The most unthinking observer could scarcely have accused Mr. Hickey of "philandering" up to this point; inasmuch as he had not laid eyes on the object of his thoughts—he would have demurred at a stronger word—for upwards of a month. That same afternoon, however, he left his office at the unwarranted hour of two o'clock, bearing a milliner's box in his hand with unblushing gravity.
It was after he had rung the bell at the Stanford residence that he felt a fresh accession of doubt regarding the cerise plumes. After all, Brewster had neglected to put his mind at ease upon that important point.
Miss Tripp was at home, the maid informed him, and showed him at once into the drawing-room when Miss Tripp herself, charmingly gowned in old rose, presently came in to greet him.
Mr. Hickey caught himself gazing at the subdued tints of her toilet with vague disapproval. It was not, he told himself, a stunningcolour such as was all the rage in Paris, New York and Boston. He felt exceedingly complacent as he thought of the plumes awaiting her acceptance.
"I wonder," Miss Tripp was saying brightly, "if you wouldn't like to see my little kindergarten? To tell you the truth, Mr. Hickey, I shouldn't venture to leave them to themselves, even to talk with you."
She led the way to the library where they were greeted by a chorus of joyous shouts.
"You see," exclaimed Miss Tripp, "I am entertaining all five of the children this afternoon. Elizabeth—Mrs. Brewster—wished to do some shopping, so I offered to keep an interested eye on her three wee lambkins."
"We're playin' birdies, Mr. Hickey," said Doris, taking up the thread of explanation, "Buddy and Baby Stanford are my little birdies; an' I'm the mother bird, an' Carroll an' Robbie are angleworms jus' crawlin' round on the ground. See me hop! Now I'm lookin' for a breakfast for my little birds!"
The two infants in a nest of sofa-pillows set up a loud chirping, while the angleworms writhed realistically on the hearth-rug.
"Now I'm goin' to catch one!" and Doris pounced upon Robbie Stanford. "Course I can't really put him down my birdies' throats," she explained kindly, "I just p'tend; like this."
"Aw—this isn't any fun," protested her victim, as she haled him sturdily across the floor. "You're pullin' my hair, anyway; leg-go, Doris; I ain't no really worm."
"You shouldn't say 'ain't,' dear," admonished Miss Tripp. "You meant to say 'I'm not really a worm.' But I'm sure you've played birdie long enough. We'll do something else now; what shall it be?"
"Let's play reg'lar tea-party with lots an' lots o' things to eat," suggested Master Stanford. "I'm hungry!"
"Oh, no, dear; not yet; you can't be," laughed Miss Tripp. "We'll have a tea-party, though, by and by, and you shall see what a nice surprise Cook Annie has for you."
"I like t' eat better 'n anything; don't you?" asked Doris, sidling up to the observant Mr. Hickey, who was watching the scene with an inscrutable smile. "I like to eat candy out of a big box."
"Doris, dear," interrupted Miss Tripptactfully, "wouldn't you like to look at pictures a little while with the boys? Aunty Evelyn has some pretty books that you haven't seen. Come here, dear, and help Aunty."
"I'm tired o' pictures," objected Doris with a pout. "I want to play train, or somethin' like that; don't you, Robbie?"
"Don't want to play anythin' much; I'm tired o' bein' s' good, 'n' I'd rather go up in the attic, or somewhere," and Master Stanford cast a rebellious glance at his guardian.
"Why don't you let them go out doors for a while," suggested Mr. Hickey, coming unexpectedly to the rescue.
"It's snowing a little; and I'm afraid Elizabeth would think it was pretty cold for Richard," objected Miss Tripp.
"It'll do 'em good," insisted Mr. Hickey, who was selfishly determined to clear the decks for his own personal ends. He had somehow formulated a very surprising set of resolutions as he sat watching Miss Tripp in the discharge of her quasi maternal duties. Primus: It was a shame for a sweet, attractive little woman to wear herself out caring for other people's houses and children. Secundus: If there wasanother man in the case (as Brewster had insinuated) he was determined to find it out without further delay. Tertius: If not——. Mr. Hickey drew a long breath.
"Do you want to go out in the yard a little while?" Miss Tripp was asking the children doubtfully. "It is Norah's afternoon out," she explained to Mr. Hickey, "and I don't like to have them play out of doors unless someone is with them to see that nothing happens. It is such a responsibility," she added with a little sigh. "I had no idea of it when I undertook it; I'm afraid I shouldn't have had the courage to——. Oh, children; wait a minute! Let Aunty Evelyn put on your overshoes—Robbie, dear!"
"Come back here, young man!" commanded Mr. Hickey in a voice which effectually arrested the wandering attention of Master Stanford. "Here, I'll fix 'em up. If I can't, I'm not fit to put through another tunnel! Here you, Miss Flutterbudget; is this your coat?"
Miss Tripp flew to the rescue. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Hickey," she murmured, flashing a mirthful glance of protest at the engineer. "But to array four small children for out ofdoors on a winter day is vastly more complicated than digging a tunnel. Wait, Doris; you haven't your mittens."
They were all ready at last, and Evelyn herded them carefully out into the back yard and shut the latticed door leading to the street upon them.
"Now I must watch them every minute from the library window," she said to Mr. Hickey. "You've no idea what astonishing things they'll think of and—do. One ought to have the eyes of an Argus and the arms of a Briareus to cope successfully with Robert."
"Bright boy—very," observed Mr. Hickey absent-mindedly. "I—er—am very fond of boys."
"Oh, are you?" asked Evelyn with mild surprise, as she craned her neck to look out of the window. "I hope they won't make their snow-balls too hard. It is really dangerous when the snow is soft."
"—Er—I wish you'd stop looking out of that window, Miss Tripp and—er—give me your attention for about five minutes," said Mr. Hickey, with very much the same tone and manner he would have employed in addressinghis stenographer. He told himself that he was perfectly cool and collected, but unluckily in his efforts to visualise his inward calm he succeeded in looking particularly stern and professional. "I—er—called on a little matter of business this afternoon, Miss Tripp, and I—to put it clearly before you—would like to recall to your mind the day—something like a month ago, when you—when I—er—met you and asked you to lunch with me. You may recall the fact?"
Miss Tripp gazed at Mr. Hickey with some astonishment. Then she blushed, wondering if he had found out that she had prevaricated in the matter of a previous engagement.
"I—remember; yes," she murmured.
"It was a great disappointment to me at the time," he went on. "I wanted to talk to you further. I wanted to—er—tell you——" He paused and stole a glance at the pretty worn profile she turned toward him, as she looked apprehensively out of the window.
"The children are—playing very prettily together," she said. "And, see, the sun has come out."
"You—er—have known me a long time," hesaid huskily. "Once you laughed at me because I was homely and—er—awkward, and since then——"
She interrupted him with a little murmur of protest. "I was hoping you had forgotten that," she said softly.
"I have never forgotten anything that you said or did," he declared, with the delightful though sudden conviction that this was strictly true. "It really is singular, when you come to think of it; but it's a fact. I don't know as I should have realised it though if I—if you——"
She started to her feet with a little cry of alarm. "Something has happened to Carroll!" she said. "I must go out and see."
He followed her distracted flight with the grim resolve not to be balked of his purpose.
"Oh! what is it?" she was asking wildly of the other children, who huddled crying about the small figure of Carroll which was flattened against the iron fence, emitting strange and dolorous sounds of woe.
"Aw—I tol' Carroll he didn't das' to put his tongue out on th' iron fence; an' he did it; an' now he's stuck to it, 'n' can't get away,"explained Master Stanford with scientific accuracy. "I don't see why; do you?"
"Oh, you poor darling! What shall I do; can't you——"
"Ah-a-a-a!" howled the victim, writhing in misery.
"Hold on there, youngster!" shouted Mr. Hickey, whose experienced eye had taken in the situation at a glance. "Wait till I get some hot water; don't move, boys! Don't touch him, Evelyn!"
It was the work of several moments to successfully detach the rash experimenter from his uncomfortable proximity to the iron fence. But Mr. Hickey accomplished the feat, with a patience and firmness which won for him the loud encomiums of Mrs. Stanford's Irish Annie, who came out bare-armed to assist in the operation.
"Oh, you're the bad boy entirely!" she said to Robbie, who stared open-mouthed at the scene from the safe vantage ground of the back stoop. "Many's the time I've towld what would happen to yez if you put yer tongue t' th' fence in cowld weather."
"I wanted to see if it was true," said Master Stanford coolly. "You said th' was ap'liceman comin' after me, an' th' wasn't, when I ate the frostin' off your ol' cake."
"If your mother was here she'd be afther takin' th' paddle to yez," said Annie wrathfully. "I've a mind to do it meself."
Master Stanford fled to the safe shelter of the library where Carroll, ensconced on Mr. Hickey's knee, was being soothed with various emollients and lotions at the hands of Miss Tripp.
"I should never have known what to do," she said, looking up from her ministrations to find Mr. Hickey's eyes fixed full upon her. "How could you think so quickly?"
"Because I tried it myself once upon a time," said Mr. Hickey. "It's about the only way to learn things," he added somewhat grimly. "But I wish our young friend had taken another day for improving his knowledge on the subject of the prehensile powers of iron when applied to a moist surface on a cold day."
For some reason or other he felt very much neglected and correspondingly out of temper as Miss Tripp ministered to the numerous wants of her small charges during the half hour that followed. To be sure she poured hima cup of tea (which he detested) and pressed small frosted cakes upon him with the sweetest of abstracted smiles.
"I must go at once," he bethought himself, as he refused a second cup. "I—er—shall be late to my dinner." But he lingered gloomily while she cheered the afflicted Carroll with warm milk well sweetened with sugar.
"You'll find some—some feathers in a box in the hall," he informed her, when he finally took his leave. "I wanted to tell you that I—er—regretted exceedingly that I had injured yours with my umbrella on the day we were to have lunched together and—didn't."
Miss Tripp took the cerise plumes out of their wrappings and examined them in the blissful security of her own room—this after the Brewster children had gone home and the Stanford children were at last in bed and safely asleep.
"How-extraordinary!" she murmured, her cheeks reflecting palely the vivid tints of the latest importation from Paris.
Having definitely abandoned the unthinking, hit-or-miss method of child discipline practised by the generality of parents, Elizabeth Brewster and her husband found themselves facing a variety of problems. To be exact, there were three of them; Carroll, with his somewhat timid and yielding, yet too self-conscious nature; Doris, hot-tempered, generous and loving, and baby Richard, who already exhibited an adamantine firmness of purpose, which a careless observer might have termed stubbornness. There was another questionable issue which these wide-awake young parents were obliged to face, and that was the entirely unconfessed partiality which Elizabeth cherished for her first-born son and the equally patent yet unacknowledged "particular affection" Sam felt for his one small daughter. More than once in the past the two had found themselves at the point of serious disagreement when the boy and girl had come into collision; Sam hotly—too hotly—upholding the cause of Doris, whileElizabeth was almost tearfully sure that her son had not been in fault. Neither had taken the pains to trace these quite human and natural predilections to their source; but they were agreed in thinking the outcome unsafe. They determined, therefore, to defer to the other's judgment in those instances when special discipline appeared to be demanded by either child.
All this by way of prelude to a certain stormy evening in March when Sam Brewster, returning more tired than usual from a long day of hard work in his office, found his Elizabeth with reddened eyelids and a general appearance of carefully subdued emotion.
"Well! I say," he began, as he divested himself of his wet coat and kicked off his overshoes with an air bordering on impatience; "it's beastly weather outside; hope none of it's got inside. Where are the kiddies? And what is the matter with the lady of the house?"
Elizabeth plucked up a small, faint smile which she bestowed upon the questioner with a wifely kiss.
"I've had a very trying time with Doris to-day," she said; "but I didn't mean to mention it till after dinner."
Sam shrugged his shoulders. "I shall at least have to change part of my clothes, my dear," he said crisply. "I'll hear the catalogue of the young lady's crimes when I'm dry, if you don't mind."
The dinner was excellent, and there was a salad and a pudding which elicited the warmest commendation from the head of the house. He was aware, however, of an unbending attitude of mind upon the part of Elizabeth and an unnatural decorum in the conduct of the children which somewhat marred the general enjoyment. Sam eyed his small daughter quizzically from time to time, as she sat with eyes bent upon her plate.
"Well," he said at last, in his usual half-joking manner, "I hear there have been ructions in this ranch since I left home this morning. What have you been doing, Dorry, to make your mother look like the old lady who makes vinegar for a living?"
The little girl giggled as she stole a glance at her mother's face; then she ran quickly to her father's side and nestled her hand in his. "I'm always good when you're here, daddy," she said in a loud, buzzing whisper. "I wishyou stayed at home all th' time 'stead of mother."
Elizabeth bit her lip with vexation, and Sam laughed aloud, his eyes filled with a teasing light.
"That appears to be a counter indictment for you, Betty," he said. "Or—we might call it a demurrer—eh? Come, tell me what's happened to disturb the family peace. I see it's broken all to bits."
Elizabeth arose with unsmiling dignity. "Celia would like to clear the table," she said; "I think we had better go into the sitting-room."
She did not offer either accusation or explanation after they were all seated about the blazing wood fire, which the Brewsters were agreed in terming their one extravagance; for a few moments no one spoke.
"I really hate to go into this matter of naughty deeds just now," began Sam, stretching his slippered feet to the warmth with an air of extreme comfort. "Couldn't we—er—quash the proceedings; or—— See here, I'll tell you; suppose we issue an injunction and bind over all young persons in this house tokeep the peace. Well, now, won't that do, Betty?"
"I'm really afraid it won't, Sam," said Elizabeth firmly. "I didn't punish Doris for what she did this afternoon. It seemed to me that it would be better for her to tell you about it herself. Something ought to be done to prevent it from happening again; perhaps you will know what that something is."
Her face was grave, and she did not choose to meet the twinkle in her husband's eyes.
He lifted his daughter to his knee. "It's up to you, Dorry," he said; "I'm all attention. Come, out with it. Tell daddy all about it."
He passed his hand caressingly over her mane of silken hair and bent his tall head to look into her abashed eyes.
Thus encouraged the little girl nestled back into the circle of the strong arms which held her, dimpling with anticipated triumph.
"I was playin' mother," she began, "an' Carroll was my husban', an' Baby Dick was my child. An'—an' Dick was naughty. He wouldn't mind me when I told him to stop playin' with his cars an' come to mother. I spoke real kind an' gentle, too: 'Put downyour train an' come to mother, darlin',' I said. But he jus' wouldn't, daddy. He said, 'No; I won't!' jus' like that he said."
"Hum!" commented her father. "And what did you do then?"
"Well, you see, daddy, I was p'tendin' I was Mrs. Stanford; so 'course I was 'bliged to punish Dick for not mindin'. I got mother's butter-paddle an' I whipped him real hard, an' I said 'it hurts mother more 'n it hurts you, darlin'!' Robbie says that's what his mother says when she whips him. He says he don't b'lieve it. But Dick wasn't good after I whipped him. He jus' turned 'round an' pulled my hair an' screamed—with both han's he pulled it an' jerked it; then I—I bit him."
"You—what, Doris?"
"I bit him, jus' to make him let go. An'—an' he was softer'n I thought he was. I never knew such a soft baby."
The little girl hung her head before her father's stern look; her voice threatened to break in a sob. "I didn't think—Dick—was—so—so full of—juice," she quavered.
"Did you really bite your dear little brother till the blood came, Doris? I can't believe it!"
Sam glanced inquiringly at his wife; but she held her peace, her eyes drooped upon the sewing in her hands.
"I—I didn't b'lieve it either—at first," Doris said quickly. "I thought it was jus'—red paint."
"Why, Doris Brewster!" piped up Carroll, unable to contain himself longer; "that's a reg'lar fib!"
"Had Dick been playing with red paint?" interrogated Sam gravely, his eyes fixed upon the culprit who was beginning to fidget uneasily in his arms.
"N-o, daddy," confessed the child in a whisper.
Her father considered her answer in silence for a moment or two; then he looked over at his wife.
"Elizabeth," he said. "Isn't it time for these young persons to go to bed?"
She glanced up at the clock. "I think it is, dear," she replied. "But——"
He checked her with a quick look. "I shall have to think this over," he said, setting Doris upon her feet. Then he put his arm about his son and kissed him. "Good-night, Carroll."
Doris, dimpling and rosy, lifted her eager little face to her father's; but he deliberately put her aside.
"Aren't you going to kiss me, too, daddy?" wailed the child, in a sudden passion of affection and something akin to fear. "I love you, daddy!"
"I'm a little afraid of you, Dorry," her father said gravely. "I'm not sure that you are entirely safe to—kiss."
"But I wouldn't bite you, daddy! Iwouldn't!"
"Why wouldn't you?"
"Because I—because I love you."
"I always supposed you loved Baby Dick," said her father, turning away from the piteous, grieved look in her eyes; "but it seems I was mistaken."
"But, daddy, I do! I do love Dick! I love him more'n a million, an'——"
"Good-night, Doris." There was stern finality in Sam's voice, though his eyes were wet.
Elizabeth led the two children away, Doris shaken with sobs and Carroll casting backward glances of troubled awe at his father who continued to look steadily into the fire.
He still sat in his big chair, his face more sober and thoughtful than its wont, when his wife returned.
"I'm afraid Doris will cry herself to sleep to-night," she said doubtfully.
He made no reply.
"You wouldn't like to go up and kiss her good-night, Sam?"
"Better one night than a hundred," he said, ignoring her suggestion. Then he bent forward and poked the fire with unnecessary violence. "Poor little girl," he murmured.
A light broke over her face. "Do you think this is the natural penalty?" she asked.
A wailing sob floated down to them from above in the silence that followed her question.
"It was, perhaps, one of the penalties sure to follow a similar line of conduct," he said slowly. "She'll remember it, you'll find, better than one of Mrs. Stanford's whippings."
She'll remember it, you'll find, better than one of Mrs. Stanford's whippings
"She'll remember it, you'll find, better than oneof Mrs. Stanford's whippings"
He turned to look at his wife with a smile. "'It hurts mother more than it does you, darling!'" he quoted with a grimace. "I thought that particular sort of cant was out of date. An irascible person who flies into a rage and frankly administers punishment onthe spot I can understand. I used to get a thrashing of that sort about once in so often from Aunt Julia; and I don't remember hating her for it. Where did Marian dig up such rank nonsense?"
"At her 'Mothers' Club,' I suppose," Elizabeth told him with a disdainful curl of her pretty lips. "I went once and heard a woman say that she always prayed with her child first and whipped him severely afterward."
"Beastly cant!" groaned Sam disgustedly. "I'm glad you don't go in for that sort of thing, Betty."
"It would drive me to almost anything, if I were a child and had to endure it," Elizabeth said positively.
Both parents were silent for a long minute, and both appeared to be listening for the sound of muffled sobbing from above stairs.
"You—you'll forgive her—to-morrow; won't you, Sam?" whispered Elizabeth.
"Forgive her?" he echoed. "You know I'm not really angry with her, Betty; but if we can teach our small daughter through her affections to control her passions, can't you see what it will do for the child? Perhaps," headded under his breath, "that is what—God—does with us. Sometimes—we are allowed to suffer. I have been, and—I know I have profited by it."
Sam Brewster was not one of those who talk over-familiarly of their Maker. A word like this meant that he was profoundly moved. Elizabeth's eyes dwelt on her husband with a trust and affection which spoke louder than words. After a while she laid her hand in his.
"If you would always advise me with the children," she murmured, "I'm sure we could—help them to be good."
"That is it, Betty," he said, meeting her misty look with a smile. "We cannot force our children into goodness, or torture them into wisdom—even if we can compel them to a show of submission which they would make haste to throw off when they are grown. But we can help them to choose the good, now and as long as we live. And we'll do it, little mother; for I'm not going to shirk my part of it in the future. As you said long ago, it's the most important thing in the world for us to do just now."
Perhaps because she had cried herself to sleep the night before, Doris awakened late the next morning to find Carroll at her bedside completely dressed and with the shining morning face which follows prolonged scrubbing with soap and water.
"Has daddy gone?" she inquired anxiously, as she rubbed the dreams out of her brown eyes.
"Not yet, sleepy-head," Carroll informed her; "but he's puttin' on his overcoat this minute an' kissin' mother good-bye. I got up early," he added complacently, "an' dressed myself all by my lone an' had my breakfas' with daddy. I'm goin' to do it every mornin' after this. He likes to have me."
Sam Brewster, in the act of bestowing a final hasty kiss upon his Elizabeth's flushed cheek, was startled by the sight of a small figure in white with a cloud of bright hair which flew down the stairs and into his arms with a loud wail of protest.
"Kiss me good-bye, too, daddy! Kiss me!"
Sam caught the little warm, throbbing body and held it close. "Father's baby daughter," he whispered, bending his head to her pink ear. "She shall kiss her daddy good-bye."
"I'm goin' to be jus' as good to-day, daddy; I'm goin' to be gooder 'an Carroll. 'N'—'n' I'll never, never bite anybody again; never in my world. I promise!"
Sam gazed fondly down at the sparkling little face against his breast. "That's daddy's good girl!" he exclaimed heartily. "Do you hear that, mother?"
"Yes; I hear," Elizabeth said doubtfully. "I'm sure I hope Doris will remember. Sometimes you forget so quickly, dear."
"We all do that, Betty," Sam said gravely, as he surrendered the child to her mother.
His face was thoughtful as he hurried away down the street to catch his car. To his surprise his friend Stanford swung himself aboard at the next corner.
"Why, hello, Stanford," he looked up from a hurried perusal of his paper to say. "I didn't know you were home. When did you come?"
"Last night," said the other, dropping into a seat beside his neighbour. "The fact is, Marian couldn't stand it to be away from the children another day. She was sure Rob would burn the house down with everything in it, including the baby; or that some equally heartrending thing would happen—it was a fresh one every day. It got on her nerves, as she puts it; and finally on mine; so we gave up our trip to Santa Barbara and came home literally post-haste. I was sorry, for I don't know when we shall get another such chance. But you know how it is, Brewster; a woman won't listen to rhyme or reason where her children are concerned."
"I understand," Sam agreed briefly; "my wife is the same way. But of course you found everything in good order—eh? Miss Tripp appeared to be all devotion to the children, and my wife kept a motherly eye on them."
"Oh, everything was all right, of course; just as I told Marian it would be: the children were in bed and asleep and everything about the place in perfect trim. I'm sure we're a thousand times obliged to you andMrs. Brewster; Marian will tell you so. Er—by the way, our mutual friend Hickey appeared to be calling upon Miss Tripp when we arrived, and Marian insists that we interrupted some sort of important interview by our untimely appearance. She said she felt it in the air. I laughed at her. Of course I know as well as you do that Old Ironsides isn't matrimonially inclined, and while Miss Tripp may be an excellent nurse and housekeeper, she isn't exactly——"
"H'm!" commented Sam non-committally, "there's no accounting for tastes, you know. Hickey's a queer chap; queer as Dick's hat-band; but a good sort—an all-round, square good fellow."
"Sure! I believe you. But I had to laugh at my boy Robert. He's all ears, and smarter than a steel trap. He overheard something of what my wife was saying to me. 'Mr. Hickey doesn't come to see Miss Tripp,' he puts in, as large as life; 'he comes to see me an' baby, 'specially me; he comes most every day, an' he brings us candy an' oranges.' Isn't that rather singular—eh?"
"Not at all," Sam assured him warmly;"Hickey is very fond of children, always has been. He's always dropping in to see Carroll and Doris. Um—did you see this account of Judge Lindsay's doings in his children's court? I've come across a number of articles about his work lately. Seems to me it's mighty suggestive, the way he's gone to work to make good citizens out of material which would otherwise fill the state prisons; and it's all done through some sort of moral suasion apparently. He gets into sympathy with those poor little chaps; climbs down to their level, somehow or other; sees things through their eyes; gets their point of view, and then deals with them as man to man—or boy to boy. I believe he's got the matter of discipline—all sorts of discipline—cinched. We're going to try some of his methods with our children."
Young Stanford stared for a moment at his neighbour, then he threw back his head and chuckled.
"I beg your pardon, Brewster," he exclaimed; "but it struck me as being—er—a decidedly original idea, that of establishing a children's court in your own home. Perhaps it was Mrs. Brewster's notion; Marian tells me she's very—er—advanced, when it comes to disciplining the children."
Sam Brewster's blue eyes rested steadily upon his neighbour.
"Singular as the statement may sound, I'm prepared to say that I'm somewhat interested in my children's upbringing on my own account," he said coolly. "My wife has notions, as you call them, and one of them is that a father has quite as much responsibility in the training of the children as the mother. I believe she's right."
"Well, I can't see it that way," drawled Stanford. "I'm perfectly willing to leave the kids to Marian while they're small; when they're too big for her to handle I'll take 'em in hand. They'll obeyme, you'd better believe, from the word go. I think as my father did, that a child ought to mind as though he were fired out of a gun."
"It seems to me a child is a reasonable being, and has a reasoning being's right to understand something of the whys and wherefores of his obedience," protested Sam, vaguely aware that he was quoting the opinions of someone else. "Besides that, don't they tellus a child's character is pretty well formed by the time he is seven?"
"Bosh!" exploded Stanford. "I wouldn't give a brass nickel for all the theories you can bundle together. There were no sort of explanations or mollycoddling coming to me, when I was a kid. It was 'do this, sir'; or 'don't do the other.' I can tell you, I walked a chalk-line till I was sixteen. Why, gracious! if I'd attempted to argue and talk back to my governor the way your boy talks to you—you needn't deny it, for I've heard him myself—I'd have stood up to eat for a week. I've done it more than once for simply looking cross-eyed, and I can tell you it did me good."
Sam Brewster eyed his companion with grave interest; there was no animosity in his tone and merely a friendly interest in his face as he inquired:
"You walked a chalk-line till you were sixteen, you say; what did you do then?"
Young Stanford's handsome dark face reddened slightly.
"I—er—well, you see I got red-hot at the pater one day because he—you see I'd grown pretty fast and was as tall as he was, and—er—I balked; thought I was too big to be thrashed, as I deserved. Why, you know what I did as well as I do, Sam. I've always been ashamed of it, of course, and of the trouble I made my mother. She was and is the best mother ever, mild and sweet-tempered; but she couldn't handleme. Why, man, I was a holy terror, and my boy Rob is exactly like me." He spoke complacently, almost triumphantly. "I'll take it out of him, though. Watch me!"
"Then you don't think we could both learn a thing or two from Judge Lindsay and other specialists about the way to manage and bring up our boys?" persisted Sam, a slow twinkle dawning in his blue eyes. "We know it all—eh? and don't require any enlightenment?"
"I know enough to bring up my own boy, I should hope," responded Stanford, with heat. "If he cuts up the way I did, I'll take it out of his young hide some day; that's a sure proposition."
"And then possibly, since he's so much like his father, he might balk—when he gets tall enough—and he might not—come back in three days, the way you did. Pardon me, old man,for speaking so plainly; but as long as our children play together and go to school together, your business and mine are one when it comes to their training. And if half the rich men in the country can afford to spend most of their time and millions of their dollars in improving the horses, cattle, pigs and poultry of the country, you and I won't be exactly wasting our time if we discuss child improvement occasionally."
"That's where you're off, Brewster; the discipline of a man's own children is a strictly private and personal matter. You'll excuse me if I say just what I think, and that is that the methods I adopt with my boy are none of your or any man's business."
"And I'm obliged to differ with you there; the way you bring up your boy is not only my business but everybody's business. It concerns the neighbourhood, the state, the nation and the world."
"Now you're ranting, my boy, and I can't listen to you. But I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll tell Mrs. Stanford to get us both invitations to attend the next of her 'mother's meetings.' I'll go, if you will, and we'll holdforth on our respective ideas at length. How does that strike you?"
"As an eminently sensible and sane proposition," Sam said coolly, as he rose to leave the car. "A parent's club—eh? A capital idea; well worth working up. I'll see you later with regard to it."
Stanford grinned derisively as he buried himself in the pages of his newspaper. "Brewster's getting to be a bally crank," he told himself. Then his eye fastened upon a paragraph heading with a reminiscent thrill. "Boy of fifteen runs away from home in company with a neighbour's son, after a disagreement with his father!"
His rapid eye took in the details, meagre and commonplace, of the missing lads and their home-life.
"Young rascals!" he muttered, and passed on to the political situation in which he was deeply interested. Curiously enough, though, that paragraph concerning the runaway boys recurred to his mind more than once during the day, bringing with it an unwontedly poignant recollection of his own headlong flight and ignominious home-coming, foot-sore andhungry after three days of wretched wandering. He had never forgotten the experience and never would. It had done him a world of good, he had since declared stoutly. But he shivered at the thought of his own son alone and hungry in the streets of a great city.
Elizabeth was quite as busy as usual looking after the interests of her small kingdom when Evelyn Tripp called that same morning.
"I have come," she said, "to say good-bye." Then in answer to Elizabeth's look of surprised enquiry, "The Stanfords came home quite unexpectedly last evening, so I shall return to Dorchester this afternoon. Mother has already gone; I've just been to the train with her."
Elizabeth surveyed her friend dubiously. "Perhaps you are not altogether sorry on the whole," she said, "though the children have behaved surprisingly well—for them."
"The baby is a dear," agreed Miss Tripp warmly; "but I'm afraid I didn't succeed very well with Robert. It seems to me the child's finer feelings have been blunted someway. When I spoke seriously to him about his unkindness to Carroll the other day, he made up a face at me. 'You can't whip me,' he said, ''cause you aren't my mother.'
"'Indeed I could whip, or hurt you in some other way, if I chose,' I told him, 'and if you were a stupid little donkey who wouldn't go, or a dog who couldn't be made to obey, I should certainly feel like switching you; but you are a boy, and you are fast growing to be a man. I am afraid, though, that you are not growing to be a gentleman.'
"'I guess I'm a gentleman, too,' he said rudely. 'My grandfather's a rich man, an' we're goin' to have all his money when he dies. We ain't poor like you.'"
"Shocking!" exclaimed Elizabeth; "what did you say to the child?"
"I explained to him what a gentle-man really was; then I told him about the knights of the Round Table. He is not really a bad child, Elizabeth; but he will be, if—— I wonder if I might venture to talk plainly to his mother?"
"You may talk and she will listen, quite without impatience," Elizabeth said, with a shrug of her shoulders. "But Marian is somewhat—opinionated, to put it mildly, and she is very, very sure that her own way is best. So I'm afraid it wouldn't do any good."
She smiled speculatively as she looked at herfriend. It seemed to her that Evelyn was looking particularly young and pretty. There was a faint flush of colour in her pale cheeks and her eyes shone girlishly bright under their curtain of thick brown lashes. A sudden thought crossed Elizabeth's mind. And without pausing to think, she put it into words.
"Evelyn," she began, her own cheeks glowing, "I want you to stay with us over night; I really can't let you go off so suddenly, without saying good-bye to—to Sam, or—anybody," she finished lamely. "You must stay to dinner, anyway; I insist upon that much, and I will send you to the station in a cab."
Evelyn shook her head. "It is very good of you, Betty," she said; "but I really must go this afternoon. Mother will expect me."
"Does—Mr. Hickey know you are going?" demanded Elizabeth, abandoning her feeble efforts at finesse.
The faint colour in Evelyn's cheeks deepened to a painful scarlet. She met Elizabeth's questioning gaze bravely.
"No—o," she hesitated; "but——"
She paused, apparently to straighten out with care the fingers of her shabby little gloves; thenshe looked up, a spark of defiance in her blue eyes.
"Elizabeth," she said, "I think I ought to tell you that Mr. Hickey has asked me to marry him; but I——"
"Oh, Evelyn! How glad I am!"
"I refused him," said Miss Tripp concisely.
"Refused him! but why? Sam thinks him one of the finest men he knows, kind, good as gold, and very successful in his profession. You would be so comfortable, Evelyn, and all your problems solved."
Miss Tripp arose. She was looking both defiant and unhappy now, but prettier withal than Elizabeth had ever seen her.
"I don't want to becomfortable, as you call it, Betty," she said passionately. "I—I want—to beloved. If he had even pretended to—like me, even a little. But I—I had told him all about my perplexities, I'm sure I can't imagine why—except that I pined for something—sympathy, I thought it was, and he—offered me—money. Think of it, Elizabeth! And when I refused, he—offered to marry me. He said he could make me—comfortable!"
Her voice choked a little over the last word."Of course," she went on, "I know I'm not young and pretty any more; but—but I—couldn't marry a man who was just sorry for me, as one would be sorry for a forlorn, lost ki-kitten!"
"He does love you, Evelyn; I'm sure he does," Elizabeth said convincingly. "Only he—doesn't know how to say so. If I could only——"
Miss Tripp looked up out of the damp folds of her handkerchief.
"If you should repeat to Mr. Hickey anything I have told you in confidence, Elizabeth, I think I should die of shame," she quavered. "Promise me—promise me you won't speak of it to anyone!"
Elizabeth promised at once, with an inward reservation in favour of Sam, who could, she was sure, bring order out of this sudden and unexpected chaos in her friend's affairs.
"I am positive that you are mistaken, Evelyn," she repeated, as she embraced and kissed her friend at parting. "I wish you would change your mind."
But Evelyn shook her head with the gentle obstinacy which Elizabeth remembered of old."I seldom change my mind about anything," she said; "and in this case I simply couldn't. Good-bye dear, dear Betty; and thank you a thousand times for all your kindness to me."
She turned to wave a slim hand to Elizabeth, who stood watching her departure with a curious mingling of exasperation and regret.
A whiff of familiar perfume greeted her upon re-entering the sitting-room and her eyes fell at once upon Evelyn's muff, which she had deposited upon the floor beside her chair and quite evidently forgotten. It was a handsome muff of dark mink, a relic of Evelyn's more fortunate days. Elizabeth stood caressing it absent-mindedly, wondering how she could best restore it to its owner without vexatious delay, when her eyes fell upon Carroll and Doris coming in at the front gate with joyous hops, skips and jumps indicative of the rapture of release from school.
"Here, dears!" she exclaimed, "Aunty Evelyn has just gone, and she has left her muff; take it and run after her; then come directly home. Your lunch will be ready in fifteen minutes."
All that Evelyn Tripp had said to Elizabeth was entirely true; her feelings had been hurt—outraged, she again assured herself, as she hurried away, her eyes blurred with tears of anger and self-pity. Yet deep down in her heart she felt sure that George Hickey loved her for herself alone, and that all was not over between them. She had refused him, to be sure, and in no uncertain terms; but that he was not a man to be daunted by difficulties, she remembered with a little thrill of satisfaction. All had not been said when their interview was terminated by the unlooked-for arrival of the Stanfords; and he had said at parting, "I must see you again—soon. I wish to—explain. I will come to-morrow."
He would come; she was sure of it, and as she pictured his vexed astonishment at finding her already gone, her eyes filled with fresh tears. "He doesn't even know my Dorchesteraddress," she murmured with inconsistent regret. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not hear a masterful step on the sidewalk behind her; but at the sound of his voice she glanced up without the least surprise. It appeared to Evelyn that Mr. Hickey's presence at that particular instant was in full accord with the verities.
"I was afraid you might be leaving early," he said directly, his eyes searching her face with an open anxiety that filled her with a warm delight. "I—er—found that I could not apply myself to business as I should this morning, so I thought best to—er—see you without delay."
Evelyn's head dropped; a faint smile flitted about her lips.
"Indeed, I am just leaving this afternoon," she said, in a voice that trembled a little in spite of her efforts to preserve an easy society manner.
"And you were going without—letting me know," said Mr. Hickey, in the tone of one who derives an unpleasant deduction from an undeniable fact. He looked down at her suddenly. "Did you, or did you not intendgiving me the chance to—er—continue our conversation of last evening?" he asked with delightful sternness.
She was sure now that he loved her; but her day had been long in coming and she could not resist the temptation to enjoy it slowly, lingeringly, as one tastes an anticipated feast.
"I thought," she murmured indistinctly, "that there was nothing more to—say." She was deliciously frightened by the look that came into his deep-set eyes.
"I asked you to marry me," he said deliberately, "and you—refused. I want to know your reasons. I must know them. I am not in the habit of giving up what I want, easily," he went on, his brows meeting in a short-sighted frown, which raised Evelyn to the seventh heaven of anticipated bliss. "I've always gotten what I wanted—sooner or later. I want—you, Evelyn, and—and it's getting late. I'm forty-two, and you——"
She blushed resentfully, for at that moment she felt twenty, no older. Nevertheless, something in her downcast face must have encouraged him.
"Won't you take pity on me, dear?" he entreated. "I'm old and ugly to look at, I know; but Iwant you, Evelyn."
She would have answered him then; the words trembled upon her lips.
"Aunty Evelyn! Aunty Evelyn!"
The two shrill little voices upraised in urgent unison pierced the confused maze of her thoughts. She looked around, not without a wilful sense of relief to see the two older Brewster children running toward her brandishing a muff, which she presently recognised as one of her own cherished possessions, un-missed as yet since her brief visit with Elizabeth.
"Mother found it on the floor after you'd gone, an' she said for us to run after you an' give it to you," Carroll began, with a large sense of his own importance. "Doris wanted to carry it; but I was 'fraid she'd drop it in the wet. I didn't drop it, Aunty Evelyn; but Doris threw some snow at me, an' it got on the muff, an' I stopped to brush it off. I thought we'd never catch up."
Doris had snuggled her small person between Mr. Hickey and Miss Tripp, where sheappropriated a hand of each in a friendly and impartial way.
"I guess girls know how to carry muffs better'n boys," she observed calmly. "Carroll was too fresh; that is why I threw snow at him."
"Why, Doris dear, where did you ever learn such an expression?" murmured Miss Tripp, vaguely reproving.
Doris gazed up at her mentor with an expression of preternatural intelligence.
"Why, don't you know," she explained; "folks is too fresh when they make you mad, an' make you cry. Who made you cry, Aunty Evelyn? Did Mr. Hickey?"
"I wish you'd find out for me, Doris," said that gentleman gloomily. "I'd give anything to know."
Miss Tripp gazed about her with gentle distraction, as if in search of an entirely suitable remark with which to continue the difficult conversation. Finding no inspiration in the expanse of slushy street, or in the dull houses which bordered it on either side, she turned bravely to Mr. Hickey.
"I think," she said in a low voice, "that thechildren really ought to go home to—to—their luncheon."
Her eyes (quite unknown to herself) held an appeal which filled him with unreasoning satisfaction.
"You are entirely right," he agreed joyfully; "the children should go home immediately. They must be in need of food. Go home, children, at once. You are hungry—very hungry."
"Oh, no, we're not," warbled Doris. "An' we like to walk with you an' Aunty Evelyn. Mother said our lunch wouldn't be ready for fifteen minutes. We won't have to go home for quite a while yet."
At this Mr. Hickey laughed, more loudly than the humour of the situation appeared to demand. "Very good," he said firmly; "that being the case, I'll say at once what I had in mind without further delay; for I'm anxious to let the whole world know that I love you, Evelyn, and I hope you'll allow me to go on loving you as long as I live."
The events which followed immediately upon this bold statement Elizabeth learned as a result of her somewhat bewildered questionings, when her two children, breathless and excitedfrom a competitive return, flung their small persons upon her at their own door.
"Now you just let me tell, Carroll Brewster, 'cause I got here first; Aunty Evelyn said——"
"We gave Aunty Evelyn her muff," said Carroll, taking unfair advantage of Doris' breathless condition. "And what do you think, mother, Doris said I was too fresh to Aunty Evelyn, and she said——"
"Aunty Evelyn cried when we gave her the muff, an' she said——"
"Aunty Evelyn didn't cry 'cause we gave her the muff," interpolated Carroll, with superior sagacity. "She was cryin' to Mr. Hickey, an' he said——"
"He said he'd give me most anythin'—a great big doll with real hair or a gold ring, or anythin' at all if I'd find out why Aunty Evelyn was cryin'."
"But, Doris dear, Mr. Hickey wasn't with Aunty Evelyn; was he?" asked Elizabeth, a fine mingling of reproof and eager curiosity flushing her young face.
"Mr. Hickey didn't say a big doll with real hair, or a gold ring," Carroll interruptedindignantly. "You just made up that part, Doris."
"I didn't make it up either; I thought it," retorted Doris. "He said he'd give me anythin' at all, an' I guess a great big doll with real hair is anythin'. So there!"
"I don't understand, children," murmured the smiling Elizabeth, who was beginning to understand very well, indeed. "You should have come home at once, instead of stopping to talk to Aunty Evelyn. Your luncheon is waiting."
"That's what Aunty Evelyn said," put in Carroll reproachfully, "an' Mr. Hickey said 'Go home at once, children; you're very hungry.' An' I was going; but Doris, she wouldn't go. She——"
"I wasn't a bit hungry then; but I am now, an' I smell somethin' good," observed that young lady, sniffing delicately.
"She said she wasn't in any hurry, an' I guess Mr. Hickey didn't like it. Anyway he laughed, an' he took right hold of Aunty Evelyn's hand, an' she cried some more."
"She didn't cry 'cause he squeezed her hand. She said 'I thought you didn't really like me.'An' Mr. Hickey——. Now don't int'rupt, Carroll; it's rude to int'rupt; isn't it, mother? Mr. Hickey said 'Yes, I do too!' Jus' like that he conterdicted."
"An' then Doris said, 'it's rude to conterdict,' right out to Mr. Hickey she said. That was an awful imp'lite thing for Doris to say; wasn't it, mother? I said it was."
"But Aunty Evelyn saidsometimesit wasn't rude to conterdict. An'—'n' she said she was glad Mr. Hickey conterdicted; 'cause she was 'fraid he wasn't goin' to; an' then——"
"She told us to run along home an' tell our mother she was very much mistaken this mornin'."
"No; she said to say our mother was perfec'ly right, an' she was——"
"Well, that's jus' exac'ly what I said. What did Aunty Evelyn mean, mother? An' why did Mr. Hickey make her cry?"
Elizabeth wiped a laughing tear or two from her own eyes. "I'm glad Aunty Evelyn found out that I was right," was all she said. "Now come, children, and let mother wash your hands. Celia has baked a beautiful gingerbread man for Carroll's lunch and a beautifulgingerbread lady for Doris and a cunning little gingerbread baby for Baby Dick."
"Oh, goody! goody!" shouted the children in ecstatic chorus.
In a trice their singular encounter with Aunty Evelyn and Mr. Hickey was forgotten in eager contemplation of the more obvious and immediate future of the gingerbread man, the gingerbread lady and the gingerbread child; each of whom, plump and shining, reposed in the middle of a pink china plate, their black currant eyes widely opened upon destiny.
It will be easily perceived by the intelligent reader that there really isn't any end to this story. The chronicler is forced to leave the problems of the Brewster parents unsolved in many details, while the Brewster children, in company with the present generation of young Americans, are still growing up;—growing up, it is devoutly to be hoped, into better men and women than their parents. Stronger physically, more alert mentally, of clearer vision; better fitted to carry the world's burdens and direct the world's activities. Unless the Brewsters accomplish this much for their children they have failed in the greatest thing given them to do; for it is not more wealth, better houses, finer raiment that the world is crying out for, but better, healthier and more inspired men and women. And, clearly, it rests with the fathers and mothers as to whether their children shall reach this higher level toward which humanity weakly struggles with tears and groans. Islove and brotherhood to rule in a world wherein all the finer qualities of mind and heart find room to grow and flourish? Or is humanity to go on its old, old weary way, hating and being hated; the strong trampling the weak under foot; the child often suffering from ignorance and injustice—even in its own home; and growing up to carry on the same false ideas.
There is much to be said on both sides of this question of child government, and the writer of this little tale does not even pretend to have said the last word. But let this much be remembered: "Spare the rod and spoil the child," was spoken in the days when polygamy and concubinage were the rule in the home. "Folly is bound up in the heart of the child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him," was the dictum of an age whose customs would not be tolerated in these days of higher civilisation and more illumined vision. The rack and the thumb-screw, the gag, the branding-iron and the scourge have passed; we shiver at the mere mention of the tortures inflicted upon human flesh in those past ages of darkness; yet "the rod of correction" is still tolerated—nay, even complacently advocatedin our homes, though it has been routed from our schools. Isn't it out of date? Doesn't it belong in the museums with those ancient and rust-eaten instruments of torture?
Listen to this other saying, from a newer inspiration, a closer fellowship with The Light of the World: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he that feareth is not made perfect in love." And this, from the fountainhead of all wisdom: "And He took a little child and set him by his side and said unto them, 'Whosoever shall receive this little child in my name receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me;for he that is least among you all, the same is great.'"
I submit this to you: Is it possible to conceive of Jesus Christ as striking a little child?