In a Little Town Part 26

The boy's college life lasted Rudd a thousand and one evenings. It was in beautiful contrast with the career of Kittredge's children, some of whom were forever flunking their examinations, slipping back a year, requiring expensive tutors, acquiring bad habits, and getting into debt.

Almost the only joy Kittredge had of them was in telegraphing them money in response to their telegrams for money--they never wrote. Their vacations either sent them scurrying on house parties or other excursions. Or if they came home they were discontented with house and parents. They corrected Kittredge's grammar, though his State accounted him an orator. They corrected Mrs. Kittredge's etiquette, though Hillsdale looked up to her as a social arbitrix.

Kittredge poured a deal of his disappointment into Rudd's ear, because his hard heart was broken and breaking anew every day, and he had to tell somebody. He knew that his old clerk would keep it where he kept all the secrets of his business, but he never knew that Rudd still had a child of his own, forging ahead without failure. Rudd could give comfort, for he had it to spare, and he was empty of envy.

It was a ghastly morning when Kittredge showed Rudd a telegram saying that his eldest son, Thomas, had thrown himself in front of a train because of the discovery that his accounts were wrong. Kittredge had found him a place in a New York bank, but the gambling fever had seized the young fellow. And now he was dead, in his sins, in his shame. Dives cried out to Lazarus:

"It's h.e.l.l to be a father, Will. It's an awful thing to bring children into the world and try to carry 'em through it. It's not a man's job.

It's G.o.d's."

At times like these, and when Rudd heard from the tattlers, or read in the printed gossip of the evening paper concerning the multifarious wickednesses of the children of men about the earth, he felt almost glad that his boy had never lived upon so plague-infected a world. But in the soothe of twilight the old pipe persuaded him to a pleasanter view of his boy, alive and always doing the right thing, avoiding the evil.

His motto was, "Eric would have done different." He was sure of that. It was his constant conclusion.

After graduating from an imaginary Yale Eric went to an imaginary law-school in New York City--no less. Then he was admitted to that imaginary bar where a lawyer never defends an unrighteous cause, never loses a case, yet grows rich. And, of course, like every other American boy that dreams or is dreamed of, in good time he had to become President.

Eric lived so exemplary a life, was so busy in virtue, so unblemished of fault, that he could not be overlooked by the managers of the quadrennial national performance, searching with Demosthenes' lantern for a man against whom nothing could be said. They called Eric from private life to be headliner in their vaudeville.

Rudd had watched Kittredge clambering to his success, or rather wallowing to it through a swamp of mud. All the wrong things Kittredge had ever done, and their name was legion, were hurled in his path. His family scandals were dug up by the double handful and splashed in his face. Against his opponent the same methods were used. It was like a race through a marsh; and when Kittredge reached his goal in the Senate he was so muck-bemired, his heart had been so lacerated, the nakedness of his past so exposed, that his laurel seemed more like a wreath of poison ivy. And once mounted on his high post, he was an even better target than when he was on the wing.

Against Eric's blameless life the arrows of slander were like darts shot toward the sun. They fell back upon the archers' heads. That was a lively night in the tobacco lagoon when the election returns came in and State after State swung to Eric's column. Rudd made it as nearly unanimous as he could without making it stupid. The solid South he left unbroken; he just brought it over to Eric en bloc. For Eric, it seems, had devised what everybody else has looked for in vain, a solution of the negro problem to satisfy both North and South--and the negroes.

Unfortunately the details have been lost.

Marthy was there, of course; she rode in the same hack with their boy.

Some of the politicians and the ex-President wanted to get in, but Eric said:

"My mother and father ride with me or I won't be President."

That settled 'em. Eric even wanted to ride backward, too, but Will, as his father, insisted; and of course Eric obeyed, though he was President. And the weather was more like June than March, no blizzards delaying trains and distributing pneumonia.

Once the administration was begun, the newspapers differed strangely in their treatment of Eric from their att.i.tude toward other Chief Magistrates, from Was.h.i.+ngton down. Realizing that Eric was an honorable man trying to do the right thing by the people, no editor or cartoonist dreamed of accusing him of an unworthy motive or an unwise act. As for the tariff labyrinth, a matter of some trouble to certain Presidents pulled in all directions at once by warring const.i.tuencies, Eric settled that in a jiffy. And the best of it was that everybody was satisfied, importers and exporters; East, West, and Middle; farmers, manufacturers, lumbermen, oilmen, painters--everybody.

And when his first term was ended the Democrats and Republicans, realizing that they had at last found a perfectly wise and honorable ruler, nominated him by acclamation at both conventions. The result was delightful; both parties elected their candidate.

Marthy and Will sat with Eric in the carriage at the second inaugural, too. There was an argument again about who should ride backward. Rudd said:

"Eric, your Excellency, these here crowds came to see you, and you ought to face 'em. As your dad I order you to set there 'side of your mother."

But Eric said, "Dad, your Majesty, the people have seen me often enough, and as the President of these here United States I order you to set there 'side of your wife."

And of course Rudd had to do it. Folks looked very much surprised to see him and there was quite a piece in the papers about it.

To every man his day's work and his night's dream. Will Rudd has poor nourishment of the former, but he is richly fed of the latter. His failures and his poverty and the monotony of his existence are public knowledge; his dream is his own triumph and the greater for being his secret.

The Fates seemed to go out of their way to be cruel to Will Rudd, but he beat them at their own game. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos kept Jupiter himself in awe of their shears, and the old Norns, Urdur, Verdandi, and Skuld, ruined Wotan's power and his glory. But they could not touch the shoe clerk. They shattered his little scheme of things to bits, but he rebuilt it nearer to his heart's desire. He spread a sky about his private planet and ruled his little universe like a tribal G.o.d. He, alone of all men, had won the oldest, vainest prayer that was ever said or sung: "O G.o.d, keep the woman I love young and beautiful, and grant our child happiness and success without sin or sorrow."

If, sometimes, the imagination of the matter-of-fact man wavers, and the ugliness of his loneliness overwhelms him, thrusts through his dream like a hideous mountainside when an avalanche strips the barren crags of their fleece; and if he then breaks down and calls aloud for his child and his wife to be given back to him from Out There--these panics are also his secret. Only the homely sitting-room of the lonely frame house knows them. He opens the door of the wood-stove or follows his pipe smoke and rallies his courage, resumes his dream. The next morning sees him emerge from his door and go briskly to the shop as always, whether his path is through rain or sleet, or past the recurrent lilacs that have scattered many a purple snow across his sidewalk since the bankruptcy of his ambitions.

He would have been proud to be the unknown father of a great man. He was not permitted to be the father even of a humble man. Yet being denied the reality, he has taken sustenance in what might have been, and has turned "the saddest words of tongue or pen" into something almost sweet.

If his child has missed the glories of what might have been, he has escaped the shames that might have been, and the bruises and heartaches and remorses that must have been, that always have been. That is the increasing consolation a bitter world offers to those who love and have lost. That was Rudd's solace. And he made the most of it; added to it a dream. He was a wise man.

After he paid his sorrowful debts his next slow savings went to the building of a monument for his family. It is one of the handsomest shafts in the cemetery. If Rudd could brag of anything he would brag of that. The inscription took a long time to write. You could tell that by its simplicity. And you might notice the blank s.p.a.ce left for his own name when all three shall be together again.

Rudd is now saving a third fund against the encroaching time when he shall be too feeble to get up from his knees after he has dropped upon them to unlace somebody's sandal. Lonely old orphans like Rudd must provide their own pensions. There is a will, however, which bequeaths whatever is left of his funds to an orphan home. Being a sonless father, he thinks of the sons who have no fathers to do for them what he was so fain to do for his. It is not a large fund for these days when rich men toss millions as tips to posterity, but it is pretty good for a shoe clerk. And it will mean everything to some Eric that gets himself really born.

If you drop in at the Emporium and ask for a pair of shoes or boots, or slippers or rubbers, or trees or pumps, and wait for old Rudd to get round to you, you will be served with deference, yet with a pride of occupation that is almost priestly. And you will probably buy something, whether you want it or not.

The old man is slightly shuffly in his gaiters. His own elastics are less resilient than once they were. If you ask for anything on the top shelf he is a trifle slow getting the ladder and rather ratchety in clambering up and down, and his eyes are growing so tired that he may offer you a 6D when you ask for a 3A.

But, above all things, don't hurt his pride by offering to help him to his feet if he shows some difficulty in rising when he has performed his genuflexion before you. Just pretend not to notice, as he would pretend not to notice any infirmity or vanity of yours. It is his vanity to be still the best shoe clerk in town--as he is. There is a gracious satisfiedness about the old man that radiates contentment and makes you comfortable for the time in most uncomfortable shoes. And as old Rudd says:

"You'll find that the best shoe is the one that pinches at first and hurts a little; in time it will grow very comfortable and still be becoming."

That is what Rudd says, and he ought to know.

In these days he is so supremely comfortable in his old shoes that his own fellow-clerks hardly know what to make of him. If they only understood what is going on in his private world they would realize that Eric is about to be married--in the White House. The boy was so busy for the country and loved his mother so that he had no time to go sparkin'.

But Marthy got after him and said: "Eric, they're goin' to make you President for the third term. Oh, what's that old tradition got to do with it? Can't they change it? Well, you mark my words, like as not you'll settle down and live in the White House the rest of your life.

You'd ought to have a wife, Eric, and be raisin' some childern to comfort your declining years. What would Will and me have done without you? I'm gettin' old, Eric, and I'd kind o' like to see how it feels to be a grandmother, before they take me out to the--"

But that was a word Rudd could never frame even in his thoughts.

Eric, being a mighty good boy, listened to his mother, as always. And Marthy looked everywhere for an ideal woman, and when she found one, Eric fell in love with her right away. It is not every child that is so dutiful as that.

The marriage is to take place shortly and Rudd is very busy with the details. He will go on to Was.h.i.+ngton, of course--of evenings. In fact, the wedding is to be in the evening, so that he won't have to miss any time at the shop. There are so many people coming in every day and asking for shoes, that he wouldn't dare be away.

Martha is insisting on Will's buying a dress soot for the festivities, but he is in doubt about that. Martha, though, shall have the finest dress in the land, for she is more beautiful even than Eric's bride, and she doesn't look a day older than she did when she was a bride herself.

A body would never guess how many years ago that was.

The White House is going to be all lit up, and a lot of big folks will be there--a couple of kings, like as not. There will be fried chicken for dinner and ice-cream--mixed, maybe, chocolate and vanella, and p'raps a streak of strawb'ry. And there will be enough so's everybody can have two plates. Marthy will prob'ly bake the cake herself, if she can get that old White House stove to working right.

Rudd has a great surprise in store for her. He's going to tell a good one on Marthy. At just the proper moment he's going to lean over--Lord, he hopes he can keep his face straight--and say, kind of offhand:

"Do you remember, Marthy, the time when you was makin' little baby-clothes for the President of the United States here, and you says to me--you see, Eric, she'd made me quit smokin', herself, but she plumb forgot all about that--and she says to me, s'she, 'Why don't you smoke your pipe any more, Will?' she says. And I says, 'I'd kind o' got out of the habit, Marthy,' s'I, 'but I guess I'll git back in,' s'I. I said it right off like that, 'I guess I'll git back in!' s'I. Remember, Marthy?"

THE HAPPIEST MAN IN IOWAY

Jes' down the road a piece, 'ith dust so deep It teched the bay mare's fetlocks, an' the sun So b'ilin' hot, the peewees da.s.sn't peep, Seemed like midsummer 'fore the spring's begun!

An' me plumb beat an' good-for-nothin'-like An' awful lonedsome fer a sight o' you ...

I come to that big locus' by the pike, An' she was all in bloom, an' trembly, too, With breezes like drug-store perfumery.

I stood up in my sturrups, with my head So deep in flowers they almost smothered me.

I kind o' liked to think that I was dead ...

An' if I hed 'a' died like that to-day, I'd 'a' b'en the happiest man in Ioway.

For what's the use't o' goin' on like this?

Your pa not 'lowin' me around the place ...