long line marked 'frontier.' That line is gone. That's the situation in a nutsh.e.l.l. Our work, the subjugation of the land, is about done, and the question is now up to you; what are you going to do with it? You know the old story of the man who said he had a horse who could run a mile in two-forty. And the other fellow asked, 'What are you going to do when you get there?' We've done the running and our children are there. Now what? You must develop a whole set of new talents--not trotting talents, but staying talents.”
”I suppose,” said Norris slowly, for d.i.c.k was silent, ”circ.u.mstances bring out abilities. That's the law that operated in the case of the older generation, and we'll have to trust to it in ours.”
”That's true. But I sometimes wonder if, after all, we are helping you to the best preparation. We send you back to get the old education. The tendency of old communities is to rehash the traditions until they become authority. New communities have to face problems for themselves and solve them by new ways. The first kind of training makes scholars.
The second brings out genius. The old makes men think over the thoughts of others. Heaven knows we need men who will think for themselves!”
”Well, 'old and young are fellows',” said d.i.c.k. ”To-day grows out of yesterday.”
”Yes, if it grows. The growing is the point. It mustn't molder on yesterday. You must have enough books to get your thinkers going, but not more. You must not feast on libraries until you get intellectual gout and have to tickle your palate with dainties. A good deal of stuff that's written nowadays seems to me like literary c.o.c.ktails,--something to stir a jaded appet.i.te. That's my friend Early's specialty--to serve literary c.o.c.ktails. But the appet.i.te you bolster up isn't the equivalent of a good healthy hunger after a day out-of-doors.”
”When nature wants a genius, I suppose she has to use fresh seed,” said d.i.c.k.
”And genius is creative,” Mr. Elton went on. ”So far, the genius this country has developed is that which takes the raw material of forest and river and creates civilization. And let me tell you that's a very different job from heaping up population.”
Silence fell on the little group and they became suddenly aware of lapping waters and the sleepy twitter of birds, and even of a long slender thread of pale light that struck across the lake from a low-lying star. Madeline gave a little sigh and pressed her mother's hand.
d.i.c.k flushed and hesitated in the darkness, with youth's confidence in its own great purposes and youth's craving for sympathy in its ambitions. Mr. Elton's combination of kindness and shrewdness seemed to draw him out.
”It sounds impertinent and conceited for a young fellow like me to talk about what he means to do.”
”Fire away. I knew your father, d.i.c.k.”
”Then you'll know what I mean when I say that it has always been my ambition to live up to his traditions--his ideal of a man's public duties.”
Mr. Elton nodded and d.i.c.k went on, while Ellery eyed him with some of the old college respect, and Madeline leaned eagerly forward.
”I don't mean any splurge, you understand, but the same quiet service he gave. Father left his affairs in such good order that there isn't any real necessity for me to try to add to my income. Of course, it isn't a great fortune, but it's more than enough; and my ambitions don't lie that way. There's a certain amount of business in taking care of it as it stands. Mother is glad to turn the burden of it over to me. She's done n.o.bly--dear little woman--but--”
”I understand. It's a man's business.”
”Yes,” said d.i.c.k, with the simple masculine superiority of four and twenty. ”That's enough of a background for life, you see; but I long since made up my mind that public affairs--affairs that concern the whole community--are to be my real interest.”
”So you're going into politics, d.i.c.k?” said the older man slowly.