Donnie

“ Only death can cancel that obligation."
"He is a curse to humanity," Powell's voice vibrated with emotion. "Even should you remain here until he serves his time, it will a mean a more hideous life after he returns. Either Donnie will succumb to his father's influence, and you will have two brutes to cope with, or the boy will hate his father, and someday Glendon will kill Donnie or Donnie will kill his father. You have no right to force such a situation on the boy, to face such a future for yourself." ”

“ It was his first experience of them, and he threw himself on the floor of the toy closet like a child in a fit. He flung the fire-crackers away from him; he beat the floor with his little fists; he ran to the door of the playroom, locked it, and dropped on the rug there, choked with the sobs that burst from him, in writhing and weeping, till he was too weak to do more than moan.
Nannie came, and tapped secretly on the door, and cried "Donnie? Donnie?" under her breath. But he knew from her tone that he was in disgrace with the household, and he would not open to her. ”

“ Grandma and Ma Burley cleaning, washing, cooking on the ancient electric stove; little Donnie, being a nuisance, poking at the keys on his father’s crude, manual typewriter, a museum piece; Donnie and his brothers wasting away childhood digging and piling sand on the beach, paddling a boat and actually building a play house. It was mad. People playing robots. ”

“ The legacy received from her aunt would amply provide for Donnie's education until he was able to assist himself; she could remain on the ranch with old Juan, caring for the remnant of the Circle Cross herd, which would furnish what they needed, with the help of the garden-patch, chickens and a cow. If she could sell a few stories, Donnie could spend his summer vacations with her. ”

“ Right while we was in the midst of things, in come my roomer, Mr. Dombledon. He’d come in the back door, as usual, and plumped into the sitting-room before he saw we were there. He’d had Donnie with him that day, because I had to be out most of the forenoon, and I called to them to stop, because I wanted the ladies should see the little fellow.{247}
Donnie shook hands with us, all around, like a little general, and then: “What’s these?” says he, with his hands on the curtains in my lap. “A nighty for me?”
“No, lambin’,” says I. “It’s curtains for a lady.” ”

“ All your better instincts are dead and there is nothing left between us in common. Jim, if ever you had any love in your heart for me, don't send Donnie away just now. Have you forgotten that prisoners go mad from solitary confinement? ”

“ Having a rich father is not the best thing for a young fellow, but because you got fired out of college should not make a husky boy like you lose his grip. You just step out and buck the line like you do in football and you’ll sure make a touchdown.” He gripped Donald’s hand. “Good-bye and good luck, Donnie!” ”

“ You know that day he and Donnie were chuckling and whispering in camp and wouldn’t let us in, and had the films out? Well, I know now what they were up to—do I know? Gosh!
“The running for the fraternities began yesterday. You see, before a fellow is taken into a society he has to spend a week running around and doing exactly what the upper classmen of that society tell him, no matter how crazy it is. Buck and Donnie, for instance, had to go into Huyler’s, dressed in weird clothes, and propose simultaneously to the candy girl, and both had to burst into tears when she refused them. ”

“ From now on de fight will be on de square an’ to a finish wid bare knuckles. De guy in de other corner will hand ya some awful jolts, an’ y’ll have to do some pretty fast work wid y’r dukes an’ pins to keep away from de slumber swat. But, Donnie, ya got de goods in ya. Nearly four years in an engineerin’ course in de college gives ya a better start than most of us guys. I’m backin’ ya to win.”
He seized Donald’s hand, and his battered face filled with tenderness as he looked up at his friend. “Good luck, boy. Keep a stiff upper lip, an’ don’t forget that old John Barleycorn’s a bum second.” ”

“ Placing the book in his mother's hand, the boy hastened to the old grey horse and was lifted up in front of the saddle. Doctor King mounted and slipped his arm about the little fellow as the pony started at an easy lope down the road towards Hot Springs lying south of the Circle Cross in the opposite direction from the San Pedro River.
"So you are six years old today?" quizzed the Doctor. "Getting a big boy now, and it won't take many birthdays for you to be a man."
"Marmee gave me a book." Donnie spoke freely, now that he was not in the vicinity of his father. ”

“ Consequently, Miss Donnie, any time you need a friend you just ring up the Silver Dollar saloon an' tell the barkeep to call Hennage to the 'phone. Remember! I ain't the presumin' kind, but I can be a good friend—”
He dodged back as if somebody had struck at him. Before Donna could quite realize what he had been saying he had disappeared. She ran to the iron-barred gate, looked out and saw him walking up the railroad tracks toward San Pasqual. She called after him. ”

“ Tatters is unusually intelligent and affectionate, almost uncannily so at times. He would be a loyal friend."
Donnie watched with appealing eyes, and when his mother accepted the dog for him, the child's right arm went around Tatters' shaggy neck, and the dog, as though understanding, pledged his fealty with a quick touch of his pink tongue against the lad's cheek. Then Chappo drove the buggy from the stable and stood at the head of the team until Powell, Donnie and Katherine were seated and the reins in the doctor's hands. ”

“ The grey horse came to a halt and began nibbling contentedly at the bunch grass between the rocks. He was accustomed to these halts when Donnie and the doctor rode and talked of many things. When one is young in the world it is easy to clasp hands with those who are nearing the border of another world. Together they see life in the same light. Youth has not learned to place a false value on imitations and age has turned from them in disgust. ”

“ I’ve seen many a fight, and I’ve seen many a gyme man. But strike me blind if Donnie didn’t this day teach me something about sheer grit. When ’e came stumblin’ to me at the end of that—that third round—I—I——” He stopped. “You know what ’appened,” he continued in a husky voice. “I ask nothin’ better’n to ’ave ’im for me pal. ’Ere’s to the gymest man that ever stepped in shoe-leather! ’Ere’s to ’im!” Andy turned away quickly to light a cigarette. His eyes were moist. The room was silent.
Donald was deeply moved by his little friend’s show of feeling. Douglas broke the silence. ”

“ Seeing that Donald was interested, he went on: “Yes, there’s two kinds of loggers nowadays, Donnie, the ‘single-breasted’ and the ‘double-breasted.’ And there’s a hell of a lot of difference between the two. The ‘single-breasted’ logger is a man that don’t speak anythin’ but English, an’ he don’t belong to the ‘I won’t works’ neither. He knows loggin’ from A to Z; don’t mind sleepin’ in a bunk, and always carries his own blankets. ”

“ The shadows on the ground told Katherine's practised eyes that it was nearly ten o'clock when she closed the book she had been reading to Donnie.
"We'll finish it this afternoon," she said, "and now the bread has to be worked, you know."
"I wish I could be like Sir Galahad, Marmee," answered the child wistfully. "Do knights hunt for the Sangreal any more?"
"Not in suits of armour, my dear; but we all can be like Sir Galahad, even today. The Vision of Right and Wrong comes to everyone. ”

“ Men who frame such a law and enforce it are worse than brutes!"
Glendon seized her arm roughly and glared into her white, defiant face, his own was livid with rage. "Nothing on God's earth can prevent Donnie from going."
"He shall not go!" her voice became suddenly quiet and determined, and her eyes met Glendon's without flinching. "You owe him to me in return for the things of which you have robbed us both. He has never had a father, never dared to laugh like other children do, because he was afraid of you. I will not never give him up to you or any one else. He is mine!" ”

“ I just got started on it—introduced by telling ’em some nice little things about Donnie’s sayings and doings to my house, when Mis’ Lockmeyer broke in, sympathetic.
“Ain’t he a great care?” says she.
“Yes,” says I, “he is. And so is everything on top of this earth that’s worth having. Life thrown in.”
And then I see they was all rustling to go home—giving reasons of clothes to sprinkle or bread to set or grandchild to put to bed or plants to cover up. So I kep’ still, and mogged along{243} home with ’em. But I did say to Mis’ Pettibone on the back seat:
“We better quit off club. ”

“ Can you say any plan, Murtagh?"
"The only thing we can do," said Rose, suddenly stopping her tears, "is just to take Theresa back to Mrs. Daly's now, and tell her all about it. I'm sure it's much the best plan. We haven't got anywhere to put Theresa. She can't stay here in the laurel all night. Soon Donnie'll be asking what we do with all the scraps she gives us, and I don't believe if we keep her here till doomsday that we'll ever get the money from Mr. Plunkett."
"Oh, Mr. Murtagh!" exclaimed Theresa, piteously, "ye won't be sending me home now without the rent." ”

“ Katherine, knowing her husband was in one of his ugliest tempers, was sorry when she recognized the white-haired old doctor, who loped his grey pony up to the gate, smiling as he dismounted and slipped his reins over the post.
"Hello, everybody!" he called cheerily. "A day like this makes a man glad to be alive, even if he is old enough to die."
Glendon stared at the ground, making no response. Doctor King, with a comprehensive look, passed him by and smilingly held out his hand to Katherine, who came down the steps while Donnie ran ahead of her, holding up his book. ”

“ But they won't be driven. There's nothing but gentleness is a bit o' good with them, and that's where it is them and Mr. Plunkett is such enemies."
Such were Donnie's opinions, and she descanted upon them at length, till Kate came to say that she had sent up Miss Blair's luncheon to the dining-room.
Mr. Blair did not take luncheon, so Adrienne sat alone at the head of the big table. She spent her afternoon alone, too, and had plenty of leisure to decide that Murtagh was right,—the drawing-room was a musty-smelling old room. ”

“ The doctor understood the over taxed nerves, and as he glanced from mother to child, a feeling of rage against Glendon consumed him. The only sound in the room was the sputter of the burning wood. Katherine looked anxiously at the sleeping child, then at the doctor.
"He's all right," Powell answered her unvoiced fear. "It had been a terrible strain on you both. The bone will begin to knit in a few days and Donnie will have nothing to remind him of the accident in a short time. It's part of a boy's life to have such things as broken legs and arms," he smiled. ”

“ You will never know what it meant, picturing you alone here with this new trouble to bear."
"Don't!" pleaded Katherine. "Do you realize what has happened?"
"I know that the law has taken it course justly," replied Powell. "Glendon's conviction is sufficient to justify your appeal for a divorce. No further sacrifice is necessary on your part. Surely you will not hesitate, now?"
"He has no one else," she answered slowly, "Therefore my obligation is the heavier."
"No obligation is due a man like him. He has heaped indignity and suffering on you and Donnie. ”

“ Andy held his glass aloft. “Boys, I can’t make much of a speech, as I ’ave only ’ad one drink. Stand up while we drink to our Donnie. I knows that ’e’s goin’ to leave me, and that ’e’s goin’ to give up the boxin’ gyme. I knows that ’e isn’t in the ’abit of mixin’ with the likes o’ me. I knows that I’m lucky to be blackin’ the boots o’ a man like ’im. But when I knows that ’e went into this fight to ’elp a poor little bloke like me out of an ’ole, I’m proud, boys, I’m proud! ”

“ Donne, wrote of him at the time that 'his birth and youth and interest in great favours at court, and legal proximity to great possessions in the world, might justly have promised him acceptance in what family soever, or upon what person soever he had directed and placed his affections.' But Donne saw much of their married life, and insists that the inequality of their years was reduced to an evenness by the staid sobriety of their temperaments, and that they lived happily together till the lady's death in 1627. ”

“ We read Donne, then, for his fiery imagination, for his deep and subtle analysis, for his humanity, for his passion, for his anti-sentimentalism, for his eager search "to find a north-west passage of his own" in intellect and morals, for the richness and rarity of the gems with which all his work, both prose and poetry, is studded, for his modernity and freshness. We read Donne as a corrective of lazy thinking: he frees us from illusion. ”

“ Donne, John, English poet and divine, born in London; a man of good degree; brought up in the Catholic faith; after weighing the claims of the Romish and Anglican communions, joined the latter; married a young lady of sixteen without consent of her father, which involved him in trouble for a time; was induced to take holy orders by King James; was made his chaplain, and finally became Dean of St. Paul's; wrote sermons, some 200 letters and essays, as well as poems, the latter, amid many defects, revealing a soul instinct with true poetic fire (1573-1631) . See “Professor Saintsbury on Donne.” ”

“ I doubt that Donne has given you too flattering an account of my house, and me: you know he is pleased with every one and everything: I know it also, and therefore no longer dissuade him from spending his time and money in a flying Visit here in the course of his Visits to other East Anglian friends and Kinsmen. But I feel a little all the while as if I were taking all, and giving nothing in return: I mean, about Books, People, etc., with which a dozen years discontinuance of Society, and, latterly, incompetent Eyes, have left me in the lurch. ”