by Philip Wylie
III
Calm and quiet held their negative sway over the Danner menage for anhour, and then there was a disturbed fretting that developed into alusty bawl. The professor passed a fatigued hand over his brow. He wasunaccustomed to the dissonances of his offspring. Young Hugo--they hadnamed him after a maternal uncle--had attained the age of one weekwithout giving any indication of unnaturalness.
That is not quite true. He was as fleshy as most healthy infants, butthe flesh was more than normally firm. He was inordinately active. Hiseyes had been gray but, already, they gave promise of the inkiness theyafterwards exhibited. He was born with a quantity of black hair--hair sodark as to be nearly blue. Abednego Danner, on seeing it, exercised theliberty which all husbands take, and investigated rumours of his wife'sforbears with his most secret thoughts. The principal rumour was thatone of her lusty Covenanter grandsires had been intrigued by a squaw tothe point of forgetting his Psalms and recalling only the Song ofSolomon.
However that may have been, Hugo was an attractive and virile baby.Danner spent hours at the side of his crib speculating and watching forany sign of biological variation. But it was not until a week had passedthat he was given evidence. By that time he was ready to concede thefailure of his greatest experiment.
The baby bawled and presently stopped. And Mrs. Danner, who had put itto breast, suddenly called her husband. "Abednego! Come here! Hurry!"
The professor's heart skipped its regular timing and he scrambled to thefloor above. "What's the matter?"
Mrs. Danner was sitting in a rocking-chair. Her face was as white aspaper. Only in her eyes was there a spark of life. He thought she wasgoing to faint. "What's the matter?" he said again.
He looked at Hugo and saw nothing terrifying in the ravishing hungerwhich the infant showed.
"Matter! Matter! You know the matter!"
Then he knew and he realized that his wife had discovered. "I don't. Youlook frightened. Shall I bring some water?"
Mrs. Danner spoke again. Her voice was icy, distant, terrible. "I camein to feed him just a minute ago. He was lying in his crib. I triedto--to hug him and he put his arms out. As God lives, I could not pullthat baby to me! He was too strong, Abednego! Too strong. Too strong. Icouldn't unbend his little arms when he stiffened them. I couldn'tstraighten them when he bent them. And he pushed me--harder than youcould push. Harder than I could push myself. I know what it means. Youhave done your horrible thing to my baby. He's just a baby, Abednego.And you've done your thing to him. How could you? Oh, how could you!"
Mrs. Danner rose and laid the baby gently on the chair. She stood beforeher husband, towering over him, raised her hand, and struck with all herforce. Mr. Danner fell to one knee, and a red welt lifted on his face.She struck him again and he fell against the chair. Little Hugo wasdislodged. One hand caught a rung of the chair back and he hungsuspended above the floor.
"Look!" Mrs. Danner screamed.
As they looked, the baby flexed its arm and lifted itself back into thechair. It was a feat that a gymnast would have accomplished withdifficulty. Danner stared, ignoring the blows, the crimson on his cheek.For once in his lifetime, he suddenly defied his wife. He pointed to thechild.
"Yes, look!" His voice rang clearly. "I did it. I vaccinated you thenight the cordial put you to sleep. And there's my son. He's strong.Stronger than a lion's cub. And he'll increase in strength as he growsuntil Samson and Hercules would be pygmies beside him. He'll be thefirst of a new and glorious race. A race that doesn't have tofear--because it cannot know harm. No man can hurt him, no man canvanquish him. He will be mightier than any circumstances. He, son of aweak man, will be stronger than the beasts, even than the ancientdinosaurs, stronger than the tides, stronger than fate--strong as God isstrong. And you--you, Matilda--mother of him, will be proud of him. Hewill be great and famous. You can knock me down. You can knock me down athousand times. I have given you a son whose little finger you cannotbend with a crow-bar. Oh, all these years I've listened to you andobeyed you and--yes, I've feared you a little--and God must hate me forit. Now take your son. And my son. You cannot change him. You cannotbend him to your will. He is all I might have been. All that mankindshould be." Danner's voice broke and he sobbed. He relented. "I knowit's hard for you. It's against your religion--against your love, even.But try to like him. He's no different from you and me--only stronger.And strength is a glorious thing, a great thing. Then--afterwards--ifyou can--forgive me." He collapsed.
Blood pounded in her ears. She stared at the huddled body of herhusband. He had stood like a prophet and spoken words of fire. She wasshaken from her pettiness. For one moment she had loved Danner. In thatsame instant she had glimpsed the superhuman energy that had driven himthrough the long years of discouragement to triumph. She had seen hissoul. She fell at his feet, and when Danner opened his eyes, he foundher there, weeping. He took her in his arms, timidly, clumsily. "Don'tcry, Mattie. It'll be all right. You love him, don't you?"
She stared at the babe. "Of course I love him. Wash your face,Abednego."
After that there was peace in the house, and with it the child grew.During the next months they ignored his peculiarities. When they foundhim hanging outside his crib, they put him back gently. When he smashedthe crib, they discussed a better place for him to repose. No hysteria,no conflict. When, in the early spring, young Hugo began to recognizethem and to assert his feelings, they rejoiced as all parents rejoice.
When he managed to vault the sill of the second-story window by someantic contortion of his limbs, they dismissed the episode. Mrs. Dannerhad been baking. She heard the child's voice and it seemed to come fromthe yard. Startled, incredulous, she rushed upstairs. Hugo was not inhis room. His wail drifted through the window. She looked out. He waslying in the yard, fifteen feet below. She rushed to his side. He hadnot been hurt.
Danner made a pen of the iron heads and feet of two old beds. He wiredthem together. The baby was kept in the inclosure thus formed. The dayswarmed and lengthened. No one except the Danners knew of the prodigyharboured by their unostentatious house. But the secret was certain toleak out eventually.
Mrs. Nolan, the next-door neighbour, was first to learn it. She hadcalled on Mrs. Danner to borrow a cup of sugar. The call, naturally,included a discussion of various domestic matters and a visit to thebaby. She voiced a question that had occupied her mind for some time.
"Why do you keep the child in that iron thing? Aren't you afraid it willhurt itself?"
"Oh, no."
Mrs. Nolan viewed young Hugo. He was lying on a large pillow. Presentlyhe rolled off its surface. "Active youngster, isn't he?"
"Very," Mrs. Danner said, nervously.
Hugo, as if he understood and desired to demonstrate, seized a corner ofthe pillow and flung it from him. It traversed a long arc and landed onthe floor. Mrs. Nolan was startled. "Goodness! I never saw a child hisage that could do that!"
"No. Let's go downstairs. I want to show you some tidies I'm making."
Mrs. Nolan paid no attention. She put the pillow back in the pen andwatched while Hugo tossed it out. "There's something funny about that.It isn't normal. Have you seen a doctor?"
Mrs. Danner fidgeted. "Oh, yes. Little Hugo's healthy."
Little Hugo grasped the iron wall of his miniature prison. He pulledhimself toward it. His skirt caught in the floor. He pulled harder. Thepen moved toward him. A high soprano came from Mrs. Nolan. "He's movedit! I don't think I could move it myself! I tell you, I'm going to askthe doctor to examine him. You shouldn't let a child be like that."
Mrs. Danner, filled with consternation, sought refuge in prevarication."Nonsense," she said as calmly as she could. "All we Douglases are likethat. Strong children. I had a grandfather who could lift a cider kegwhen he was five--two hundred pounds and more. Hugo just takes afterhim, that's all."
Mrs. Nolan was annoyed. Partly because she was jealous of Hugo'sprowess--her own children had been feeble and dull. Partly because shewas frightened--no matter
how strong a person became, a baby had noright to be so powerful. Partly because she sensed that Mrs. Danner wasnot telling the whole truth. She suspected that the Danners had found anew way to raise children. "Well," she said, "all I have to say is thatit'll damage him. It'll strain his little heart. It'll do him a lot ofharm. If I had a child like that, I'd tie it up most of the time for thefirst few years."
"Kate," Mrs. Danner said unpleasantly, "I believe you would."
Mrs. Nolan shrugged. "Well--I'm glad none of my children are freaks,anyhow."
"I'll get your sugar."
In the afternoon the minister called. He talked of the church and thetown until he felt his preamble adequate. "I was wondering why youdidn't bring your child to be baptized, Mrs. Danner. And why youcouldn't come to church, now that it is old enough?"
"Well," she replied carefully, "the child is rather--irritable. And wethought we'd prefer to have it baptized at home."
"It's irregular."
"We'd prefer it."
"Very well. I'm afraid--" he smiled--"that you're alittle--ah--unfamiliar with the upbringing of children. Natural--in thecase of the first-born. Quite natural. But--ah--I met Mrs. Nolan to-day.Quite by accident. And she said that you kept the child--ah--in an ironpen. It seemed unnecessarily cruel to me--"
"Did it?" Mrs. Danner's jaw set squarely.
But the minister was not to be turned aside lightly. "I'm afraid, ifit's true, that we--the church--will have to do something about it. Youcan't let the little fellow grow up surrounded by iron walls. It willsurely point him toward the prison. Little minds are tenderand--ah--impressionable."
"We've had a crib and two pens of wood," Mrs. Danner answered tartly."He smashed them all."
"Ah? So?" Lifted eyebrows. "Temper, eh? He should be punished.Punishment is the only mould for unruly children."
"You'd punish a six-months-old baby?"
"Why--certainly. I've reared seven by the rod."
"Well--" a blazing maternal instinct made her feel vicious. "Well--youwon't raise mine by a rod. Or touch it--by a mile. Here's your hat,parson." Mrs. Danner spent the next hour in prayer.
The village is known for the speed of its gossip and the sloth of itsintelligence. Those two factors explain the conditions which preludedand surrounded the dawn of consciousness in young Hugo. Mrs. Danner'sextemporaneous fabrication of a sturdy ancestral line kept the moresupernatural elements of the baby's prowess from the public eye. Itbecame rapidly and generally understood that the Danner infant wasabnormal and that the treatment to which it was submitted was not usual.At the same time neither the gossips of Indian Creek nor the slightlymore sage professors of the college exercised the wit necessary torealize that, however strong young Hugo might become, it was neitherright nor just that his cradle days be augurs of that eventual estate.On the face of it the argument seemed logical. If Mrs. Danner's forbearshad been men of peculiar might, her child might well be able to chinitself at three weeks and it might easily be necessary to confine it ina metal pen, however inhumane the process appeared.
Hugo was sheltered, and his early antics, peculiar and startling as theywere to his parents, escaped public attention. The little current oftalk about him was kept alive only because there was so small an arrayof topics for the local burghers. But it was not extraordinarilymalicious. Months piled up. A year passed and then another.
Hugo was a good-natured, usually sober, and very sensitive child.Abednego Danner's fear that his process might have created muscularstrength at the expense of reason diminished and vanished as Hugolearned to walk and to talk, and as he grasped the rudiments of humanbehaviour. His high little voice was heard in the house and about itslawns.
They began to condition him. Throughout his later life there lingered inhis mind a memory of the barriers erected by his family. He was told notto throw his pillow, when words meant nothing to him. Soon after that,he was told not to throw anything. When he could walk, he was forbiddento jump. His jumps were shocking to see, even at the age of two and ahalf. He was carefully instructed on his behaviour out of doors. No moveof his was to indicate his difference from the ordinary child.
He was taught kindness and respect for people and property. His everydestructive impulse was carefully curbed. That training was possibleonly because he was sensitive and naturally susceptible to advice.Punishment had no physical terror for him, because he could not feel it.But disfavour, anger, vexation, or disappointment in another personreflected itself in him at once.
When he was four and a half, his mother sent him to Sunday school. Hewas enrolled in a class that sat near her own, so she was able to keep acareful eye on him. But Hugo did not misbehave. It was his first contactwith a group of children, his first view of the larger cosmos. He satquietly with his hands folded, as he had been told to sit. He listenedto the teacher's stories of Jesus with excited interest.
On his third Sunday he heard one of the children whisper: "Here comesthe strong boy."
He turned quickly, his cheeks red. "I'm not. I'm not."
"Yes, you are. Mother said so."
Hugo struggled with the two hymn books on the table. "I can't even liftthese books," he lied.
The other child was impressed and tried to explain the situation later,taking the cause of Hugo's weakness against the charge of strength. Butthe accusation rankled in Hugo's young mind. He hated to bedifferent--and he was beginning to realize that he was different.
From his earliest day that longing occupied him. He sought to hide hisstrength. He hated to think that other people were talking about him.The distinction he enjoyed was odious to him because it arousedunpleasant emotions in other people. He could not realize that thoseemotions sprang from personal and group jealousy, from the hatred ofsuperiority.
His mother, ever zealous to direct her son in the path of righteousness,talked to him often about his strength and how great it would become andwhat great and good deeds he could do with it. Those lectures onvirtuous crusades had two uses: they helped check any impulses in herson which she felt would be harmful to her and they helped her tobecome used to the abnormality in little Hugo. In her mind, it was liketelling a hunchback that his hump was a blessing disguised. Hugo wasalways aware of the fact that her words connoted some latent evil in hisnature.
The motif grew in Mrs. Danner's thoughts until she sought a definiteoutlet for it. One day she led her child to a keg filled with sand. "Allof us," she said to her son, "have to carry a burden through life. Oneof your burdens will be your strength. But that might can make right.See that little keg?"
"Mmmmm."
"That keg is temptation. Can you say it?"
"Temshun."
"Every day in your life you must bear temptation and throw it from you.Can you bear it?"
"Huh?"
"Can you pick up that keg, Hugo?"
He lifted it in his chubby arms. "Now take it to the barn and back," hismother directed. Manfully he walked with the keg to the barn and back.He felt a little silly and resentful. "Now--throw temptation as far awayfrom you as you can."
Mrs. Danner gasped. The distance he threw the keg was frightening.
"You musn't throw it so far, Hugo," she said, forgetting her allegoryfor an instant.
"You said as far as I can. I can throw it farther, too, if I wanna."
"No. Just throw it a little way. When you throw it far, it doesn't lookright. Now--fill it up with sand, and we'll do it over."
Hugo was perplexed. A vague wish to weep occupied him as he filled thekeg. The lesson was repeated. Mrs. Danner had excellent Sunday-schoolinstincts, even if she had no real comprehension of ethics. Some dayslater the burden of temptation was exhibited, in all its dramaticpassages, to Mrs. Nolan and another lady. Again Hugo was resentful andagain he felt absurd. When he threw the keg, it broke.
"My!" Mrs. Nolan said in a startled tone.
"How awful!" the other woman murmured. "And he's just a child."
That made Hugo suddenly angry and he jumped. The woman screamed.
Mrs.Nolan ran to tell whomever she could find. Mrs. Danner whipped her sonand he cried softly.
Abednego Danner left the discipline of his son to his wife. He watchedthe child almost furtively. When Hugo was five, Mr. Danner taught him toread. It was a laborious process and required an entire winter. But Hugoemerged with a new world open to him--a world which he attacked withinterest. No one bothered him when he read. He could be found often onsunny days, when other children were playing, prone on the floor,puzzling out sentences in the books of the family library and trying tocatch their significance. During his fifth year he was not allowed toplay with other children. The neighbourhood insisted on that.
With the busybodyness and contrariness of their kind the same neighboursinsisted that Hugo be sent to school in the following fall. When, on theopening day, he did not appear, the truant officer called for him. Hugoheard the conversation between the officer and his mother. He wasfrightened. He vowed to himself that his abnormality should be hiddendeeply.
After that he was dropped into that microcosm of human life to which solittle attention is paid by adults. School frightened and excited Hugo.For one thing, there were girls in school--and Hugo knew nothing aboutthem except that they were different from himself. There wereteachers--and they made one work, whether one wished to work or not.They represented power, as a jailer represents power. The childrenfeared teachers. Hugo feared them.
But the lesson of Hugo's first six years was fairly well planted. Heblushingly ignored the direct questions of those children whom his famehad reached. He gave no reason to anyone for suspecting him ofabnormality. He became so familiar to his comrades that their curiositygradually vanished. He would not play games with them--his mother hadforbidden that. But he talked to them and was as friendly as theyallowed him to be. His sensitiveness and fear of ridicule made him avoracious student. He liked books. He liked to know things and to learnthem.
Thus, bound by the conditionings of his babyhood, he reached the springof his first year in school without accident. Such tranquillity couldnot long endure. The day which his mother had dreaded ultimatelyarrived. A lanky farmer's son, older than the other children in thefirst grade, chose a particularly quiet and balmy recess period toplague little Hugo. The farmer's boy was, because of his size, the bullyand the leader of all the other boys. He had not troubled himself toresent Hugo's exclusiveness or Hugo's reputation until that morning whenhe found himself without occupation. Hugo was sitting in the sun, hisdark eyes staring a little sadly over the laughing, rioting children.
The boy approached him. "Hello, strong man." He was shrewd enough tomake his voice so loud as to be generally audible. Hugo looked bothharmless and slightly pathetic.
"I'm not a strong man."
"Course you're not. But everybody thinks you are--except me. I'm notafraid of you."
"I don't want you to be afraid of me. I'm not afraid of you, either."
"Oh, you aren't, huh? Look." He touched Hugo's chest with his finger,and when Hugo looked down, the boy lifted his finger into Hugo's face.
"Go away and let me alone."
The tormentor laughed. "Ever see a fish this long?"
His hands indicated a small fish. Involuntarily Hugo looked at them.The hands flew apart and slapped him smartly. Several of the childrenhad stopped their play to watch. The first insult made them giggle. Thesecond brought a titter from Anna Blake, and Hugo noticed that. AnnaBlake was a little girl with curly golden hair and blue eyes. SecretlyHugo admired her and was drawn to her. When she laughed, he felt adismal loneliness, a sudden desertion. The farmer's boy pressed theoccasion his meanness had made.
"I'll bet you ain't even strong enough to fight little Charlie Todd.Commere, Charlie."
"I am," Hugo replied with slow dignity.
"You're a sissy. You're a-scared to play with us."
The ring around Hugo had grown. He felt a tangible ridicule in it. Heknew what it was to hate. Still, his inhibitions, his control, held himin check. "Go away," he said, "or I'll hurt you."
The farmer's boy picked up a stick and put it on his shoulder. "Knockthat off, then, strong man."
Hugo knew the dare and its significance. With a gentle gesture hebrushed the stick away. Then the other struck. At the same time hekicked Hugo's shins. There was no sense of pain with the kick. Hugo sawit as if it had happened to another person. The school-yard tensed withexpectation. But the accounts of what followed were garbled. Thefarmer's boy fell on his face as if by an invisible agency. Then hisbody was lifted in the air. The children had an awful picture of Hugostanding for a second with the writhing form of his attacker above hishead. Then he flung it aside, over the circle that surrounded him, andthe body fell with a thud. It lay without moving. Hugo began to whimperpitifully.
That was Hugo's first fight. He had defended himself, and it made himashamed. He thought he had killed the other boy. Sickening dread filledhim. He hurried to his side and shook him, calling his name. The otherboy came to. His arm was broken and his sides were purpling where Hugohad seized him. There was terror in his eyes when he saw Hugo's faceabove him, and he screamed shrilly for help. The teacher came. She sentHugo to the blacksmith to be whipped.
That, in itself, was a stroke of genius. The blacksmith whipped grownboys in the high school for their misdeeds. To send a six-year-old childwas crushing. But Hugo had risen above the standards set by his society.He had been superior to it for a moment, and society hated him for it.His teacher hated him because she feared him. Mothers of children,learning about the episode, collected to discuss it in high-pitched,hateful voices. Hugo was enveloped in hate. And, as the lash of thesmith fell on his small frame, he felt the depths of misery. He was astrong man. There was damnation in his veins.
The minister came and prayed over him. The doctor was sent for andexamined him. Frantic busybodies suggested that things be done to weakenhim--what things, they did not say. And Hugo, suffering bitterly, sawthat if he had beaten the farmer's boy in fair combat, he would havebeen a hero. It was the scale of his triumph that made it dreadful. Hedid not realize then that if he had been so minded, he could have turnedon the blacksmith and whipped him, he could have broken the neck of thedoctor, he could have run raging through the town and escaped unscathed.His might was a secret from himself. He knew it only as a curse, like adisease or a blemish.
During the ensuing four or five years Hugo's peculiar trait asserteditself but once. It was a year after his fight with the bully. He hadbeen isolated socially. Even Anna Blake did not dare to tease him anylonger. Shunned and wretched, he built a world of young dreams andconfections and lived in it with whatever comfort it afforded.
One warm afternoon in a smoky Indian summer he walked home from school,spinning a top as he walked, stopping every few yards to pick it up andto let its eccentric momentum die on the palm of his hand. His pacethereby was made very slow and he calculated it to bring him to his homein time for supper and no sooner, because, despite his vigour, choreswere as odious to him as to any other boy. A wagon drawn by two horsesrolled toward him. It was a heavy wagon, piled high with grain-sacks,and a man sat on its rear end, his legs dangling.
As the wagon reached Hugo, it jolted over a rut. There was a grindingrip and a crash. Hugo pocketed his top and looked. The man sitting onthe back had been pinned beneath the rear axle, and the load held himthere. As Hugo saw his predicament, the man screamed in agony. Hugo'sblood chilled. He stood transfixed. A man jumped out of a buggy. A Negroran from a yard. Two women hurried from the spot. In an instant therewere six or seven men around the broken wagon. A sound of pain issuedfrom the mouth of the impaled man. The knot of figures bent at the sidesof the cart and tried to lift. "Have to get a jack," Hugo heard themsay.
Hugo wound up his string and put it beside his top. He walkedmechanically into the road. He looked at the legs of the man on theground. They were oozing blood where the backboard rested on them. Themen gathered there were lifting again, without result. Hugo caught theside and bent his small shoulders
. With all his might he pulled up. Thewagon was jerked into the air. They pulled out the injured man. Hugolowered the wagon slowly.
For a moment no attention was paid to him. He waited pridefully for therecognition he had earned. He dug in the dirt with the side of his shoe.A man with a mole on his nose observed him. "Funny how that kid'sstrength was just enough to turn the balance."
Hugo smiled. "I'm pretty strong," he admitted.
Another man saw him. "Get out of here," he said sharply. "This is noplace for a kid."
"But I was the one--"
"I said beat it. And I meant beat it. Go home to your ma."
Slowly the light went from Hugo's eyes. They did not know--they couldnot know. He had lifted more than two tons. And the men stood now,waiting for the doctor, telling each other how strong they were when theinstant of need came.
"Go on, kid. Run along. I'll smack you."
Hugo went. He forgot to spin his top. He stumbled a little as hewalked.