Part 28 (1/2)
Now there is the story of the absent one that parents tell--the legend about G.o.d and Heaven and the angels--a beautiful and comforting legend it is for small minds, and being merciful, G.o.d may in His own way bring us to realize it, in deed and in truth. When the lonely father or the broken hearted mother tells the desolate child that legend, childhood finds surcease there for its sorrow. But when there is no G.o.d, no Heaven, no angels to whom the absent one has gone, what then do deserted mothers say?--or dishonored fathers answer? What surcease for its sorrow has the little lonely, aching heart in that sad case? What then, ”ye merry gentlemen that nothing may dismay”?
CHAPTER XXV
IN WHICH WE SEE TWO TEMPLES AND THE CONTENTS THEREOF
It was an old complaint in Harvey that the Harvey _Tribune_ was too much of a bulletin of the doings of the Adams family and their friends.
But when a man sets all the type on a paper, writes all the editorials and gets all the news he may be pardoned if he takes first such news as is near his hand. Thus in the May that followed events set down in the last chapter we find in the _Tribune_ a few items of interest to the readers of this narrative. We learn for instance that Captain Ezra Morton who is introducing the Nonesuch Sewing Machine, paid his friends in Prospect school district a visit; that Jasper Adams has been promoted to superintendent of deliveries in Wright & Perry's store; that Kenyon Adams entertained his friends in the Fifth Grade of the South Harvey schools with a violin solo on the last day of school; that Grant Adams had been made a.s.sistant to the secretary of the National Building Trades a.s.sociation in South Harvey; that Mr. George Brotherton with Miss Emma Morton and Martha and Ruth had enjoyed a pleasant visit with the Adamses Sunday afternoon and had resumed an enjoyable buggy ride after partaking of a chicken dinner. In the editorial column were some reflections evidently in Mr. Left's most lucid style and a closing paragraph containing this: ”Happiness and character,” said the Peach Blow Philosopher, ”are inseparable: but how easy it is to be happy in a great, beautiful house; or to be unhappy if it comes to that in a great, beautiful house: Environment may influence character; but all the good are not poor, nor all the rich bad. Therefore, the Peach Blow Philosopher takes to the woods. He is willing to leave something to the Lord Almighty and the continental congress. Selah!”
As Dr. Nesbit sat reading the items above set forth upon the broad new veranda of the residence that he was so proud to call his home, he smiled. It was late afternoon. He had done a hard day's work--some of it among the sick, some of it among the needy--the needy in the Doctor's bright lexicon being those who tried to persuade him that they needed political offices. ”I cheer up the sick, encourage the needy, pray for 'em both, and sometimes for their own good have to lie to 'em all,” he used to say in that day when the duties of his profession and the care of his station as a ruling boss in politics were oppressing him. Dr.
Nesbit played politics as a game. But he played always to win.
”Old Linen Pants is a bland old scoundrel,” declared Public Opinion, about the corridors of the political hotel at the capital. ”But he is as ruthless as iron, as smooth as oil, and as bitter as poison when he sets his head on a proposition. Buy?--he buys men in all the ways the devil teaches them to sell--offices, power, honor, cash in hand, promises, prestige--anything that a man wants, Old Linen Pants will trade for, and then get that man. Humorous old devil, too,” quoth Public Opinion.
”Laughs, quotes scripture, throws in a little Greek philosophy, and knows all the new stories, but never forgets whose play it is, nor what cards are out.” Thus was he known to others.
But as he remained longer and longer in the game, as his fourth term as state Senator began to lengthen, the game here and there began to lose in his mouth something of its earlier savor. That afternoon as he sat on the veranda overlooking the lawn shaded by the elm trees of his greatest pride, Dr. Nesbit was discoursing to Mrs. Nesbit, who was sewing and paid little heed to his animadversions; it was a soliloquy rather than a conversation--a soliloquy accompanied by an obligate of general mental disagreement from the wife of his bosom, who expressed herself in sniffs and snorts and scornful staccato interjections as the soliloquy ran on.
Here are a few bars of it transcribed for beginners:
From the Doctor's solo: ”Heigh-ho--ho hum--Two United States Senators, one slightly damaged Governor, marked down, five congressmen and three liars, one supreme court justice, also a liar, a working interest in a second, and a slight equity in a third; organization of the Senate, speaker of the house,--forty liars and thirty thieves--that's my political a.s.sets, my dear.”
”I wish you'd quit politics, Doctor, and attend to your practice,” this by way of accompaniment from Mrs. Nesbit. The Doctor was in a playful and facetious mood that pleasant afternoon.
He leaned back in his chair, reached up in the air with outstretched arms, clapped his hands three times, gayly, kicked his shoe-heels three times at the end of his short little legs, smiled and proceeded: ”Liabilities of James Nesbit, dealer in public grief, licensed dispenser of private joy, purveyor of Something Equally Good, item one, forty-nine gentlemen who think they've been promised thirty-six jobs--but they are mistaken, they have been told only that I'll do what I can for them--which is true; item two, three hundred friends who want something and may ask at any minute; item three, seventy-five men who will be or have been primed up by the loathed opposition to demand jobs; item four, Tom Van Dorn who is as sure as guns to think in about a year he has to have a vindication, by running for another term; item five--”
”He can't have it,” from Mrs. Nesbit, and then the piping voice went on:
”Item six, a big, husky fight in Greeley county for the maharaja of Harvey and the adjoining provinces.” A deep sigh rose from the Doctor, then followed more clapping of hands and kicking of heels and some slapping of suspenders, as the voices of Kenyon and Lila came into the veranda from the lawn, and the Doctor cast up his accounts: ”Let's see now--naught's a naught and figure's a figure and carry six, and subtract the profits and multiply the trouble and you have a busted community.
Correct,” he piped, ”Bedelia, my dear, observe a busted community. Your affectionate lord and master, kind husband, indulgent father, good citizen gone but not forgotten. How are the mighty fallen.”
”Doctor,” snapped Mrs. Nesbit, ”don't be a fool; tell me, James, will Tom Van Dorn want to run again?”
Making a basket with his hands for the back of his head the Doctor answered slowly, ”Ho-ho-ho! Oh, I don't know--I should say--yes. He'll just about have to run--for a Vindication.”
”Well, you'll not support him! I say you'll not support him,” Mrs.
Nesbit decided, and the Doctor echoed blandly:
”Then I'll not support him. Where's Laura?” he asked gently.
”She went down to South Harvey to see about that kindergarten she's been talking of. She seems almost cheerful about the way Kenyon is getting on with his music. She says the child reads as well as she now and plays everything on the violin that she can play on the piano. Doctor,” added Mrs. Nesbit meditatively, ”now about those oriental rugs we were going to put upstairs--don't you suppose we could take the money we were going to put there and help Laura with that kindergarten? Perhaps she'd take a real interest in life through those children down there.” The wife hesitated and asked, ”Would you do it?”
The Doctor drummed his chair arm thoughtfully, then put his thumbs in his suspenders. ”Greater love than this hath no woman shown, my dear--that she gives up oriental rugs for a kindergarten--by all means give it to her.”
”James, Lila still grieves for her father.”
”Yes,” answered the Doctor sadly, ”and Henry Fenn was in the office this morning begging me to give him something that would kill his thirst.”
The doctor brought his hands down emphatically on his chair arms. ”Duty, Bedelia, is the realest obligation in the world. Here are Lila and Henry Fenn. What a miserable lot of tommy rot about soul-mating Tom and this Fenn woman conjured up to get away from their duty to child and husband.
They have swapped a place with the angels for a right to wallow with the hogs; that's what all their fine talking amounts to.” The Doctor's shrill voice rose. ”They don't fool me. They don't fool any one; they don't even fool each other. I tell you, my dear,” he chirped as he rose from his chair, ”I never saw one of those illicit love affairs in life or heard of it in literature that was not just plain, old fas.h.i.+on, downright, beastly selfishness. Duty is a greater thing in life than what the romance peddlers call love.”