“If I’d let you do exactly what you had the whim for, what would you do?”
Bibbs looked startled; then timidity overwhelmed him — a profound shyness. He bent his head and fixed his lowered eyes upon the toe of his shoe, which he moved to and fro upon the rug, like a culprit called to the desk in school.
“What would you do? Loaf?”
“No, sir.” Bibbs’s voice was almost inaudible, and what little sound it made was unquestionably a guilty sound. “I suppose I’d — I’d—”
“Well?”
“I suppose I’d try to — to write.”
“Write what?”
“Nothing important — just poems and essays, perhaps.”
“That all?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I see,” said his father, breathing quickly with the restraint he was putting upon himself. “That is, you want to write, but you don’t want to write anything of any account.”
“You think—”
Sheridan got up again. “I take my hat off to the man that can write a good ad,” he said, emphatically. “The best writin’ talent in this country is right spang in the ad business to-day. You buy a magazine for good writin’ — look on the back of it! Let me tell you I pay money for that kind o’ writin’. Maybe you think it’s easy. Just try it! I’ve tried it, and I can’t do it. I tell you an ad’s got to be written so it makes people do the hardest thing in this world to GET ’em to do: it’s got to make ’em give up their MONEY! You talk about ‘poems and essays.’ I tell you when it comes to the actual skill o’ puttin’ words together so as to make things HAPPEN, R. T. Bloss, right here in this city, knows more in a minute than George Waldo Emerson ever knew in his whole life!”
“You — you may be—” Bibbs said, indistinctly, the last word smothered in a cough.
“Of COURSE I’m right! And if it ain’t just like you to want to take up with the most out-o’-date kind o’ writin’ there is! ‘Poems and essays’! My Lord, Bibbs, that’s WOMEN’S work! You can’t pick up a newspaper without havin’ to see where Mrs. Rumskididle read a paper on ‘Jane Eyre,’ or ‘East Lynne,’ at the God-Knows-What Club. And ‘poetry’! Why, look at Edith! I expect that poem o’ hers would set a pretty high-water mark for you, young man, and it’s the only one she’s ever managed to write in her whole LIFE! When I wanted her to go on and write some more she said it took too much time. Said it took months and months. And Edith’s a smart girl; she’s got more energy in her little finger than you ever give me a chance to see in your whole body, Bibbs. Now look at the facts: say she could turn out four or five poems a year and you could turn out maybe two. That medal she got was worth about fifteen dollars, so there’s your income — thirty dollars a year! That’s a fine success to make of your life! I’m not sayin’ a word against poetry. I wouldn’t take ten thousand dollars right now for that poem of Edith’s; and poetry’s all right enough in its place — but you leave it to the girls. A man’s got to do a man’s work in this world!”
He seated himself in a chair at his son’s side and, leaning over, tapped Bibbs confidentially on the knee. “This city’s got the greatest future in America, and if my sons behave right by me and by themselves they’re goin’ to have a mighty fair share of it — a mighty fair share. I love this town. It’s God’s own footstool, and it’s made money for me every day right along, I don’t know how many years. I love it like I do my own business, and I’d fight for it as quick as I’d fight for my own family. It’s a beautiful town. Look at our wholesale district; look at any district you want to; look at the park system we’re puttin’ through, and the boulevards and the public statuary. And she grows. God! how she grows!” He had become intensely grave; he spoke with solemnity. “Now, Bibbs, I can’t take any of it — nor any gold or silver nor buildings nor bonds — away with me in my shroud when I have to go. But I want to leave my share in it to my boys. I’ve worked for it; I’ve been a builder and a maker; and two blades of grass have grown where one grew before, whenever I laid my hand on the ground and willed ’em to grow. I’ve built big, and I want the buildin’ to go on. And when my last hour comes I want to know that my boys are ready to take charge; that they’re fit to take charge and go ON with it. Bibbs, when that hour comes I want to know that my boys are big men, ready and fit to hold of big things. Bibbs, when I’m up above I want to know that the big share I’ve made mine, here below, is growin’ bigger and bigger in the charge of my boys.”
He leaned back, deeply moved. “There!” he said, huskily. “I’ve never spoken more what was in my heart in my life. I do it because I want you to understand — and not think me a mean father. I never had to talk that way to Jim and Roscoe. They understood without any talk, Bibbs.”
“I see,” said Bibbs. “At least I think I do. But—”
“Wait a minute!” Sheridan raised his hand. “If you see the least bit in the world, then you understand how it feels to me to have my son set here and talk about ‘poems and essays’ and such-like fooleries. And you must understand, too, what it meant to start one o’ my boys and have him come back on me the way you did, and have to be sent to a sanitarium because he couldn’t stand work. Now, let’s get right down to it, Bibbs. I’ve had a whole lot o’ talk with ole Doc Gurney about you, one time another, and I reckon I understand your case just about as well as he does, anyway! Now here, I’ll be frank with you. I started you in harder than what I did the other boys, and that was for your own good, because I saw you needed to be shook up more’n they did. You were always kind of moody and mopish — and you needed work that’d keep you on the jump. Now, why did it make you sick instead of brace you up and make a man of you the way it ought of done? I pinned ole Gurney down to it. I says, ‘Look here, ain’t it really because he just plain hated it?’ ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘that’s it. If he’d enjoyed it, it wouldn’t ‘a’ hurt him. He loathes it, and that affects his nervous system. The more he tries it, the more he hates it; and the more he hates it, the more injury it does him.’ That ain’t quite his words, but it’s what he meant. And that’s about the way it is.”
“Yes,” said Bibbs, “that’s about the way it is.”
“Well, then, I reckon it’s up to me not only to make you do it, but to make you like it!”
Bibbs shivered. And he turned upon his father a look that was almost ghostly. “I can’t,” he said, in a low voice. “I can’t.”
“Can’t go back to the shop?”
“No. Can’t like it. I can’t.”
Sheridan jumped up, his patience gone. To his own view, he had reasoned exhaustively, had explained fully and had pleaded more than a father should, only to be met in the end with the unreasoning and mysterious stubbornness which had been Bibbs’s baffling characteristic from childhood. “By George, you will!” he cried. “You’ll go back there and you’ll like it! Gurney says it won’t hurt you if you like it, and he says it’ll kill you if you go back and hate it; so it looks as if it was about up to you not to hate it. Well, Gurney’s a fool! Hatin’ work doesn’t kill anybody; and this isn’t goin’ to kill you, whether you hate it or not. I’ve never made a mistake in a serious matter in my life, and it wasn’t a mistake my sendin’ you there in the first place. And I’m goin’ to prove it — I’m goin’ to send you back there and vindicate my judgment. Gurney says it’s all ‘mental attitude.’ Well, you’re goin’ to learn the right one! He says in a couple more months this fool thing that’s been the matter with you’ll be disappeared completely and you’ll be back in as good or better condition than you were before you ever went into the shop. And right then is when you begin over — right in that same shop! Nobody can call me a hard man or a mean father. I do the best I can for my chuldern, and I take full responsibility for bringin’ my sons up to be men. Now, so far, I’ve failed with you. But I’m not goin’ to keep ON failin’. I never tackled a job YET I didn’t put through, and I’m not goin’ to begin with my own son. I’m goin’ to make a MAN of you. By God! I am!”
Bibbs r
ose and went slowly to the door, where he turned. “You say you give me a couple of months?” he said.
Sheridan pushed a bell-button on his desk. “Gurney said two months more would put you back where you were. You go home and begin to get yourself in the right ‘mental attitude’ before those two months are up! Good-by!”
“Good-by, sir,” said Bibbs, meekly.
CHAPTER X
BIBBS’S ROOM, THAT neat apartment for transients to which the “lamidal” George had shown him upon his return, still bore the appearance of temporary quarters, possibly because Bibbs had no clear conception of himself as a permanent incumbent. However, he had set upon the mantelpiece the two photographs that he owned: one, a “group” twenty years old — his father and mother, with Jim and Roscoe as boys — and the other a “cabinet” of Edith at sixteen. And upon a table were the books he had taken from his trunk: Sartor Resartus, Virginibus Puerisque, Huckleberry Finn, and Afterwhiles. There were some other books in the trunk — a large one, which remained unremoved at the foot of the bed, adding to the general impression of transiency. It contained nearly all the possessions as well as the secret life of Bibbs Sheridan, and Bibbs sat beside it, the day after his interview with his father, raking over a small collection of manuscripts in the top tray. Some of these he glanced through dubiously, finding little comfort in them; but one made him smile. Then he shook his head ruefully indeed, and ruefully began to read it. It was written on paper stamped “Hood Sanitarium,” and bore the title, “Leisure.”
A man may keep a quiet heart at seventy miles an hour, but not if
he is running the train. Nor is the habit of contemplation a useful
quality in the stoker of a foundry furnace; it will not be found to
recommend him to the approbation of his superiors. For a profession
adapted solely to the pursuit of happiness in thinking, I would
choose that of an invalid: his money is time and he may spend it on
Olympus. It will not suffice to be an amateur invalid. To my way
of thinking, the perfect practitioner must be to all outward
purposes already dead if he is to begin the perfect enjoyment of
life. His serenity must not be disturbed by rumors of recovery; he
must lie serene in his long chair in the sunshine. The world must
be on the other side of the wall, and the wall must be so thick and
so high that he cannot hear the roaring of the furnace fires and the
screaming of the whistles. Peace —
Having read so far as the word “peace,” Bibbs suffered an interruption interesting as a coincidence of contrast. High voices sounded in the hall just outside his door; and it became evident that a woman’s quarrel was in progress, the parties to it having begun it in Edith’s room, and continuing it vehemently as they came out into the hall.
“Yes, you BETTER go home!” Bibbs heard his sister vociferating, shrilly. “You better go home and keep your mind a little more on your HUSBAND!”
“Edie, Edie!” he heard his mother remonstrating, as peacemaker.
“You see here!” This was Sibyl, and her voice was both acrid and tremulous. “Don’t you talk to me that way! I came here to tell Mother Sheridan what I’d heard, and to let her tell Father Sheridan if she thought she ought to, and I did it for your own good.”
“Yes, you did!” And Edith’s gibing laughter tooted loudly. “Yes, you did! YOU didn’t have any other reason! OH no! YOU don’t want to break it up between Bobby Lamhorn and me because—”
“Edie, Edie! Now, now!”
“Oh, hush up, mamma! I’d like to know, then, if she says her new friends tell her he’s got such a reputation that he oughtn’t to come here, what about his not going to HER house. How—”
“I’ve explained that to Mother Sheridan.” Sibyl’s voice indicated that she was descending the stairs. “Married people are not the same. Some things that should be shielded from a young girl—”
This seemed to have no very soothing effect upon Edith. “‘Shielded from a young girl’!” she shrilled. “You seem pretty willing to be the shield! You look out Roscoe doesn’t notice what kind of a shield you are!”
Sibyl’s answer was inaudible, but Mrs. Sheridan’s flurried attempts at pacification were renewed. “Now, Edie, Edie, she means it for your good, and you’d oughtn’t to—”
“Oh, hush up, mamma, and let me alone! If you dare tell papa—”
“Now, now! I’m not going to tell him to-day, and maybe—”
“You’ve got to promise NEVER to tell him!” the girl cried, passionately.
“Well, we’ll see. You just come back in your own room, and we’ll—”
“No! I WON’T ‘talk it over’! Stop pulling me! Let me ALONE!” And Edith, flinging herself violently upon Bibbs’s door, jerked it open, swung round it into the room, slammed the door behind her, and threw herself, face down, upon the bed in such a riot of emotion that she had no perception of Bibbs’s presence in the room. Gasping and sobbing in a passion of tears, she beat the coverlet and pillows with her clenched fists. “Sneak!” she babbled aloud. “Sneak! Snake-in-the-grass! Cat!”
Bibbs saw that she did not know he was there, and he went softly toward the door, hoping to get away before she became aware of him; but some sound of his movement reached her, and she sat up, startled, facing him.
“Bibbs! I thought I saw you go out awhile ago.”
“Yes. I came back, though. I’m sorry—”
“Did you hear me quarreling with Sibyl?”
“Only what you said in the hall. You lie down again, Edith. I’m going out.”
“No; don’t go.” She applied a handkerchief to her eyes, emitted a sob, and repeated her request. “Don’t go. I don’t mind you; you’re quiet, anyhow. Mamma’s so fussy, and never gets anywhere. I don’t mind you at all, but I wish you’d sit down.”
“All right.” And he returned to his chair beside the trunk. “Go ahead and cry all you want, Edith,” he said. “No harm in that!”
“Sibyl told mamma — OH!” she began, choking. “Mary Vertrees had mamma and Sibyl and I to tea, one afternoon two weeks or so ago, and she had some women there that Sibyl’s been crazy to get in with, and she just laid herself out to make a hit with ’em, and she’s been running after ’em ever since, and now she comes over here and says THEY say Bobby Lamhorn is so bad that, even though they like his family, none of the nice people in town would let him in their houses. In the first place, it’s a falsehood, and I don’t believe a word of it; and in the second place I know the reason she did it, and, what’s more, she KNOWS I know it! I won’t SAY what it is — not yet — because papa and all of you would think I’m as crazy as she is snaky; and Roscoe’s such a fool he’d probably quit speaking to me. But it’s true! Just you watch her; that’s all I ask. Just you watch that woman. You’ll see!”
As it happened, Bibbs was literally watching “that woman.” Glancing from the window, he saw Sibyl pause upon the pavement in front of the old house next door. She stood a moment, in deep thought, then walked quickly up the path to the door, undoubtedly with the intention of calling. But he did not mention this to his sister, who, after delivering herself of a rather vague jeremiad upon the subject of her sister-in-law’s treacheries, departed to her own chamber, leaving him to his speculations. The chief of these concerned the social elasticities of women. Sibyl had just been a participant in a violent scene; she had suffered hot insult of a kind that could not fail to set her quivering with resentment; and yet she elected to betake herself to the presence of people whom she knew no more than “formally.” Bibbs marveled. Surely, he reflected, some traces of emotion must linger upon Sibyl’s face or in her manner; she could not have ironed it all quite out in the three or four minutes it took her to reach the Vertreeses’ door.
And in this he was not mistaken, for Mary Vertrees was at that moment wondering what internal excitement Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan was striving to master.
But Sibyl had no idea that she was allowing herself to exhibit anything except the gaiety which she conceived proper to the manner of a casual caller. She was wholly intent upon fulfilling the sudden purpose that brought her, and she was no more self-conscious than she was finely intelligent. For Sibyl Sheridan belonged to a type Scriptural in its antiquity. She was merely the idle and half-educated intriguer who may and does delude men, of course, and the best and dullest of her own sex as well, finding invariably strong supporters among these latter. It is a type that has wrought some damage in the world and would have wrought greater, save for the check put upon its power by intelligent women and by its own “lack of perspective,” for it is a type that never sees itself. Sibyl followed her impulses with no reflection or question — it was like a hound on the gallop after a master on horseback. She had not even the instinct to stop and consider her effect. If she wished to make a certain impression she believed that she made it. She believed that she was believed.
“My mother asked me to say that she was sorry she couldn’t come down,” Mary said, when they were seated.
Sibyl ran the scale of a cooing simulance of laughter, which she had been brought up to consider the polite thing to do after a remark addressed to her by any person with whom she was not on familiar terms. It was intended partly as a courtesy and partly as the foundation for an impression of sweetness.
“Just thought I’d fly in a minute,” she said, continuing the cooing to relieve the last doubt of her gentiality. “I thought I’d just behave like REAL country neighbors. We are almost out in the country, so far from down-town, aren’t we? And it seemed such a LOVELY day! I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed meeting those nice people at tea that afternoon. You see, coming here a bride and never having lived here before, I’ve had to depend on my husband’s friends almost entirely, and I really’ve known scarcely anybody. Mr. Sheridan has been so engrossed in business ever since he was a mere boy, why, of course—”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 166