The Spinners' Book of Fiction Part 18

She intended all this, but when the time came she did simply as old Colonel Rockwell had wagered she would. She opened wide her windows and fed the hungry throng that whirred about her, scattering crumbs and floating feathers over the immaculate marble of Mr. McCaleb's front door-step.

A knock at the door brought her to her senses. She put a withered little old hand, very like a sparrow's claw, upon the window-sash to shut it hastily, and then, too proud to deceive, turned boldly to meet her fate.

Mrs. Pearson, on the lookout at her half-open door saw the official-looking doc.u.ment handed to her.

"It's her notice to leave," she said in an awed whisper to herself.

In the face of so great a calamity she felt, not triumph, but a shocked sense of loss, of self-reproach. Five minutes after she was in her enemy's room.

"You mustn't--you mustn't cry, dear Mrs. Walker," she sobbed, putting her arms about the slender old shoulders.

"Am I crying?" the little old lady answered. "I can't help it--I'm so happy!"

"Happy!" Mrs. Pearson's dazed old eyes turned bewildered from the envelope with the home's letterhead on it to the bird-like creature in her arms. "And you've got your notice to leave?"

"Did you think it was that? So did I for a minute, an' it 'most killed me. But I opened it, an' found a note from the president--that dear, dear president! She wants to know if I'll take care of her summer cottage till the spring comes. An', Marthy Pearson, they's chickens up there--fancy breeds--a whole yard of 'em--an' I'm to have the feedin' of 'em. Ain't it enough to make a body cry for joy? Say, Marthy, would you--would you mind feedin' the sparrers?--only on the very stormiest days--McCaleb would never suspect you, an' spring's near!"

BREAKING THROUGH

BY

W. C. MORROW

Reprinted from _Success Magazine_ of September, 1906 by permission

"RAY," SAID his mother, whom he shyly and secretly wors.h.i.+pped, without her ever suspecting the least of it beneath his cautious reserve and occasional outbursts of temper, "my son, I hope you will remember, tonight. You are nearly a man."

She was a wise woman, and said it kindly and meant it well; but his face flamed, his eyes hardened, and he sullenly walked away. Mrs. Gilbert sighed, and went about the preparations for the young people's party which her daughters, aged sixteen and eighteen, were to give that evening. She could not foresee what her son would do. Would her gentle warning, filled with the tender pride of a mother's love for her one man-child, drive him with his dog to the woods, whither many a time before this day a word less pointed had sent him, there to live for a week or longer at a time, in a manner that he had never disclosed?--or would the disjointed thing within him which harried his somber, lonely life force him in a blind moment to make a disgraceful scene at the gathering? She prayed that neither would happen, and that the suns.h.i.+ne fighting for egress through his darkness would come forth soft and genial and very fine and sweet, as it did sometimes, and always unaccountably....

The worst had happened at the party. No doubt it was intolerable,--but not so bad as when (he was then only four) he had tried to kill a boy for lying about him and was whipped mercilessly by his father,--for here, in the library, he was sitting before Mr. Gilbert, who was pale and whose eyes had a deep, inscrutable look. He was a large and powerful man, and had a genial nature, with force and sternness. The lad had never seen him looking thus, and so evidently guarding a prisoner, and the boy felt a strange weight within.

Whatever had happened must have left a shadow on the a.s.semblage, for, though faint sounds came through the closed doors, they were somewhat lacking in the robustness of youth. Ray did not deign an effort to remember. More than that, he hoped that it never would come back, for it might be disturbing to his solitudes. Of his attempts to remember the attack on the boy ten years ago, there had never come any result but the recollection of a wholly disconnected event,--when he was enveloped in a swirl of flame and smoke from a fierce gra.s.s fire, and had to fight his way through to life. He did not try to think what his father's purpose was in holding him a prisoner tonight. Was it to give him a lecture?

Pshaw! The beautiful, peaceful woods would make him forget that child's-play, and he would steal away to them with Cap this very night, as soon as all were asleep.

Thus, motionless and in silence, sat he and his father, seemingly through an endless, aching time. After a while the guests quietly left.

His sisters omitted their customary good night to their father. All sounds from the servants ended. Then entered his mother, uncommonly pale, and in silence looked from her son to her husband. She was small and dainty, and very, very pretty, the boy reflected. It was a pity that her bright eyes should be dim tonight and her sweet mouth drawn. She looked worn and as though she dreaded something.

"Are you ready?" Mr. Gilbert asked, regarding her fixedly.

Her lip trembled, but there came a flash from her eyes. "Do you really mean it?" she asked.

"Certainly. It must be done."

"My dear, dear, he's too large for----"

"He'll never be too large for it so long as he is a boor and coward, insults our guests, scandalizes us all, shames his sisters, and treats his parents with open scorn. He won't try to be like other people and accept his world as he finds it. His inordinate conceit is a disease. It is eating up his own life and making our lives miserable. We will cure it."

He had spoken calmly, but with a low vibration of tone; and as he came to his feet he looked very tall and terrible. Ray's blood began to rise, and as he looked about for something undefined he felt the heat and smelled the smoke of the gra.s.s fire of ten years ago.

He knew he was a coward. That was the shame and the curse of his life.

He did not think it had always been so, but believed it had come about gradually. At first he had not minded the whippings that other boys gave him because of his temper and his physical inadequacy, for he had invited the punishment; but when they all learned that his fighting spirit had weakened, that they could whip him easily, that they need not wait for provocation, and that he would never tell, they bullied and hounded and beat him until he had come to know a craven, sordid fear, which spread from the boys to the whole terrible world in which the masculine ent.i.ty must fight for a place.

"I am ready," said Mrs. Gilbert, trying to hide a sigh.

"Come," Mr. Gilbert ordered the boy, looking at him for the first time in two hours.

The boy quailed before that look, the most dreadful thing he had ever seen. It made him numb and sick, and when he rose he staggered; for, though tall, he was slender and had little strength. The weight on his chest became a pain and fixed on his throat, to choke and torment him.

His mother had gone out. He followed his father, and the three went out into the back yard, the boy bare-headed. The night was sharp and the moon very bright. All the boy's power of thought was suspended.

In silence they walked down the terraces of the park-like yard in the rear. Cap, Ray's dog, his only intimate, came bounding forward for his young master's unfailing good night, but Mr. Gilbert angrily ordered him away. The animal, astonished and hurt, slunk away, keeping a watchful view of the group, and sat down at a distance and gazed in wonder. They pa.s.sed through a gate into an orchard, and shut the dog out.

Mr. Gilbert selected an apple tree, because the wood was tougher than that of a peach. From it he cut two switches a yard long, and carefully pared the knots, his wife observing without a word or a movement, and the boy looking away into the distance. When Mr. Gilbert had done, he ordered his son to prepare.

The lad numbly, dumbly removed his coat and waistcoat, slipped his suspenders down, tightened the strap at the back of his trousers, clasped his hands in front, and bowed his head. The dog, which had crept to the fence and was peering through the pickets, whined anxiously and was quivering. When roughly ordered away by Mr. Gilbert, he went upon a terrace that overlooked the fence, and trembled as he watched. The boy did not once look toward him. He was struggling with the pain in his throat.

Mr. Gilbert offered one of the switches to his wife.

"Oh, how can you!" she pleaded.

"You must," he firmly said. "I'll relieve you when you are tired."

The boy's mind suddenly cleared, and he comprehended. A whipping from his father would be frightful enough,--not for the blows; they were nothing. The plan was not alone to humiliate him beyond all measure, but to scourge his soul, ravage the sanctuary of his mother there, rend him asunder, and cast him into an unthinkable h.e.l.l of isolation; for she was the bond that held him to the world, she was the human comfort and sweetness of his life.

Since his tenth year his discipline had been solely in her hands, his father having given him up as worthless, hopeless. She had whipped him many a time, but not for two years; and he had felt no pain, no shame, no outrage, no resentment. The case of the teacher was different. Ray had solemnly sworn, renewing the oath every day, that when he came to manhood he would beat his teacher to death for whipping him so often and severely because of his dulness, his apathy, or his rebellion; the whippings from his mother had only increased his tenderness for her, and, in some way that he could not understand, his pity also. Perhaps it was because he vaguely felt that she was impairing something in herself that was precious to him. Never had she conquered him; never had he cried out in pain, never pleaded for mercy, never confessed penitence nor promised reform.

Mrs. Gilbert shut her teeth hard, and, deathly white in the moonlight, raised the switch. It was poised a moment, and then her arm fell limp to her side; but the look that her son had seen in his father's eyes held her and steeled her with a sort of desperate madness, and her arm again rose.

A long cry, an anguished wail, almost superhuman in its power to shatter the silence of the night, and more startling than any human cry could be, struck disorganizingly through the drama. It may have hastened the catastrophe. Mr. Gilbert was unnerved for a moment, and in exasperation picked up a clod and threw it at the offending dog trembling on the terrace. When he turned again, his son was kneeling beside his unconscious mother, peering anxiously into her pallid face, and calling her softly.

In a stride Mr. Gilbert was upon him. A hand armed with strength and fury caught up the s.h.i.+rt on the lad's shoulder, raised him, and flung him away with so great violence that the slender body struck the ground as a log. Mr. Gilbert tenderly picked up his wife and bore her into the house.

The fall had half stunned the boy. As he slowly struggled to a sitting posture the moon danced fantastically, and some black trees crowning a near hill bowed and rose, and walked sidewise to and fro. A whine, low, cautious, packed with sympathy and solicitude, pleaded at the pickets, but the boy gave it no attention. He sat for a time, rose giddily, swayed as he dressed himself, and with deliberation walked to the gate.

The dog, whining, trembling, crawled to meet him; but the boy, instead of caressing him, ordered him quietly but firmly to the kennel.

Obedience was slow, and the animal looked up incredulous, wondering. The order had to be repeated. Finally the dog obeyed, frequently pausing to look back, but his master stood inflexible.

Pa.s.sing round the house, and without thinking or caring about hat and overcoat, he noiselessly pa.s.sed out the front gate, for a moment studied the big house that had cradled him, bred much of his anguish, and held all of his love, and firmly stepped out into the road. There was a gnawing ache somewhere. a.s.suredly that one blow,--and from _her_,--could not have caused it. After finding it in his throat, he was much relieved, and struck out on secure legs.

It did not occur to him that he was an outlaw and outcast. He did not think at all. Hence there was no plan in his going. He did not even understand that something deeper within him than had ever operated before had a.s.sumed, in the disqualification of his ordinary ruling powers, an imperious regency, and that it was infinitely greater or infinitely less than his usual intelligence. He simply went on, thinking nothing, remembering nothing. The beautiful highway, arched by great trees, above which rode the moon in keeping pace with him, was a tunnel under a luminous sea; he half walked, half floated, in the crystal water, and had no wonder that he breathed it. The houses along the way were the palaces of lordly gnomes that inhabited the deep.

Whatever was leading him turned him out of the avenue at last and drifted him along a winding road that was as beautiful in its less conventional way. He did not reflect that all of this was familiar, shamefully familiar. It was the road to his grandmother's but he had not visited her for a year.

Her great wisdom and tact had gone to a study of the strange, unhappy child; she had been kind to him in every cautious, delicate fas.h.i.+on that she could devise; but he had ceased coming, and avoided her when she visited his home, and she had never known why. She was a patient woman and good; she knew prayer, and in her peaceful twilight she walked with G.o.d; yet no revelation had come at her appeals, for the times were not ready; and the boy went his way alone and silent, forever alone and silent, and unhappy, unhappy!