The Boy Grew Older Part 10

"He's got a name now," said Peter. "We won't have to be saying 'him,'

and 'it' and 'the baby' any more. His name's Peter Neale."

CHAPTER XI

The name Peter did not stick to the baby long. Old Peter noticed that Kate never used it. Her first move was to modify it into Petey, then Pete and suddenly it became an unmistakable Pat. "What have you got against the name Peter?" he asked her.

"It's not for me to be criticising a saint in Heaven," answered Kate piously.

"I won't tell on you. Why didn't you like him, He was a good man, wasn't he?"

"A good man, is it?--begging your pardon and that of the blessed saints in Heaven--didn't he deny the name of our blessed Lord and Him seized by the dirty Jews?"

Peter had forgotten about it but he found the striking story in the Gospel according to St. Mark.

"'And thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth.' But he denied, saying--'I know not, neither understand I what thou sayest.'"

Of course, it was not admirable conduct, but Peter could understand and sympathize with the motives of his namesake. He himself, he felt, would have done much the same thing. Cowardice was not the only factor which prompted the denial. The incident was more complicated than that. Maybe Peter didn't want to make a scene. If he had said yes he was a Christian everybody in the palace of the High Priest would have felt self-conscious and uncomfortable. It might have been necessary for some one to change the subject. Saying "No" made things easier for everybody.

Courage may be admirable but tact is not altogether contemptible. Peter Neale usually agreed with people when he felt that they wanted him to.

Still, he hoped that his son would move through the world with a freer and more courageous mood and the next time Kate called the baby Pat, Peter did not object much. He merely said:

"I don't think that name's much of an improvement, Kate."

"And why not?"

"Well, what did this St. Patrick of yours ever do?"

"The blessed St. Patrick that drove the snakes out of Ireland!"

"Yes, but he left the Irish."

Nevertheless for all practical purposes little Peter became Pat from that time on. Kate got most things which she wanted. Peter lived in constant fear of her suddenly quitting her job. He dreaded the task of invading the agencies in search of a new nurse and there did not seem to be any other feasible arrangement.

About three months after he a.s.sumed the duties of Sunday father he did contemplate dimly a move which might well have revolutionized the existence of himself and Pat and Kate as well. He met Margaret quite by chance. Pat had colic in the Park. Of course, Peter didn't know it was colic. He only knew that the child screamed in a manner more violent than any he had yet known. His inability to handle the situation was so obvious that Margaret who was sitting with her four-year-old charge on a bench nearby came over and showed him how to roll the baby. After Pat had been rolled sufficiently he recovered but Margaret and Peter did not part company immediately.

"You're a funny one to be sending out with a baby," said Margaret.

"I'm not sent out with him. I go out with him. I'm his father."

Peter realized afterwards that his admission, indeed his boast, of not belonging to the employed cla.s.ses was largely responsible for the blight which lay under the surface of his relations.h.i.+p to Margaret and finally led to tragedy. There were many meetings following the afternoon of the colic. For a month or so the pretense was kept up that these were merely accidental, but finally one Sunday Peter and Pat and Margaret and Bobby, the boy she was in charge of, were driven under an archway by a thunderstorm. There was so much thunder that Margaret grew very frightened. Peter could think of nothing better to do than put an arm around her. He realized an obligation. Hadn't she rolled Pat out of colic? By and by there was lightning and Peter kissed her. After that they met by acknowledged premeditation every Sunday--close to the entrance of the tunnel.

Peter found it almost as difficult to talk to Margaret as to Pat, but she was better company. The long Sundays went faster when he could sit holding hands in some moderately obscure corner of the park. Margaret was the sort of person who didn't seem to expect much in the way of conversation. All she required was an occasional answer to some simple hypothetical question. These were generally somewhat similar in character. Did he think (she never reached the stage of calling him Peter) that a rich man could marry a poor girl and be happy? Did he realize that a girl could be a child's nurse and a lady at the same time? Wasn't it a fact that widowers led a desperately lonely and unhappy life? Peter happened to have adopted the easy expedient of disposing of Maria by means of a fever.

Margaret was unmistakably a fool, but Peter thought her rather an appealing one. She seemed pretty and he knew that she was expert in handling children. The things required by Bobby and Pat never gave her more than the briefest trouble. And then as Peter was becoming more and more liberal about unintelligence the fatal Sunday arrived. They had lingered a little longer in the Park than usual. Bobby in obedience to the usual command, "Now run away and play, Bobby, and don't get your clothes dirty," had done so. Suddenly he came running back across the meadow as fast as his legs would carry him straight to Margaret.

"I want to make a river," he said.

"Shus.h.!.+ Bobby," answered Margaret in a low voice.

"But I want to make a river," repeated Bobby, even more insistently.

Margaret, her face flaming scarlet, got up and seized the child roughly by the wrist. As she dragged him away he screamed. Peter heard her say, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself!" Presently from out of the bushes in addition to frantic screaming there came the unmistakable sound of a child being spanked.

When Margaret returned to the bench, if indeed she did, Peter had gone.

He saw her once weeks afterwards at a distance, but they never talked again. This time it was Peter who did the blus.h.i.+ng for the more he thought about the whole business the more degraded he found himself. He had come within at least an appreciable distance of selling his soul for a colic cure. A disgusting snip of a person had moved between him and those bitter but glamorous memories of Maria Algarez. Maybe Maria did ruin all his hope of happiness and yet he knew that but for Maria he would never have made up enough ground in his pursuit of life to learn the great truth that propriety is one of the vices.

CHAPTER XII

Pat grew but it was slow work. Kate would speak of an ounce as if it were some silver trophy which the child had won. Like Samuel Butler her admiration was unbounded for the intelligence which manifested itself in the process of developing bone and muscle and tissue. Peter was not inclined to give the child any credit for this. If you poured water on a lawn, gra.s.s sprang up. All the credit belonged to the gardener and Pat became bigger and bigger through no obvious efforts of his own but merely because Peter and Kate plied him with milk and sometimes carrots.

Raising gra.s.s was easier. The gardener didn't have to deal with a moving target and he could administer water quite irrespective of the wishes of the gra.s.s.

Of course, there were moments when Pat displayed intelligence but it was of the most rudimentary sort. When he was about six months old Peter found that if he put a finger in front of him Pat would try to bite it.

Sometimes he laughed but only at his own jokes. At seven months he began to crawl. This was moderately interesting but it doubled Peter's Sunday responsibilities and even affected his literary style. Short paragraphs appeared more frequently than ever before in the Looking Them Over column. Longer flights were subject to interruption as Peter had to put Pat away from places such as the steam radiator or the gas logs. It was no longer even possible to leave safety razor blades about.

Eventually somebody told Peter to buy a stockade and he did so. The arrangement was a collapsible fence which could be set up in the middle of the floor to imprison the child and curtail its wanderings. The only trouble lay in the fact that it was much too collapsible. In a month or so Pat was able to pull himself to his feet by holding on to the rail and after a few violent tugs the whole contraption would come down on top of him.

And yet when Kate came to Peter and said that her niece, the one in Jamaica, was looking for a part time job and would take care of Pat on Sundays for $3 a week, Peter refused the offer. He never knew quite why.

Somehow or other his Sunday fatherhood had become part of a routine.

Perhaps he would have felt foot-loose without it. He merely told Kate that $3 was too much. And one night when Pat was suddenly a.s.sailed by croup Peter almost worried himself sick. It was a short illness, but terrific while it lasted. The child seemed to be strangling. The cough which racked it was deep and in its agony the child took on maturity.

Against death it fought back. Peter was moved not only because this was his son but because here was a fellow human being grappling with the common enemy. He waited in the hall outside while Dr. Clay was making his examination. There he had more room to walk up and down.

Presently the doctor came out and, taking Peter's arm, led him to the front of the flat. "The child's very ill," he said, "I'm going to send for a trained nurse."

Pat cried his best, but every now and then this would be broken by the fearful cough. It was like the baying of an animal. A spasm from the back room interrupted Dr. Clay. "It almost sounds as if there was another person in that room," he said. "I'm going back."

Peter knew who that thing or person was. He went with Clay and lifted Pat out of his crib and held him in his arms. This gave him a curious feeling that he was doing something; as if he were trying to throw his body between Pat and someone else. In a dim way he felt that he and Pat and the other one, all three, were running down a football field. He must keep close to Pat and block off the tackler.

"Part of my tiredness it goes into your arm." Maria had said that. And now Peter wanted to give something of his own strength to Pat against the fury of the attack. It did not seem fantastic. There was a current in the contact. The man had lied when he said Peter and Maria were one.

That couldn't be done. Men and women were grown people, individuals, all finished, but this was only a little person. He was part of Peter.

Father and son were one. He was holding Pat so tightly that n.o.body could take him away. His prayer was all the more fervent from the fact that he did not believe in G.o.d. He had to create G.o.d. "Don't let him die. Don't let him die." G.o.d began to take form in his mind. G.o.d was Maria. She was gone and not gone. To her he did not need to make a prayer. "Maria" was enough.

The doorbell rang and Dr. Clay answered it. He brought Miss Haine back.

"I guess you know this baby," he said. "We've got to make him well."

The nurse spoke to Peter and set about fixing a croup kettle beside the crib. The fumes filled the room. It was a pleasant smell. "Better lay him down in his crib, now," said the Doctor, touching Peter on the shoulder, "so he can get the benefit of this. I think he's a little better already."

Peter knew that he was. Pat was no longer gasping and in a few minutes he was asleep. For a time Peter sat beside the bed. The child's breathing was regular and his cheek was cool to the touch. "Why, he's fine now," Miss Haine told him. "You go to bed. In the morning you won't even know that he's been sick."

There was no trace of the shadow upon Pat next day. Peter was the haggard one. Something had gone out of him during the night as he held Pat in his arms. Father and child were doing as well as could be expected.