Michael O'Halloran Part 70

"I'm sorry about your mother's things Mickey, but don't worry over the rest," said Junior. "Pa and Ma won't ever be willing to give up Peaches again, I can see that right now, and if they keep her, they will have to take you too, because of course you can't be separated from her; your goods, I'll pay back. I owe you a lot as it is, but I got some money in the bank, and I'll have to sell my sheep."

Junior laid his head on his arm and sobbed weakly.

"Don't Junior," said Mickey. "I feel just awful about this. I thought you had a place that would earn your supper, and you had the room, and would be all right."

"Why of course!" said Junior.

Mickey looked intently at him. "Now look here Junior," he said, "I got to square myself on this. I didn't think all the time you'd like Multiopolis, when you saw it with the bark off. Course viewing it on a full stomach, from an automobile, with spending money in your pocket, and a smooth run to a good home before you, is one thing; facing up to it, and asking it to hand out those things to you in return for work you can do here, without knowing the ropes, is another. You've stuck it out longer than I would, honest you have, but it isn't your game, and you don't know how, and you'd be a fool to learn. I thought you'd get enough to satisfy you when you came, but seeing for yourself seemed to be the only way to cure you."

"Oh don't start the 'I told you so,'" said Junior. "Father and mother will hand it out for the rest of my life. I'd as lief die as go back, but I'm going; not because I can't get in the game, and make a living if you can, even if I have to go out and start as you did, with a penny. I'm going back, but not for the reason you think. It's because seen at close range, Multiopolis ain't what it looks like from an automobile. I know something that I really know, and that comes natural to me, that beats it a mile; and now I've had my chance, and made my choice. I'm so sore I can't walk, but if you'll just call father and tell him to come in on high, I'll settle with you later."

"Course if that's the way you feel, I'll call him," said Mickey, "but Junior, let me finish this much I was trying to say. I knew Multiopolis would do to you all it had done to me, and I knew you wouldn't like it; but I _didn't_ figure on your big frame and fresh face spelling country 'til it would show a mile down the street. I _didn't_ figure on you getting the show I would, and I _didn't_ intend anything worse should happen to you than has to me. Honest I didn't! I'm just about sick over this Junior. Don't you want to go to Mr. Bruce's office--I got a key and he won't care--don't you want to go there and rest a little, and feed up better, before I call your father?"

"No I don't! I got enough and I know it! They must know it some time; it might as well come at once."

"Then let's go out on the car," said Mickey.

"I guess you don't realize just how bad this is," said Junior. "You call father, and call him quick and emphatic enough to bring him."

"All right then," said Mickey. "Here goes!"

"And put the call in nearest place you can find and hustle back," said Junior. "I'm done with alleys, and sluggers, and robbers. Goliath couldn't have held his own against two big men, when he was fifteen, and I guess father won't think I'm a coward because they got away with me. But you hurry!"

"Sure! I'll fly, and I'll get him if I can."

"There's no doubt about getting him. This is baked potato, bacon, blackberry roll, honey and bread time at our house. They wouldn't be away just now, and it's strange they have been so much this week."

Mickey gave Junior a swift glance; then raced to the nearest telephone.

"You Mickey?" queried Peter.

"Yes. It's you for S.O.S., and I'm to tell you to come on high, and lose no time in starting."

"Am I to come Mickey, or am I too busy?"

"You are to come, Peter, to my room, and in a hurry. Things didn't work according to program."

"Why what's the matter, Mickey?"

"Just what I told you would be when it came to getting a job here; but I didn't figure on street sharks picking on Junior and robbing him, and following him to my room, and slugging him 'til he can't walk. You come Peter, and come in a hurry, and Peter----"

"You better let me start----" said Peter.

"Yes, but Peter, one minute," insisted Mickey. "I got something to say to you. This didn't work out as I planned, and I'm awful sorry, and you'll be too. But Junior is cured done enough to suit you; he won't ever want to leave you again, you can bank on that--and he ain't hurt permanent; but if you have got anything in your system that sounds even a little bit like 'I told you so,' forget it on the way in, and leave instructions with the family to do the same. See? Junior is awful sore!

He don't need anything rubbed in in the way of reminiscences. He's ready to do the talking. See?"

"Yes. You're sure he ain't really hurt?"

"Sure!" said Mickey. "Three days will fix him, but Peter, it's been mighty rough! Go easy, will you?"

"Mickey have you got money----"

"All we need, just you get here with the car, and put in a comfort and pillow. All my stuff is gone!"

Peter Senior arrived in a surprisingly short time, knelt on the floor and looked closely at his sleeping boy.

"Naked and beaten to insensibility, you say?"

Mickey nodded.

"Nothing to eat for nearly two days?"

Another affirmation. Peter arose, pushed back his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow.

"I haven't been thinking about anything but him ever since he left," he said, "and what makes me the sorest is that the longer I think of it, the surer I get that this is my fault. I didn't raise him right!"

"Aw-w-ah Peter!" protested Mickey.

"I've got it all studied out," said Peter, "and I didn't! There have been two mistakes, Junior's and mine, and of the two, mine is twice as big as the boy's."

Peter stooped and picked up his son, who stirred and awakened. When he found himself in his father's arms Junior clung to him and whispered over and over: "Father, dear father!" Peter gripped him with all his might and whispered back: "Forgive me son! Forgive me!"

"Well I don't know what for?" sobbed Junior.

"You will before long," said Peter. He drove to a cool place, and let the car stand while he called his wife, and explained all of the situation he saw fit. She was waiting at the gate when they came. She never said a word except to urge Junior to eat his supper. But Junior had no appet.i.te.

"I want to run things here for a few minutes," he said. "When the children finish, put them to bed, and then let me tell you, and you can decide what you'll do to me."

"Well, don't you worry about that," said Peter.

"No I won't," said Junior, "because there's nothing you can do that will be half I deserve."

When the little folks were asleep, and Mickey had helped Mrs. Harding finish the work, and Jud Jason had been paid five dollars for his contract and had gone home, Junior lay in the hammock on the front porch, while his father, mother and Mickey sat close. When he started to speak Peter said: "Now Junior, wait a minute! You've been gone a week, and during that time I've used my brains more than I ever did in a like period, even when I was courting your Ma, and the subject I laboured on was what took you away from us. I've found out why you were not satisfied, and who made you dissatisfied. The guilty party is Peter Harding, aided and abetted by one Nancy Harding, otherwise known as Ma----"

"Why father!" interrupted Junior.

"Silence!" said Peter. "I've just found out that it's a man's job to be the _head of his family_, and I'm going to be the head of mine after this, and like Mickey here, 'I'm going to keep it.' Let me finish. I've spent this week thinking, and all the things I have thought would make a bigger book than the dictionary if they were set down. Why should you ask to be forgiven for a desire to go to Multiopolis when I carried you there as a baby, led you as a toddler, and went with you every chance I could trump up as a man? Who bought and fed you painted, adulterated candy as a child, when your Ma should have made you pure clean taffy at home from our maple syrup or as good sugar as we could buy? Often I've spent money that now should be on interest, for fruit that looked fine to you there, and proved to be grainy, too mellow, sour or not half so good as what you had at home.

"I never took you hunting, or fis.h.i.+ng, or camping, or swimming, in your life; but I haven't had a mite of trouble to find time and money to take you to circuses, which I don't regret, I'll do again; and picture shows, which I'll do also; and other shows. I'm not condemning any form of amus.e.m.e.nt we ever patronized so much, we'll probably do all of it again; but what gets me now, is how I ever came to think that the only _interesting things_ and those worth taking time and spending money on, were running to Multiopolis, to eat, to laugh, to look, and getting little to show for it but disappointment and suffering for all of us.

You haven't had the only punishment that's struck the Harding family this week, Junior. Your Ma and I have had our share, and I haven't asked her if she has got enough, but speaking strictly for myself, I have."

"I wouldn't live through it again for the farm," sobbed Mrs. Harding.

"I see what you are getting at Pa, and it's we who are the guilty parties, just as you say."

Junior sat up and stared at them.

"I don't so much regret the things I did," said Peter, "as I condemn myself for the things I haven't done. I haven't taught you to ride so you don't look a spectacle on a horse, and yet horses should come as natural as breathing to you. You should be a skilled marksman; you couldn't hit a wash-tub at ten paces. You should swim like a fish, with a hundred lakes in your country; you'd drown if you were thrown in the middle of one and left to yourself. You ought to be able to row a boat as well as it can be done, and cast a line with all the skill any lad of your age possesses. That you can't make even a fair showing at any sport, results from the fact that every time your father had a minute to spare he took you and headed straight for Multiopolis. Here's the golf links at our door, and if ever any game was a farmer's game, and if any man has a right to hold up his head, and tramp his own hills, and swing a strong arm and a free one, and make a masterly stroke, it's a _land owner_. There's no reason why plowing and tilling should dull the brains, bend the back, or make a pack-horse of a man. Modern methods show you how to do the same thing a better way, how to work one machine instead of ten men, how to have time for a vacation, just as city men do, and how to have money for books, and music, and school, instead of loading with so much land it's a burden to pay the taxes. I have quite a bunch of land for sale, and I see a way open to make three times the money I ever did, with half the hard work. We've turned over a new leaf at this place from start to finish, including the house, barn, land, and family. A year from now you won't know any of us; but that later. Just now, it's this: I'm pointing out to you Junior, exactly how you came to have your hankering for Multiopolis. I can see you followed the way we set you thinking, that all the amusing things were there, the smart people, the fine clothes, the wealth, and the freedom----"

"Yes you ought to see the 'amusing things' and the 'happy people' when your stomach's cramping and your head splitting!" cried Junior. "I tell you down among them it looks different from riding past in an automobile."