Chapter 11

My work here is going fine. I have three thousand natives at work under me not to speak of a hundred engineers on my staff doing the technikal work. I am terribly busy but of course won’t let that interfere with my regular weekly letter to you.

Junior was watching Blackie’s face.

I often think of the last canoe trip with you in Canada and can hardly wait until I take another canoe trip with you in Canada. Remember that time you hooked a four-pounder with your three ounce rod? You were a little fellow then, that was before you went away to school. Remember how you yelled to me for help to land same?

Business men always said “same,” but Junior didn’t like it, and besides, his father was a professional man, so he changed “same,” to “him.”

Of course it wasn’t much of a trick for me to land that four pound trout on a three ounce rod, because I am probly the best fisherman in any of the dozen or more fishing clubs I belong to.

Junior revised that to read:

Because I happen to have quite a little experience landing trout and salmon in some of the most important streams in the world, from the high Sierras to the Ural Mountains.

It would never do to make his father guilty of blowing—the unforgivable sin.

He thought that was all right for a beginning, but did not know how to follow it up. He wanted to put in something about the Andes, with a few stories of wild adventure and hairbreadth escapes, but although he read up on the Andes in the encyclopædia, as he did on all his father’s temporary habitats, he did not feel that the encyclopædia style suited his father’s vivid personality. In an old copy of theNational Geographic Magazinehe found a traveller’s description of adventures in that part of the world, and simply copied a page or two. It had to do with an amusing though extremely dangerous adventure with a python, which had treed one of the writer’s gun bearers—a narrow escape toldas a joke—quite his father’s sort of thing; and no one would ever accuse Junior of inventing such a well-written narrative with such circumstantial local colour.

Blackie was properly impressed by the three thousand natives and one hundred experts, and he too, laughed aloud at the antics of the gun bearer. He told the other boys about it, as Junior meant him to do, and some of them wanted to read it too. They dropped in after study hour.

Junior, it seems, required urging, like an amateur vocalist who nevertheless has brought her music.

“Oh, shoot!” he said. “It doesn’t amount to anything. Just a letter from my father.”

“Why don’t you read it aloud?” suggested Blackie.

Junior seemed bored, but soon submitted. Like vocalists, he was afraid that they might stop urging him.

“Oh, very well,” he said. He skimmed lightly over the opening personal paragraph with the parenthetical voice people use when leading up to the important part of a letter, though this was a very important part for Junior, to get it over. Then, with the manner of saying, “Ah, here we are,” he began reading in a louder and more deliberate tone, but not without realistic hesitation here and there, as if unfamiliar with the text. He read not only the amusing adventure with the python, but an authoritative paragraph on the mineral deposits of the mountains. So his audience never doubted that he had a real letter from a real mining expert who signed himself “Your affectionate friend and father.”

Junior carelessly tossed the letter upon the table. “Some day I’ll read you one of his interesting ones,” he said.

“Do it now,” said one of his admirers. “It’s great stuff.”

“No, I never keep letters,” said Junior and, to prove it, tore up the carefully prepared document and tossed it in the fire.

“I’ll let you know when I get a good one.”

This was so successful that he did it again. There were plenty of other quotable pages in the same magazine article, and Junior had a whole box of his father’s stationery. But at the beginning and end of each letter Junior always insinuated a few paternal touches, suggesting a rich past of intimacy and affection, though just to make it a little more convincing he would occasionally insert something like this,“But I must tell you frankly, as man to man, that you spent entirely too much money last term,” and interrupted his reading to say, “Gee! I didn’t mean to read you fellows that part.” And they all laughed. A touch of parental nature that made all the boys akin.

The fame of these letters spread from the boys’ end of the dinner table to the master’s. Mr. Fielding said to Junior one day, “I’m so glad your father has been writing to you lately.”

“Lately? Why, he always writes to me. But don’t tell my Aunt Mary. Might make her jealous.”

Junior smiled as if he had a great joke on his Aunt Mary. There, he got that over too! Neither of these ladies would dare criticize his father again.

“Is your Aunt Mary so fond of him as all that?”

“Why, of course!”

“Well, I’m glad you’re hearing from him, anyway. I so seldom see letters addressed to you on the hall table.

“I have a lock box at the post office.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Fielding.

So that explained it all. It was true about the lock box. Junior exhibited the key while was he speaking, and he was seen at the post office frequently to make the matter more plausible. He even opened the box if any one was around to watch him, though he never found any letters there except those he put in and pulled out again by sleight of hand, whistling carelessly as he did so.

Mr. Fielding had asked Junior to step into the office a moment. “What do you hear from your father?” he said.

“Oh, he’s quite well, thank you, sir. He’ll be starting for home soon. He says he’s not going to let anything interfere with our canoe trip this year. It’s the funniest thing how something has always happened every summer to prevent it. Father says we’re going to break the hoodoo this time.”

“I see,” said Mr. Fielding.

Junior had heard Mr. Fielding say “I see” before and he had been in school too long now to undervalue its significance. He would have to be on guard. He knew he had told conflicting stories.

“Do you hear from him regularly?”

“Oh, no; the mails are so irregular from that part of the world.”

“How often?”

“Well,” said Junior, with his engaging smile, “not so often as I’d like, of course. But then he’s a very busy man.”

“That story about the python—it sounded like a corker as Blackie told it secondhand. Mind letting me read that letter?”

“Sorry, sir. I destroyed it.” Blackie would vouch for that, if necessary.

“I see.” The head master looked at Junior in silence, then he said with a not unkind smile. “Junior, I’m very fond of your father. He’s one of the finest fellows that ever lived.”

“Sure,” said Junior.

“I’ve known him longer than you have. I don’t think he ever did anything dishonourable in his life.”

“Of course not.”

What was coming? He must keep his head now.

“You know how your father would feel if I couldn’t honestly say the same thing about you?”

“Why, what do you mean, Mr. Fielding?”

“Just tell me the truth, Junior, and it needn’t ever go out of this room. Does your father ever write to you at all?”

“Why, sir, you don’t think my father is the sort who wouldn’t write to his own son, do you?” Then the boy added desperately, “I don’t see why you all want to make him out a piker.”

“Did your father write the letter describing the fight with the python?”

“Look here, Mr. Fielding, you people don’t understand. I’m better friends with my father than most boys. You see, my mother’s dead and all that. So—well, don’t you see, he sort of takes it out in writing me long letters. He thought that stuff about the python would amuse me.”

He was a loyal little liar and the head master admired him for it. But it wouldn’t do. Mr. Fielding opened a drawer of his desk and took out an old magazine.

“Does your father take theNational Geographic?”

Junior crumpled up.

“I don’t know, sir.” He was in for it now—caught. Mr. Fielding opened the magazine and pointed out a marked page to Junior.

“Junior, I know you won’t accuse an honourable gentleman like your father of stealing another man’s writings, passing them off as his own. There’s an ugly name for that. It’s called plagiarism.”

He had tried to defend his father, and look at the result!

“I wrote those letters, Mr. Fielding.”

“I knew that,” said Mr. Fielding gently. “You won’t do it again, though, will you, Junior?”

“Hardly.”

“That’s all. You may go now.”

Junior turned at the door. He knew that this was not all. He was being let down too easily.

“Mr. Fielding——” he began, and hesitated. “It won’t be necessary for you to tell my father, will it?”

“I won’t tell him, but you will.”

“No, sir, I could never do that.”

“Well, we’ll see. Good night, Junior.”

So he could write no more letters to exhibit to the boys. He explained that his father had gone on a long expedition inland. No chance for mail for months. They made no comment, but the whole house knew that he had been summoned “to the office.” They suspected something, but they would never discover the truth from him. He would bluff it out to the end.

But now, more than ever, he wanted letters from father, even if written by himself. He had formed the habit. They somehow did him good. They made him feel that his father was interested in him.

So, once in a while, just for his own eyes, when Blackie was not around he opened the typewriter and said all the things he wanted his father to say to him. As no one would ever see these letters, he could go as far as he liked. He went quite far. He even said things that only mothers said:

My darling son: Don’t you care what he thinks about you; I understand and I forgive you. You meant it all right and I like you just the same, even if you are not an athlete and have got pimples. When I get back we’ll go off to the West together and live down this disgrace. Your devoted father and friend.

Sometimes he laughed a little, or tried to, when he realized how these letters would bore his distinguished parent. But while writing them his father seemed not only fond of him but actually proud of him. A writer can invent anything.

I was so pleased to hear your poem about the meadow lark was accepted by the magazine. Your article about Birds in Our Woods was very interesting and very well written. I believe you will make a great writer some day, and think how proud I will be when you are a great writer, and people point to your picture in the newspapers! I’ll say, “That’s my son; I’m his father.” Of course, I was disappointed that you did not become a great athlete like me, but intellectual destinction is good if you can’t get athletic destinction, and it may be more useful for a career.

He got a good deal of comfort out of being a father to himself, and sometimes the letters ran into considerable length, unless Blackie butted in. His father, it seemed, even consulted him about his own affairs:

I am glad you approve of my taking on the San Miguel project. I think a great deal of your business judgment and it is great to have a son who has good business judgment even though he cannot make the team. In that respect it is better than making the team, because you can help me in my problems away off here just as I help you with your problems up there at school.

He enjoyed writing that one, but when he became the reader of it, that last sentence made him cry. And the worst of it was, at that point Blackie came in.

“What are you writing?”

“Just some stuff for the mag.”

“You’re always writing for the mag. Get your racket and come on.”

“Oh, get out of here and quit interrupting my literary work.” Junior had not cared to turn his telltale face toward his roommate.

The school year was closing, and Junior was packing to leave the next day. The last time he had gone to town he learned at the office that his father was returning soon. They did not know which steamer. They never did. The secret letters had all been kept carefully locked in his trunk, and now Junior was taking them out to put neatly folded trousers in the bottom. Blackie was playing tennis. None of theboys had learned the truth, though in secret Blackie felt pretty sure of it now, but was so loyal that he had a fight with Smithy for daring to say in public that Junior’s letters were a damn fake.

Mr. Fielding came in. He did not notice the letters lying there on the table, and he seemed very friendly. The housemaster knew how fine and sensitive this boy was and that the only way to handle him was by encouragement. “We are all much pleased with your classroom work, Junior; but as for the mag, you’re a rotten speller, but a good writer, and I don’t mind telling you a secret: You have been elected to be one of the editors next year.”

“Oh, Mr. Fielding! Are you sure?” This had been his ambition for a year. That settled it for life. A great writer like W. H. Hudson, who loved both nature and art, but nature more.

“Of course your appointment has to be confirmed by the faculty, but there’ll be no trouble with a boy of your standing. All you have to do is straighten out that little matter with your father. Naturally, an editor has got to have a clean literary record.”

This was not meant entirely as punishment for Junior. The master thought it would be salutary for Phil to know. It might wake him up.

“You mean I can’t make the mag unless I tell him what I did?”

“Do you want me to tell him?”

“If you do I’ll run away and I’ll never come back.”

“Can’t you get up your courage to do it, Junior? I know you didn’t mean to do wrong. Your father will, too, when he understands.”

Junior was shaking his head.

“It isn’t a matter of courage,” he said, straightening up. “He’d think I was knocking him out for not writing to me.

“Well, if you won’t talk to him about it I must. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“A few minutes! Here? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“He landed yesterday. The papers ran an interview with him this morning. I telegraphed him to come at once.” Mr. Fielding looked at his watch. “Why, his train must becoming in now. Excuse me. I said I’d meet him at the station.”

A mental earthquake turned Junior’s universe upside down. His father was coming at last! Why? His offense must have been pretty serious to bring his father. Why, of course! Mr. Fielding had sent for him. The most honourable gentleman in the world was going to find out in a few minutes that his own son and namesake was a liar, a plagiarist, and a forger. Junior could not face it. He rushed from the room and out by the back stairs. His father was coming, the thing he planned and longed for ever since he had been a member of the school, and he was running away from him.

He went out into the woods by the river, where he had spent so many happy hours with Blackie and the birds. He could never face Blackie again, nor the school, no, nor his father. Life was empty and horrible. “Why not end it all in the river?” He had read that phrase, but the impulse was genuine.

“The hell of it is,” he heard himself saying, “I’m such a good swimmer.”

But he could load his coat with stones and bind his feet with his trousers. He began picking out the stones.

“Well, what’s it?” said Phil to the housemaster, trying to hide his paternal eagerness. The boy was in trouble, the old man would get him out. Good! Needed at last. “Has my young hopeful been getting tight?”

“Oh, nothing as serious as that. He’s a finely organized, highly evolved youngster, and so he has a rather vivid imagination.”

“Speak up, Aleck! You haven’t caught him in a lie? That’s a good deal more serious than getting tight.”

“Well, it’s a likable lie.”

“It’s a lie all the same, and I’ll give him the devil.”

“Oh, no, you won’t. The kid lied for you, old man; perjured himself like a gentleman. Now you go and get it out of him. It’ll do you both good.” They had arrived at the house.

“Where is the little cuss?” Phil was trying without success to seem calm and casual.

“He’s no longer little. You won’t know him. He’s come into his heritage of good looks at last.”

“For God’s sake, shut up and tell me where to find him.”

Fielding laughed. “Upstairs, second door on the left. I won’t butt in on this business. It’s up to you now.” But Phil did not wait to hear all that.

Not finding his namesake and glancing about at the intimate possessions of his little-known son, Phil was surprised to see a sheath of letters on the table, bearing his own engraved stamp at the top.

“That’s odd,” he thought. “Who’s been writing to him on my paper?” He had forgotten the presentation box of stationery. His eye was caught by these words neatly typed, “My beloved son,” At the bottom of the page he saw, “Your faithful friend and father.” He picked the letter up and read it.

As I told you in my last, I am counting the days until we get together again and go up to Canada on another canoe trip, just you and I alone this time without any guide. You have become such a good camper now that we don’t want any greasy Indian guides around. I am glad that you are a good camper. I don’t care what you say, I’d rather go to the woods with you than Billy Norton or anybody because you and I are not like ordinary father and sons; we are congenial friends. Of course you are pretty young to be a friend of mine and you may be an ugly and unattractive kid, but you are mine all the same, and I’m just crazy about you. They say I neglect you, but you know better. All these letters prove it. Your faithful friend and father.

Junior’s father picked up the rest of the letters and, with the strangest sensations a father ever had, read them all.

Perhaps it was telepathy. Junior suddenly remembered that he had left the letters exposed upon the table. His father would go upstairs after the talk with Mr. Fielding, to disown him. He would find those incriminating letters. Then when they found his body his father would know that his son was not only a liar and a forger but a coward and a quitter. In all his life his father had never been afraid of anything. If his father were in his place what would he do?

That saved him. He dumped out the stones and ran back to the room. He would face it.

Phil was aware that a tall slender youth with a quick elastic stride had entered the room and had stopped abruptlyby the door, staring at him. There were reasons why he preferred not to raise his face at present, but this boy’s figure was unrecognizably tall and strong, and Phil was in no mood to let a young stranger come in upon him now.

“What do you want?” he asked gruffly, still seated still holding the letters.

There was no answer. Junior had never seen a Father disown a son, but he guessed that was the way it was done. He saw the letters in his father’s hands. Certainly, this was being disowned.

The boy took a step forward. “Well, anyway,” he said, maintaining a defiant dignity in his disgrace, “no one else has seen those letters, so you won’t be compromised, Father.” The boy was a great reader, and had often heard of compromising letters.

Phil sprang up from his chair, dropped the letters and gazed into the fine sensitive face, a beautiful face, it seemed to him now, quivering, but held bravely up to meet his sentence like a soldier.

Junior could now see that his father’s strong face was also quivering, but misunderstood the reason for his emotion. There was a silence while Phil gained control of his voice. Then he said, still gazing at the boy, “But how did you know I felt that way about you?”

“What way?”

“Those letters. I’ve read them. I wish to God I’d written them.”

Junior, usually so quick, still could not get it right. “You mean, you’re going to forgive me for lying about you?”

“Lying about me! Why, boy, you’ve told the truth about me. I didn’t know how. Can you forgive me for that?”

Now Junior was getting it. His face was lighting up. “Why, Father,” he began, and faltered. “Why, Father—why, Father—you really like me!”

Junior felt strong hands gripping his shoulders and once more the vivid recollection of the street boys and the big man who comforted him. “You know what one of those letters says, Junior—I’m just crazy about you.”

“Oh, Father, why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Well, what’s the use of having a great writer in the family anyway!”

They laughed and looked at each other and found that the strange thing that kept them apart was gone for ever. In the future they might differ, quarrel even, but the veil between them was torn asunder at last.

The rest of the boys had finished dinner when Junior came down, leading in his tall bronzed father with the perfectly fitting clothes and the romantic scar on his handsome face.

“Say, fellows, wait a minute. I want you to know my father.” He did it quite as if accustomed to it, but Mrs. Fielding down at the end of the table could see that father and son were reeking with pride. “He’s my son; I’m his father.”

“So this is Blackie?” said Phil. “Did you give him that message in my last letter?” Even his father could lie when he wanted to.

“Sorry, I forgot.”

Phil turned and gave his old classmate a shameless wink. “I can’t really blame the kid. I write him such awfully long letters.”

“Father just landed from South America yesterday,” Junior was explaining to Smithy. “So he hurried right up here.”

“You see we’re starting for the Canadian Rockies to-morrow,” said Phil. “This fellow’s got an impudent idea that he can out-cast the old man now, but I’ll show him his place.”

Mr. Fielding took the floor. “Junior ought to get some good material for the magazine up there,” he said. “Boys, he’s going to be one of the editors next year.”

THE END

FOOTNOTES:[A]In the United States, written by citizens of the United States.[B]Modern advertising needs many media. Mark Sullivan, at the Author’s League Dinner, Hotel Plaza, 1916, attributed the increase in short stories to the invention of the gasolene engine. Periodical literature, if in part literature only by courtesy, meets the taste and intelligence of all classes.[C]June, 1850.[D]January-June, 1887.[E]“Short Story Writing,” N. Bryllion Fagin, Thomas Seltzer, 1923, p. 98.[F]New York Times Book Review, December 23, 1923. Article by Rose C. Feld.[G]“Yet Again,” by Max Beerbohm, Alfred Knopf, 1923.

FOOTNOTES:

[A]In the United States, written by citizens of the United States.

[B]Modern advertising needs many media. Mark Sullivan, at the Author’s League Dinner, Hotel Plaza, 1916, attributed the increase in short stories to the invention of the gasolene engine. Periodical literature, if in part literature only by courtesy, meets the taste and intelligence of all classes.

[C]June, 1850.

[D]January-June, 1887.

[E]“Short Story Writing,” N. Bryllion Fagin, Thomas Seltzer, 1923, p. 98.

[F]New York Times Book Review, December 23, 1923. Article by Rose C. Feld.

[G]“Yet Again,” by Max Beerbohm, Alfred Knopf, 1923.

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:done so with orginality=> done so with originality {pg xvi}became almost ununbearable=> became almost unbearable {pg 7}said to Naopleon=> said to Napoleon {pg 22}he came to Naopleon=> he came to Napoleon {pg 23}thick atmsophere=> thick atmosphere {pg 31}I want someobdy=> I want somebody {pg 48}was appproaching=> was approaching {pg 80}charged with an electricty=> charged with an electricity {pg 82}calesa and tood refuge=> calesa and took refuge {pg 90}two fliers appeard=> two fliers appeared {pg 96}his horny plams=> his horny palms {pg 104}the men lengthenend=> the men lengthened {pg 113}stood one one side=> stood on one side {pg 117}commites a murder=> commits a murder {pg 137}faces oppposite her=> faces opposite her {pg 159}with Wallie=> with Wally {pg 160}tilted you head back=> tilted your head back {pg 171}could he commmunicate=> could he communicate {pg 185}predatory keeness=> predatory keenness {pg 203}“What’s this?” he sked.=> “What’s this?” he asked. {pg 220}been accumstomed=> been accustomed {pg 249}on on reading=> on on reading {pg 259}that kept tham apart=> that kept them apart {pg 277}

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

done so with orginality=> done so with originality {pg xvi}

became almost ununbearable=> became almost unbearable {pg 7}

said to Naopleon=> said to Napoleon {pg 22}

he came to Naopleon=> he came to Napoleon {pg 23}

thick atmsophere=> thick atmosphere {pg 31}

I want someobdy=> I want somebody {pg 48}

was appproaching=> was approaching {pg 80}

charged with an electricty=> charged with an electricity {pg 82}

calesa and tood refuge=> calesa and took refuge {pg 90}

two fliers appeard=> two fliers appeared {pg 96}

his horny plams=> his horny palms {pg 104}

the men lengthenend=> the men lengthened {pg 113}

stood one one side=> stood on one side {pg 117}

commites a murder=> commits a murder {pg 137}

faces oppposite her=> faces opposite her {pg 159}

with Wallie=> with Wally {pg 160}

tilted you head back=> tilted your head back {pg 171}

could he commmunicate=> could he communicate {pg 185}

predatory keeness=> predatory keenness {pg 203}

“What’s this?” he sked.=> “What’s this?” he asked. {pg 220}

been accumstomed=> been accustomed {pg 249}

on on reading=> on on reading {pg 259}

that kept tham apart=> that kept them apart {pg 277}

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