The High Calling Part 17

"What business?"

"Any kind. I want to make money."

"What do you want to make money for?"

"What does any one want money for? I want to buy----"

"Go on. Tell me exactly."

"Well, clothes and--and--I want things, so I can go out and be with other fellows, and have something to spend--and------"

In his burst of unconcealed eagerness to get out of school Louis was really revealing to his father some of the actual reasons for wanting to give up his studies, and as Paul listened to him he felt that the boy's eagerness went even farther. He determined to be very frank with him and get at the bottom of the thing if possible.

"Do you want to make money so as to go with the girls and get popular with them and spend money on them?"

The question was almost brutal in its directness, and one that his father had never before suggested. Louis reddened with an angry but self-conscious manner that told Paul he had not guessed very wide of the real motive that was urging the boy.

He did not answer the question but sat sullenly tearing bits of paper from the leaves of a magazine on the table. And his father sat silently staring at him, wondering how he was going to manage Louis and help him to make a possible manhood for himself. The problem across the library table in this boy of his was even a greater problem than the one down at the State House. He could afford politically to lose the bill. But could he afford parentally to lose the boy?

"You needn't answer my question, Louis, you have answered it. Now listen to me. I am your father and next to your mother I love you more than anyone else in all the world. Do you believe that?"

"I suppose so," Louis managed to say.

"You know it, Louis. There is no guess work. You are sixteen. You have fairly good health and more than average brains. The main business in your life for the next ten years ought to be study and education. The girls--society--all that--do you want to make a fool of yourself and miss the one thing of manhood that's worth getting? If you do, I don't for you. I am several years older than you are, Louis. And I am your father for the purpose, as I believe, of really being worth something to you in the matter of counsel and direction for your voyage over life's great ocean. If you are planning to start out without a compa.s.s or the right kind of equipment I would be worse than a fool if I didn't prevent such a voyage, wouldn't I? Well, I don't intend to let you do just as you please just because for the time being you choose to go your own gait. Mind, Louis, I am not going to ask you to do impossible things or be tyrannical with you. But neither do I intend that you should throw away a splendid chance for education just to gratify a present longing to make money for the purpose you want it for."

The telephone rang again at this point and Paul went over to it.

Burke had come to the instrument again.

"We can't agree on the bill in its present shape and it's simply impossible to put it through in your absence. You are being judged by all the committees and some of them don't hesitate to say you are being bought out. If you come down now you may be able to save it. But we are on the point of kicking the bill out or reporting adversely. Can't you come down within an hour?"

"I can't promise. I have a very important engagement here. I might be able to get down by midnight, but wouldn't promise."

"Midnight! The members are dead tired now. Rogers is asleep in his chair and Colfax is dozing on the lounge. If you don't come within an hour you needn't come at all."

"I can't come within an hour."

"What is it? A matter of life and death?"

"Yes, a matter of life and death," Paul answered slowly.

"Oh, very well. Then the old bill is dead, that's all. It's not a matter of question."

And Paul could picture Burke as with an incredulous sneer he hung up, and told the committee to clear out and go to bed.

He went back into the library and sat down by Louis and put his arm around his shoulder and reasoned with him as he had never in all the campaign reasoned with a political acquaintance for the purpose of winning his friends.h.i.+p. He showed the boy clearly what it meant to lose an education, what a handicap it would be to him all his life if he did not have the schooling and culture that history and language and science stood ready to give. He pictured to Louis the tremendous advantages that go with education in the social life of the world and cited numerous instances in the range of his own experience to show Louis what a prize he was throwing away at the age of sixteen if he deliberately threw away the riches of mental power for the dirt of l.u.s.t and mammon. He got hold of Louis as he never had before, because he divined the really impure and foolish motive the boy had for going into business, and as the minutes ticked into hours Louis gradually became convinced of certain things which he had only vaguely entertained so far.

In the first place he began to have a feeling that his father did care for him tremendously after all. Paul's absorption in politics for the last year had been so deep that, as has been said, he had neglected the boy's interests and had not paid attention to his frequent complaints and appeals. But now that the matter was squarely met, Louis knew from what he caught of the telephone dialogue that his father was neglecting a very important political affair to spend the entire evening with him.

The thought added to the feeling he began to have of his father's real character. Then Louis had all his life had the greatest respect for his father's intellectual life and regarded it with admiration. He was fond of quoting him and there was no one in Milton who read Douglas's editorials more regularly and carefully than Louis.

And added to all the rest that influenced him that night was the shame he began to feel that his father knew his real motive for wanting to leave the school and make money. He had become fascinated and led away by a certain set in the High School and he wanted to go with them, wear expensive clothes, frequent society functions and spend freely and get the reputation of a generous and even lavish giver. This he could not do with the allowance his father gave him, and he chafed under it foolishly. He had not supposed his father would detect his underlying motive in his longing to quit school and go into business. Now that he realised his father did understand he felt ashamed to continue his plea as he had first made it. At the end of the evening together, a certain definite agreement was reached between father and son.

Louis agreed to continue his studies for another year and do his best with those branches he found most difficult where he was not allowed to choose electives. His father agreed to study with him in a regular course, helping him through hard places, practically being his tutor and agreeing to give him all the time he needed in the evening. "And why not?" Paul kept asking almost with a sob as he noted the glow that was creeping back into Louis's eye, the glow of a new interest in study.

"Why not? What shall it profit the reformer if he reforms the whole state and loses his own children? I don't believe that even high-flown Patriotism requires such a sacrifice as that."

When Louis went up to bed tears were on his cheeks and a choking in his breast. His father had simply said, "My boy, I want you to be a man.

Your mother and I have prayed for you all these years. We believe you will not disappoint us. Don't forget G.o.d, Louis. You need to pray to overcome this great temptation of impure thinking. The gates of h.e.l.l are close by that sort of life. Not even your father and mother can spare you from ruin that way. You have got to fight it out yourself. G.o.d helping you."

Paul looked up at the clock and saw it was after midnight, but on a venture he called up the committee room at the State House. A night janitor answered and informed him that the committee had been gone for over an hour.

He went upstairs and found Esther in her sewing room, her face pale and troubled, traces of tears on her cheeks and such a look of real fear on her face that Paul exclaimed, "Esther! What is it?"

She turned to her table and picked up a package of postcards and with a shudder of loathing held them out to Paul.

He took them and saw at a second's glance that they were the vulgar, coa.r.s.e, suggestive and even indecent photographic postcards which this great civilised, supposedly Christian, government even yet allows to pa.s.s through the post office and be displayed and sold at every news stand and book store in the country.

"They dropped out of Louis's coat when I began to mend it this evening.

And there was worse. He or some other boy had written this vile thing."

Esther handed it to Paul what she had found. Paul read it and his face grew white and stern. Esther sat down and put her head on her arms and almost shrieked.

"Oh, I can't bear it! Louis! Louis! How could you! Oh, how can his soul ever be clean again! Oh, boy, your mother's heart is broken! After all my prayers for you! After all the days and nights of consecration! Oh, my son, my son! Would G.o.d I had died before I knew or saw this! Oh, my Master, the cup is too bitter! I can't drink it!"

Never in all his knowledge of Esther had Paul ever seen her like this.

His own heart almost stopped at the sight. For years she had been so uniformly calm and strong even when her children had disappointed her.

She had with high-spirited motherhood faced their sins and wrong-doing with a peaceful faith that they would do right in the end. But this discovery seemed to smite her soul down into a hopeless darkness, where there was no redemption. And as Paul looked at her there was in his soul more anguish for her than fear for Louis over what she had discovered.

In a sense he was prepared for this, somewhat, because of the glimpses he had been getting that very evening of Louis's nature and its temptations.

He kneeled by his wife and put his arm about her.

"This is too great for you to bear alone. Besides, it may not be as hopeless or as terrible as you think. Let me see Louis. I have just been having an evening with him. If he hasn't gone to bed I believe now is the time for me to see him."

Esther had grown quiet. She seemed to be praying. Paul got up and went out of the room along the hallway to Louis's room and knocked. At Louis's answer he went in and found him at work on the writing desk.

Without any preliminary Paul held out the cards to Louis and said, "Louis, are these yours?"

Louis' face blanched on the instant. His hand trembled so he could not hold the cards still. He tried to answer but his tongue seemed paralysed. His father repeated the question more sternly. Louis broke down completely, flung himself on the bed in a spasm of fear and shame.

His father eyed him with conflicting feelings. Again he was strongly reminded of Louis Darcy and his many experiences with him. Louis still refused to answer, and Paul said:

"Look up here, Louis. Look up and answer me. Did you write that?"

His father thrust the paper his mother had found close up to the boy.

Louis cried out. "No, no, father. That is not mine. One of the boys------"

Paul felt relieved as far as that went, for Louis had never lied to him.

"But these cards. Are these yours?"

"Yes."