Ernest Poole

“ You see I know you, Deborah, I know you've always grown like that—by risking what you've got to-day for something more to-morrow."
"I've never taken a risk like this!"
"I tell you this time it's no risk! Because you're a grown woman—formed! I'm not making a saint of you. You're no angel down among the poor because you feel it's your duty in life—it's your happiness, your passion! You couldn't neglect them if you tried!"
"But the time," she asked him quickly. "Where shall I find the time for it all?"
"A man finds time enough," he answered, "even when he's married." ”

“ The child fell sick, within a few hours its small existence hung by a thread—and to Roger's startled eyes a new Deborah was revealed! Tense and silent on her bed, her sensitive lips compressed with pain, her birthmark showing a jagged line of fiery red upon her brow as her ears kept straining to catch every sound from the nursery adjoining, through hours of stern anguish she became the kind of mother that she had once so dreaded—shutting out everything else in the world: people, schools, all other children, rich or poor, well, sick or dying! ”

“ Laura and Deborah lived at home, but they were both out this evening. It was Friday, Edith's evening, and as was her habit she had come from her apartment uptown to dine with her father and play chess. In the living room, a cheerful place, with its lamp light and its shadows, its old-fashioned high-back chairs, its sofa, its book cases, its low marble mantel with the gilt mirror overhead, they sat at a small oval table in front of a quiet fire of coals. And through the smoke of his cigar Roger watched his daughter. ”

“ Relief and peace and happiness stole into his spirit. He felt the deep remoteness of this strange new little creature from all the clamoring world without—which he himself was soon to leave. The thought grew clearer, clearer, as with a curious steady smile Roger stood there looking down.
"Well, little brother, you're here, thank God. And nobody knows how close we'll be—for a little while," he thought. "For we're almost out of the world, you and I."
Days passed, Deborah's strength increased, and soon they let Roger come into the room. ”

“ And while their minds—at first dazed and stunned by the thought of such appalling armies, battles, death and desolation—slowly cleared and they strove to think, and Roger thought of business shivered to atoms in every land, and Deborah thought of schools by thousands all over Europe closing down, in cities and in villages, in valleys and on mountain sides, of homes in panic everywhere, of all ideals of brotherhood shaken, bending, tottering—war broke out in Europe. ”

“ And Roger sank again into deep happy slumber.
Here was nothing new and disturbing. Edith's children? Yes, they were new, but they were not disturbing. Their growth each summer was a joy, a renewal of life in the battered old house. Here was no huge tenement family crowding in with dirty faces, clamorous demands for aid, but only five delightful youngsters, clean and fresh, of his own blood. He loved the small excitements, the plans and plots and discoveries, the many adventures that filled their days. He spent hours with their mother, listening while she talked of them. ”

“ Cold toward Allan, calm and cool, nothing but mind and reason! You say it means little to me, all that! But if I had had trouble with Allan, would I have come running home to talk? Wouldn't I have hugged it tight? And isn't that love? What do you know of me and the life I've led? Do you know how it feels to want to work, to be something yourself, without any man? And can't that be a passion? Have you had to live with Edith here and see what motherhood can be, what it can do to a woman? ”

“ Roger drew closer to John after this. Often behind the beaming smile he would feel the pain and loneliness, and the angry grit which was fighting it down. And so he would ask John home to supper on nights when nobody else was there. One day late in the afternoon they were walking home together along the west side of Madison Square. The big open space was studded with lights sparkling up at the frosty stars, in a city, a world, a universe that seemed filled with the zest and the vigor of life. ”

“ He looked at his daughter anxiously. She no longer seemed to him mature. He could feel what heavy discouragements, what problems she was facing in the dark mysterious tenement world which she had chosen to make her own. And compared to these she seemed a mere girl, a child groping its way, just making a start. And so he added wistfully, "I wish I could be of more help to you." She looked up at him for a moment.
"Do you know why you are such a help?" she said. "It's because you have never grown old—because you've never allowed yourself to grow absolutely certain about anything in life." ”

“ The next moment she was in his arms. "Now, Deborah, listen to reason, child. Why can't you marry me right away?"
"Because," she said, "when I marry you I'm going to have you all to myself—for weeks and weeks as we planned before! And afterwards, with a wonderful start—and with the war over, work less hard and the world less dark and gloomy—we're going to find that at last we can live! But this winter it couldn't be like that. This winter we've got to go on with our work—and without any more silly worries or talk about whether or not we're in love. For we are!" ”

“ And Roger looked up at a billowy cloud resting on a mountain top and wondered whether after all that New York doctor had been right.
He followed the herd into the barn. In two long rows, the great heads of the cattle turned hungrily, lowing and sniffing deep, breathing harshly, stamping, as the fodder cart came down the lines. What a splendidly wholesome work for a lad, growing up with his roots in the soil, in these massive simple forces of life. What of Edith's other children? Would they be willing to stay here long? Each morning Roger breakfasted with Bruce the baby by his side. ”

“ As the summer drew slowly to a close, Roger spent many quiet hours alone by the copse of birches, where the glory of autumn was already stealing in and out among the tall slender stems of the trees. And he thought of the silent winter there, and of the spring which would come again, and the long fragrant summer. And he watched the glow on [286] the mountains above and the rolling splendors of the clouds. At dusk he heard the voices of animals, birds and insects, murmuring up from all the broad valley, then gradually sinking to deep repose, many never to wake again. ”

“ And Roger grew angry with the world. Why couldn't it let a man alone, an old man in a silent house alive for him with memories? Repeatedly in such hours his mind would go groping backward into the years behind him. What a long and winding road, half buried in the jungle, dim, almost impenetrable, made up of millions of small events, small worries, plans and dazzling dreams, with which his days had all been filled. ”

“ But Roger was not thinking of that. He was thinking of his children—of Edith's approaching confinement and all her anxious hunting about to find what was best for her family, of Bruce and the way he was driving himself in the unnatural world downtown where men were at each other's throats, of Deborah and that school of hers in the heart of a vast foul region of tenement buildings swarming with strange, dirty little urchins. And last he thought of Laura, his youngest daughter, wild as a hawk, gadding about the Lord knew where. She even danced in restaurants! ”

“ Rome reborn, all clean, old-fashioned Christian living swept away by millions of men at each others' throats like so many wolves. And at last quite openly to himself Roger admitted that he felt old. Old and beaten, out of date. Moments passed, and hours—he took little note of time. Nor did he see on the mantle the dark visage of "The Thinker" there, resting on the huge clinched fist and brooding down upon him. Lower, imperceptibly, he sank into his leather chair. ”

“ But glancing at Deborah by his side he thought of the night she had been through. No, he decided, he would go on and see what she was up to here.
They turned into a narrower street between tall dirty tenements, and in a twinkling all was changed. For the street, as far as he could see, was gay with flaunting colors, torrents of bobbing hats and ribbons, frocks and blouses, shirts and breeches, vivid reds and yellows and blues. It was deafening with joyous cries, a shrill incessant chatter, chatter, piercing yells and shrieks of laughter. ”

“ Here was the crisis of Deborah's life!
One night as she lay listening, with her hand gripping [302] Roger's tight, frowning abruptly she said to him, in a harsh, unnatural voice:
"They don't care any longer, none of them care! I'm safe and they've stopped worrying, for they know they'll soon have me back at work! The work," she added fiercely, "that made my body what it is, not fit to bear a baby!" She threw a quick and tortured look toward the door of the other room. "My work for those others, all those years, will be to blame if this one dies! And if it doesn't live I'm through! ”

“ This deep zest in Roger Gale had been bred in his boyhood on a farm up in the New Hampshire mountains. There his family had lived for many generations. And from the old house, the huge shadowy barn and the crude little sawmill down the road; from animals, grown people and still more from other boys, from the meadows and the mountain above with its cliffs and caves and forests of pine, young Roger had discovered, even in those early years, that life was fresh, abundant, new, with countless glad beginnings.
At seventeen he had come to New York. ”

“ Never a time when every man and woman and child could grow so much—and hand it on—and hand it on—as you will do to your small son."
He felt her hand on his forehead, and for some moments nothing was said. Vaguely in glimpses Roger saw his small grandson growing up; and he pictured other children here, not her own but of her greater family, as the two merged into one. He felt that she would not grow old. Children, lives of children; work, dreams and aspirations. How bright it seemed as he stared ahead. Then he heard the cry of her baby.
"Shall I nurse him here?" ”

“ He heard their two voices talk on and on, until Laura's slowly quieted down. Soon afterwards she left the house, and Deborah came in to him.
"She's gone home, eh?" asked Roger.
"Yes, she has, poor silly child—she said at first she had come here to stay."
"By George," he said. "As bad as that?"
"Of course it isn't as bad as that!" Deborah cried impatiently. "She just built and built on silly suspicions and let herself get all worked up! I don't see what they're coming to!" For a few moments nothing was said. "It's so unnatural!" she exclaimed. "Men and women weren't made to live like that!" ”

“ From a habit grown out of thirty odd years of business life, Roger read his paper in a fashion of his own. By instinct his eye swept the page for news dealing with individual men, for it was upon people's names in print that he had made his living. And so when he looked at this strange front page it gave him a swift twinge of alarm. For the news was not of men but of nations. Austria was massing her troops along the Serbian frontier, and Germany, Italy, Russia, France and even England, all were in a turmoil, with panics in their capitals, money markets going wild. ”

“ Edith was still sewing. He thought of her plan to sell all she possessed in order to put her children back in their expensive schools uptown.
"Why can't she save her money?" he thought. "God knows there's little enough of it left. But I can't tell her that. If I do she'll sell everything, hand me the cash and tell me she's sorry to be such a burden. She'll sit like a thundercloud in my house."
No, he could say nothing to stop her. And over the top of his paper her father shot a look at her of keen exasperation. Why risk everything she had to get these needless frills and fads? ”

“ And as though drawn by invisible chains he strayed far down into the ghetto. Soon he was elbowing his way through a maze of uproarious tenement streets as one who had been there many times. But he noticed little around him. He went on, as he had always gone, seeing and hearing this seething life only as a background to his own adventure. He reached his destination. Pushing his way through a swarm of urchins playing in front of a pawnshop, he entered and was a long time inside, and when he came out again at last the whole expression of his face had undergone a striking change. ”

“ But they vanished suddenly, and he saw women mourning now, and Edith with her children turned to him her anxious eyes. He tried to reach and help her, but already she had gone. And behind her came huge bending forms, men heaving at great burdens, jaws set in scowls of fierce revolt. And John was there on his crutches, and near him was a figure bound into a chair of steel, with terror in the straining limbs, while in desperation Deborah tried to wrench him free. Abruptly Roger turned away. ”