they were told they could eat, that morning, in their nightgowns and wrappers. their mother still wasn’t there, and aunt hannah talked even less than at any meal before. they too were very quiet. they felt that this was an even more special day than day before yesterday. all the noises of their eating and from the street were especially clear, but seemed to come from a distance. they looked steadily at their plates and ate very carefully.
first thing after breakfast aunt hannah said, “now come with me, children,” and they followed her into the bathroom. there she washed their faces and hands and arms, and behind the ears, and their necks, and up each nostril, carefully and gently with soap and warm water; she did not get soap in the eyes of either of them, or hurt their skins with the washcloth. then she took them into the bedroom and opened the bureaus and took out everything bran clean, from the skin out, and told rufus to get his clothes on and to ask for help if he wanted it, and started dressing catherine. rufus began to see the connection between all this and the bath, the night before. when he had on his underclothes she brought out new black stockings and his sunday serge. while she was helping catherine on with her stockings, which were also new but white, the phone rang and she said, “now sit still and be good. i’ll be straight back,” and hustled from the room. they heard her say, rather loudly and distinctly, up the hall, “i’m getting it, mary,” then her feet, fast on the stairs. they sat very still, looking at the open door, and tried to hear. they found they could hear quite distinctly, for hannah spoke to the telephone as she did to her deaf brother and sister-in-law. they heard: “hello ... hello ... yes ... father?”, and when they heard the word “father” they looked at each other with curiosity and with an uneasy premonition. they heard “yes ... yes ... yes ... yes ... yes ... yes, father ... yes ... yes, as well as could be expected ... yes ... yes ... thank you. i’ll tell her ... yes ... yes ... very well ... yes ... the highland avenue ... yes ... yes ... any ... yes ... any car to the corner of church and gay, then transfer to the highland—yes—very well ... yes ... thank you ... we’ll be waiting ... yes ... no ... yes, father ... yes f— ... good b ... yes, father ... thank you ... goo— ... yes ... thank you ... good-bye ... good-bye.”
they heard her let out a long, tired, angry breath and they could hear her joints snapping as she sprinted up the stairs. they were sitting exactly where she had left them. rufus thought, maybe she will say we were good children, but without a word she finished with catherine’s stockings. she gave rufus a new white shirt from which he slowly and with fascination drew the pins, running them between his teeth as he watched aunt hannah help catherine into her new dress, which was white, speckled with small dark blue flowers. catherine stood holding the hem and looking at the skirt and at her white-stockinged feet, which she could see through the skirt. “and now your necktie,” aunt hannah said. she took his dark blue tie and made expert motions beneath his chin while alternately he tried to watch her hands and looked into her intent eyes behind their heavy lenses. her eyes looked stern and sad and exhausted.
then she cleaned their nails and combed and brushed their hair, and put a clean handkerchief in rufus’ breast pocket and blacked their shoes. “now wait a moment,” she said, leaving the room. they heard her rap softly on their mother’s door.
“mary?” she said.
“yes,” they heard dimly.
“the children are ready. shall i bring them in?”
“yes do, hannah; thank you.”
“come in now and see your mother,” she told them from the door.
they followed her in.
“oh, they look very nice;” she exclaimed, in a voice so odd that it seemed to the children that she must be sorry that they did. yet by her face they could see that she was not sorry. “hannah, thank you so much, i don’t know what i’d have ...”
but hannah had left the room and closed the door.
they stood and looked at her with curiosity. her eyes seemed larger and brighter than usual; her hair was done up as carefully as if she were going to a party. she wore her wrapper and where it opened in front they could see that she had on something dull and black underneath. her face was like folded gray cloths.
she watched them look at her; they did not move. her face altered as if a very low light had gone on behind it.
“come here, my darlings,” she said, and smiled, and squatted with her hands out towards them.
rufus came shyly; catherine ran. she took one of them in each arm.
“there, my darlings,” she said above them, “there, there, my dear ones. mother’s here. mother’s here. mother has wanted to see you more, these last days; a lot more: she just—couldn’t, rufus and catherine. just couldn’t do it.” when she said “couldn’t” she held them very tightly and they knew they were loved. “little catherine”—and she held catherine’s head still more tightly to her—“bless her soul! and rufus”—she held him away and looked into his eyes—“you both know how much mother loves you, with all her heart and soul, all her life—you know, don’t you? don’t you?” rufus, puzzled but moved, nodded politely, and again she caught him to her. “of course you do,” she said, as if she were not speaking to them. “of course you do.
“now,” she said, after a moment. she stood up and drew them by their hands to the bed. they sat down and she sat in a chair and looked at them for a few seconds without speaking.
“now,” she said again. “i want to tell you about daddy, because this morning, soon now, we’re all going down to grampa’s and grandma’s, and see him once more, and tell him good-bye.” catherine’s face brightened; her mother shook her head and placed a quieting hand on catherine’s knees, saying, “no, catherine, it won’t be like you think, that’s what i must tell you about him. so listen very carefully, you too, rufus.”
she waited until she was sure they were listening carefully.
“you both understand what has happened to daddy, don’t you. that something happened in the auto, and god took him from us, very quickly, without any pain, and took him away to heaven. you understand that, don’t you?”
they nodded.
“and you understand, that when god takes you away to heaven you can never come back?”
“never come back?” catherine asked.
she stroked catherine’s hair away from her face. “no, catherine, not ever, in any way we can see and talk to. daddy’s soul will always be thinking of us, just as we will always think of him, but we will never see him again, after today.” catherine looked at her very intently; her face began to redden. “you must learn to believe that and know it, darling catherine. it’s so.”
she seemed to be about to cry; she swallowed; and catherine seemed to accept it as true.
“we’ll always remember him,” she told both of them. “always. and he’ll be thinking of us. every day. he’s waiting for us in heaven. and someday, if we’re good, when god comes for us, he’ll take us to heaven too and we’ll see daddy there, and all be together again, forever and ever.”
amen, rufus almost said; then realized that this was not a prayer.
“but when we see daddy today, children, his soul won’t be there. it’ll just be daddy’s body. very much as you’ve always seen him. but because his soul has been taken away, he will be lying down, and he will lie very still. it will be just as if he were asleep, so you must both be just as quiet as if he were asleep and you didn’t want to wake him. quieter.”
“but i do,” said catherine.
“but catherine, you can’t, dear, you mustn’t even think of trying. because daddy is dead now, and when you are dead that means you go to sleep and you never wake up—until god wakes you.”
“well when will he?”
“we don’t know, rufus, but probably a long, long time from now. long after we are all dead.”
rufus wondered what was the good of that, then, but he was sure he should not ask.
“so i don’t want you to wonder about it, children. daddy may seem very queer to you, because he’s so still, but that’s—just simply the way he’s got to look.”
suddenly she pressed her lips tightly together and they trembled violently. she clenched her cheekbone against her left shoulder, squeezing their hands with her trembling hands, and tears slipped from her tightly shut eyes. rufus watched her with awe, catherine with forlorn worry. she suddenly hissed out, “just-a-minute,” with her eyes still closed, startling and shocking catherine, so that she looked as if she were ready to cry. but before catherine could commit herself to crying, her hands relaxed, pressing them gently, and she raised her head and opened her clear eyes, saying, “now mother must get dressed, and i want you to take catherine downstairs, rufus, and both of you be very quiet and good till i come down. and don’t make any bother for aunt hannah, because she’s been wonderful to all of us and she’s worn out.
“you be good,” she said, smiling and looking at them in turn. “i’ll be down in a little while.”
“come on, catherine,” rufus said.
“i’m coming,” catherine replied, looking at him as if he had spoken of her unjustly.
“mama”; rufus stopped near the door. catherine hesitated, bewildered.
“yes, rufus?”
“are we orphans, now?”
“orphans?”
“like the belgians,” he informed her. “french. when you haven’t got any daddy or mamma because they’re killed in the war you’re an orphan and other children send you things and write you letters.”
she must have been unfamiliar with the word, for she seemed to have to think very hard before she answered. then she said, “of course you’re not orphans, rufus, and i don’t want you going around saying that you are. do you hear me? because it isn’t so. orphans haven’t got either a father or a mother, you see, and nobody to take care of them or love them. you see? that’s why other children send things. but you both have your mother. so you aren’t orphans. do you see? do you?” he nodded; catherine nodded because he did. “and rufus.” she looked at him very searchingly; without quite knowing why, he felt he had been discovered in a discreditable secret. “don’t be sorry you’re not an orphan. you be thankful. orphans sound lucky to you because they’re far away and everyone talks about them now. but they’re very, very unhappy little children. because nobody loves them. do you understand?”
he nodded, ashamed of himself and secretly disappointed.
“now run along,” she said. they left the room. aunt hannah met them on the stairs. “go into the liv—sitting room for a while like good children,” she said. “i’ll be right down.” and as they reached the bottom of the stairs they heard their mother’s door open and close. they sat, looking at their father’s chair, thinking.
catherine felt more virtuous and less troubled than she had for some time, for she had watched rufus being scolded, all to himself, and it more than wiped out her unhappiness at his telling her to come along when of course she was coming and he had no right even if she wasn’t. but she couldn’t see how anyone could look as if they were asleep and not wake up, and something else her mother had said—she tried hard to remember what it was—troubled her more deeply than that. and what was a norphan?
rufus felt that his mother was seriously displeased with him. it was the wrong time to ask her. maybe he ought not to have asked her at all. but he did want to know. he had not been sure whether or not he was an orphan, or the right kind of orphans. if he claimed he was an orphan in school and it turned out that he was not, people would all laugh at him. but if he really was an orphan he wanted to know, so he would be able to say he was, and get the benefit. what was the good of being an orphan if nobody else knew it? well, so he was not an orphan. yet his father was dead. not his mother, too, though. only his father. but one was dead. one and one makes two. one-half of two equals one. he was half an orphan, no matter what his mother said. and he had a sister who was half an orphan too. half and half equals a whole. together they made a whole orphan. he felt that it was not worth mentioning, that he was half an orphan, although he privately considered it a good deal better than nothing; and that also, he would not volunteer the fact that he and his sister together made a whole orphan. but if anyone teased either of them about not being an orphan at all, then he would certainly speak of that. he decided that catherine should be warned of this, so that if they were teased, they could back each other up.
“both of us together is a whole orphan,” he said.
“huh?”
“don’t say ‘huh,’ say, ‘what is it, rufus?’ ”
“i will not!”
“you will so. mama says to.”
“she does not.”
“she does so. when i say ‘huh’ she says, ‘don’t say “huh,” say “what is it, mother?’ ” when you say ‘huh’ she tells you the same thing. so don’t say ‘huh.’ say, ‘what is it, rufus?’ ”
“i won’t say it to you.”
“yes, you will.”
“no, i won’t.”
“yes, you will, because mama said for us to be good. if you don’t i’ll tell her on you.”
“you tell her and i’ll tell on you.”
“tell on me for what?”
“listening at the door.”
“no you won’t.”
“i will so.”
“you will not.”
“i will so.”
he thought it over.
“all right, don’t say it, and i won’t tell on you if you won’t tell on me.”
“i will if you tell on me.”
“i said i won’t, didn’t i? not if you don’t tell on me.”
“i won’t if you don’t tell on me.”
“all right.”
they glared at each other.
they heard loud feet on the porch, and the doorbell rang. upstairs they heard their mother cry “oh, goodness!” they ran to the door. he blocked catherine away from the knob and opened it.
a man stood there, almost as tall as daddy. he had a black glaring collar like dr. whittaker but wore a purple vest. he wore a long shallow hat and he had a long, sharp, bluish chin almost like a plow. he carried a small, shining black suitcase. he seemed to be as disconcerted and displeased as they were. he said, “oh, good morning,” in a voice that had echoes in it and, frowning, glanced once again at the number along the side of the door. “of course,” he said, with a smile they did not understand. “you’re rufus and catherine. may i come in?” and without waiting for their assent or withdrawal (for they were blocking the door) he strode forward, parting them with firm hands and saying “isn’t miss l ...”
they heard aunt hannah’s voice behind them on the stairs, and turned. “father?” she said, peering against the door’s light. “come right in.” and she came up as he quickly removed his oddly shaped hat, and they shook hands. “this is father jackson, rufus and catherine,” she said. “he has come specially from chattanooga. father, this is rufus, and this is catherine.”
“yes, we’ve already introduced ourselves,” said father jackson, as if he thought it was funny. that’s a lie, rufus reflected. father jackson left one hand at rest for a moment on catherine, then removed it as if he had forgotten her. “and where is mrs. follet?” he asked, almost whispering “mrs. follet.”
“if you’ll just wait a moment, father, she isn’t quite ready.”
“of course.” he leaned towards aunt hannah and said, in a grinding, scarcely audible voice, “is she—chuff-chuff-chuff?”
“oh yes,” hannah replied.
“but does she whehf-wheff-whehf-whef-tized?”
“i’m afraid not, father,” said hannah, gravely. “i wasn’t quite sure enough, myself, to tell her. i’m sorry to burden you with it but i felt i should leave that to you.”
“you were right, miss lynch. absolutely.” he looked around, his head gliding, his hat in his hand. “now little man,” he said, “if you’ll kindly relieve me of my hat.”
“rufus,” said hannah. “take father’s hat to the hat rack.”
bewildered, he did so. the hat rack was in plain sight.
“now father, if you won’t mind waiting just a moment,” hannah said, showing him in to the sitting room. “rufus: catherine: sit here with father. excuse me,” she added, and she hastened upstairs.
father jackson strode efficiently across the room, sat in their father’s chair, crossed his knees narrowly, and looked, frowning, at the carefully polished toe of his right shoe. they watched him, and rufus wondered whether to tell him whose chair it was. father jackson held his long, heavily veined right hand palm outward, at arm’s length, and, frowning, examined his nails. he certainly wouldn’t have sat in it, rufus felt, if he had known whose chair it was, so it would be mean not to tell him. but if he was told now, it would make him feel bad, rufus thought. catherine noticed, with interest, that outside the purple vest he wore a thin gold chain; on the chain was a small gold crucifix. father jackson changed knees and, frowning, examined the carefully polished toe of his left shoe. better not tell him, rufus thought; it would be mean. how do you get such a blue face, catherine wondered; i wish my face was blue, not red. father jackson, frowning, looked all around the room and smiled, faintly, as his gaze came to rest on some point above and beyond the heads of the children. both turned to see what he was smiling at, but there was nothing there except the picture of jesus when jesus was a little boy, staying up late in his nightgown and talking to all the wise men in the temple. “oh,” rufus realized; “that’s why.”
when they turned father jackson was frowning again and looking at them just as he had looked at his nails. he quickly smiled, though not as nicely as he had smiled at jesus, and changed his way of looking so that it did not seem that he was curious whether they were really clean. but he still looked as if he were displeased about something. they both looked back, wondering what he was displeased about. was catherine wetting her panties, rufus wondered; he looked at her but she looked all right to him. what was rufus doing that the man looked so unpleasant, catherine wondered. she looked at him, but all he was doing was looking at the man. they both looked at him, wishing that if he was displeased with them he would tell them why instead of looking like that, and wishing that he would sit in some other chair. he looked at both of them, feeling that their rude staring was undermining his gaze and his silence, by which he had intended to impress them into a sufficiently solemn and receptive state for the things he intended to say to them; and wondering whether or no he should reprimand them. surely, he decided, if they lack manners even at such a time as this, this is the time to speak of it.
“children must not stare at their elders,” he said. “that is ill-bred.”
“huh?” both of them asked. what’s “stare,” they wondered; “elders”; “ill-bred”?
“say, ‘sir,’ or ‘i beg your pardon, father.’ ”
“sir?” rufus said.
“you,” father jackson said to catherine.
“sir?” catherine said.
“you must not stare at people—look at them, as you are looking at me.”
“oh,” rufus said. catherine’s face turned red.
“say, ‘excuse me, father.’ ”
“excuse me, father.”
“you,” father jackson said to catherine.
catherine became still redder.
“excuse me, father,” rufus whispered.
“no prompting, please,” father jackson broke in, in a voice pitched for a large class. “come now, little girl, it is never too soon to learn to be little ladies and little gentlemen, is it?”
catherine said nothing.
“is it?” father jackson asked rufus.
“i don’t know,” rufus replied.
“i consider that a thoroughly uncivil answer to a civil question,” said father jackson.
“yes,” rufus said, beginning to turn cold in the pit of his stomach. what was “uncivil”?
“you agree,” father jackson said. “say, ‘yes, father.’ ”
“yes, father,” rufus said.
“then you are aware of your incivility. it is deliberate and calculated,” father jackson said.
“no,” rufus said. he could not understand the words but clearly he was being accused.
father jackson leaned back in their father’s chair and closed his eyes and folded his hands. after a moment he opened his eyes and said, “little boy, little sister” (he nudged his long blue chin towards catherine), “this is neither the time nor place for reprimands.” his hands unfolded; he leaned forward, tapping his right kneecap with his right forefinger, and frowning fiercely, said in a voice which sounded very gentle but was not, “but i just want to tell ...” they heard hannah on the stairs. “children,” he said, rising, “this must wait another time.” he pointed his jaw at hannah, raising his eyebrows.
“will you come up, father?” she asked in a shut voice.
without looking again at the children, he followed her upstairs.
they looked each other in the eyes; their mouths hung open; they listened. it was as they had begun to expect it would be: the steps of two along the upper hallway, the opening of their mother’s door, their mother’s strangely shrouded voice, the closing of the door: silence.
taking great care not to creak, they stole up to the middle of the stairs. they could hear no words, only the tilt and shape of voices: their mother’s, still so curiously shrouded, so submissive, so gentle; it seemed to ask questions and to accept answers. the man’s voice was subdued and gentle but rang very strongly with the knowledge that it was right and that no other voice could be quite as right; it seemed to say unpleasant things as if it felt they were kind things to say, or again, as if it did not care whether or not they were kind because in any case they were right, it seemed to make statements, to give information, to counter questions with replies which were beyond argument or even discussion, and to try to give comfort whether what it was saying could give comfort or not. now and again their mother’s way of questioning sounded to the children as if she wondered whether something could be fair, could possibly be true, could be so cruel, but whenever such tones came into their mother’s voice the man’s voice became still more ringing and overbearing, or still more desirous to comfort, or both; and their mother’s next voice was always very soft. aunt hannah’s voice was almost as clear and light as always, but there was now in it also a kind of sweetness and of sorrow they had not heard in it before. mainly she seemed only to agree with father jackson, to add her voice to his, though much more kindly, in this overpowering of their mother. but now and again it seemed to explain more fully, and more gently, something which he had just explained, and twice it questioned almost as their mother questioned, but with more spirit, with an edge almost of bitterness or temper. and on these two occasions father jackson’s voice shifted and lost a bit of its vibrancy, and for a moment he talked as rapidly in a circle, seeming to assure them that of course he did not at all mean what they had thought he meant, but only, that (and then the voice would begin to gather assurance) ; they must realize (and now it had almost its old drive); in fact, of course—and now he was back again, and seemed to be saying precisely what he had said before, only with still more authority and still less possibility of disagreement. and then their aunt hannah murmured agreement in an oddly cool, remote tone, and their mother’s voice of acceptance was scarcely audible at all.
once in a while when these voices came to crises in their subdued turmoil rufus and catherine looked into each other’s cold, bright eyes which brightened and chilled the more with every intensification of the man’s voice, and every softening and defeat of their mother’s voice. but most of the time they only stared at the knob on their mother’s door, shifting delicately on the stairs whenever they became cramped. they could not conceive of what was being done to their mother, but in his own way each was sure that it was something evil, to which she was submitting almost without a struggle, and by which she was deceived. rufus repeatedly saw himself flinging open the door and striding in, a big stone in his hand, and saying, “you stop hurting my mother.” catherine knew only that a tall stranger in black, with a frightening jaw and a queer hat, a man whom she hated and feared, had broken into their house, had been welcomed first by aunt hannah and then by her mother herself, had sat in her father’s chair as if he thought he belonged there, talked meanly to her in words she could not understand, and was now doing secret and cruel things to her mother while aunt hannah looked on. if daddy was here he would kill him. she wished daddy would hurry up and come and kill him and she wanted to see it. but rufus realized that his aunt hannah and even his mother were on father jackson’s side and against him, and that they would just put him out of the room and punish him terribly and go right on with whatever awful thing it was they were doing. and catherine remembered, with a jolt, that daddy would not come back because he was down at grandma’s and grandpa’s and now they would see him again and then they would never see him any more until heaven.
but suddenly there was a kind of creaking and soft thumping and the voices changed. father jackson’s voice was even more strongly in charge, now, than before, although it did not seem that he was arguing, or informing, or trying to bring comfort, or even that he was speaking to either of the two women. most of its theatrical resonance had left it, and all of its dominance. he seemed to be speaking as if to someone at least as much more assured and strong than he was, as he was more assured and strong than their mother was, and his voice had something of their mother’s humbleness. yet it was a very confident voice, as if it were sure that the person who was being addressed would approve what was said and what was asked, and would not rebuff him as he had rebuffed their mother. and in some way the voice was even more authoritative than before, as if father jackson were speaking not for himself but for, as well as to, the person he addressed, and were speaking with the power of that person as well as in manly humility before that person. clearly, also, the voice loved its own sound, inseparably from its love of the sound and contour of the words it spoke, as naturally as a fine singer delights inseparably in his voice and in the melody he is singing. and clearly, although not one word was audible to the children, the voice was not mistaken in this love. not a word was distinct from where they stood, but the shapes and rhythms and the inflections were as lovely and as bemusing as any songs they had ever heard. in general rhythm, rufus began to realize, it was not unlike the prayers that dr. whittaker said; and he realized, then, that father jackson also was praying. but where dr. whittaker gave his words and phrases special emphasis and personal coloring, as though they were matters which required argument and persuasion, father jackson spoke almost wholly without emphasis and with only the subtlest coloring, as if the personal emotion, the coloring, were cast against the words from a distance, like echoes. he spoke as if all that he said were in every idea and in every syllable final, finished, perfected beyond disquisition long before he was born; and truth and eternity dwelt like clearest water in the rhythms of his language and in the contours of his voice; his voice accepted and bore this language like the bed of a brook. they looked at each other once more; rufus could see that catherine did not understand. “he’s saying his prayers,” he whispered.
she neither understood him nor believed him but she realized. with puzzlement, that now the man was being nice, though she did not even want him to be nice to her mother, she did not want him to be anything, to anybody, anywhere. but it was clear to both of them that things were better now than they had been before; they could hear it in his voice, which at once enchanted and obscurely disturbed them, and they could hear it in the voices of the two women, which now and again, when he seemed to pause for breath, chimed in with a short word or two, a few times with whole sentences. both their voices were more tender, more alive, and more inhuman, than they had ever heard them before; and this remoteness from humanity troubled them. they realized that there was something to which their mother and their great-aunt were devoted, something which gave their voices peculiar vitality and charm, which was beyond and outside any love that was felt for them; and they felt that this meant even more to their mother and their great-aunt than they did, or than anyone else in the world did. they realized, fairly clearly, that the object of this devotion was not this man whom they mistrusted, but they felt that he was altogether too deeply involved in it. and they felt that although everything was better for their mother than it had been a few minutes before, it was far worse in one way. for before, she had at least been questioning, however gently. but now she was wholly defeated and entranced, and the transition to prayer was the moment and mark of her surrender. they stared so long and so gloomily at the doorknob, turning over such unhappy and uncertain intuitions in their souls, that the staring, round white knot became all that they saw in the universe except a subtly beating haze pervaded with magnificent quiet sound; so that when the doorbell rang they were so frightened that their hearts contracted.
then, with almost equal terror, they realized that they would be caught on the stairs. they started down, in haste as desperate as their efforts to be silent. the door burst open above them. she can’t see, they realized (for it was hannah who came out), and in the same instant they realized: but she can hear better than anybody. a stair creaked loudly; terror struck them; against it, they continued. “yes,” hannah called sharply; she was already on the stairs. the doorbell rang again. on the last stair, they were hideously noisy; they wanted only to disappear in time. they ducked through the sitting-room door and watched her pass; they were as insane with excitement as if they could still dare hope they had not been discovered, and solemnly paralyzed in the inevitability of dreadful reprimand and of physical pain.
hannah didn’t even glance back at them: she went straight to the door.
it was mr. starr. usually he wore suits as brown and hairy as his mustache, but this morning he wore a dark blue suit and a black tie. in his hand he carried a black derby.
“walter,” aunt hannah said, “you know what all you’re doing means to us.”
“aw now,” walter said.
“come in,” she said. “mary’ll be right down. children, you know mr. starr ...”
“course we do,” mr. starr said, smiling at them with his warm brown eyes through the lenses. he put the hand holding the derby on rufus’ shoulder and the other on catherine’s cheek. “you come on in and sit with me, will you, till your mother’s ready.”
he walked straight for their father’s chair, veered unhappily, and sat on a chair next the wall.
“well, so you’re coming down and visit us,” he said.
“huh?”
“coming down,” walter said. “or ma—did your mama say anything about maybe you were coming down sometime, and pay us a visit?”
“huh-uh.”
“oh, well, there’s lots of time. did you ever hear a gramophone?”
“she can’t hardly hear when she does.”
“eigh?” he seemed extremely puzzled.
“uncle andrew says she’s crazy even to try.”
“who?”
“why, granma.” mr. starr had never before seemed stupid, but now rufus began to think his memory was as bad as those of the boys at the corner. could he be teasing? it would be very queer if mr. starr would tease. he decided he should trust him. “you know, when she phones, like you said.”
mr. starr thought that over for a moment and then he seemed to understand. but almost the moment he understood he started to laugh, so he must have been teasing, after all. rufus was deeply hurt. then almost immediately he stopped laughing as if he were shocked at himself.
“well now,” he said. “i begin to see how we both got a bit in a muddle. you’d never heard of the thing i was talking about, and it sounds mighty like grandma phone, did you ever hear grandmaphone. of course. naturally. but what i was talking about was a nice box that music comes out of. did you ever hear music come out of a box?”
“huh-uh.”
“well down home, believe it or not, we got a box that music comes out of. would you like to hear it sometime?”
“uh-huh.”
“good. we’ll see if that can’t be arranged. soon. now would you like to know what they call this box?”
“uh-huh.”
“a gram-o-phone. see? it sounds very much like grandma phone, but it’s just a little different. gram-o-phone. can you say it?”
“gram-uh-phone.”
“that’s right. can baby sister say it, i wonder?”
“catherine? he means you.”
“gran-muh-phone.”
“gramm-uh-phone.”
“gramm-muh-phone.”
“that’s fine. you’re a mighty smart little girl to say a big word like that.”
“i can say some ever so big words,” rufus said. “want to hear? the dominant primordrial beast.”
“well now, that’s mighty smart. but of course i don’t mean smarter than sister. you’re a lot bigger boy.”
“yes, but i could say that when i was four years old. she’s almost four and i bet she can’t say it. can you, catherine? can you?”
“well, now, some people learn a little quicker than others. it’s nice to learn fast but it’s nice to take your time, too.” he walked over and picked catherine up and sat down with her in his lap. he smelled almost as good as her father, although he was soft in front, and she looked happy. “now what does that word ‘primordrial’ mean?”
“i dunno, but it’s nice and scary.”
“is it scary? yes? yes, spose it does have a sort of a scary sound. now you can say it, you ought to find out what it means, sometime.”
“what does it mean?”
“not sure myself, but then i don’t say it. don’t have occasion.” he opened out one arm and rufus walked across to him without realizing he was doing so. the arm felt strong and kind around him. “you’re a fine little boy,” mr. starr, said. “but it isn’t nice of you to lord it over your sister.”
“what’s ‘lord it’?”
“brag about things you can do, that she can’t do yet. that isn’t nice.”
“no, sir.”
“so you watch, and don’t do it.”
“no siree.”
“because catherine’s a fine little girl, too.”
“yes, sir.”
“aren’t you, catherine?” he smiled at her and she blushed with delight. rufus liked catherine so well, all of a sudden, that he smiled at her, and when she smiled back they were both happy and suddenly he was very much ashamed to have treated her so.
“i want to tell you two something,” they heard mr. starr’s quieted voice. they looked up at him. “not because you’ll understand it now, but i have to, my heart’s full, and it’s you i want to tell. maybe you’ll remember it later on. it is about your daddy. because you never got a real chance to know him. can i tell you?”
they nodded.
“some people have a hard, hard time. no money, no good schooling. scarcely enough food. nothing that you children have, but good people to love them. your daddy started like that. he didn’t have one thing. he had to work till it practicly killed him, for every little thing he ever got.
“well, some of the greatest men start with nothing. like abraham lincoln. you know who he was?”
“he was born in a log cabin,” rufus said.
“that’s right, and he became the greatest man we’ve ever had.”
he said nothing for a moment and they wondered what he was going to tell them about their father.
“somehow i never got a chance to know jay—your father—well as i wish. i don’t think he ever knew how much i thought of him. well i thought the world of him, rufus and catherine. my own wife and son couldn’t mean more to me i think.” he waited again. “i’m a pretty ordinary man myself,” he went on. “not a bad one. just ordinary. but i always thought your father was a lot like lincoln. i don’t mean getting ahead in the world. i mean a man. some people get where they hope to in this world. most of us don’t. but there never was a man up against harder odds than your father. and there was never a man who tried harder, or hoped for more. i don’t mean getting ahead. i mean the right things. he wanted a good life, and good understanding, for himself, for everybody. there never was a braver man than your father, or a man that was kinder, or more generous. they don’t make them. all i wanted to tell you is, your father was one of the finest men that ever lived.”
he suddenly closed his eyes tightly behind his glasses, and swallowed; a long sobbing sigh fell from him. deeply and solemnly touched, they moved closer to him, whether to comfort him or themselves they did not know. “there, there,” he said, his eyes still closed. “there, there now. there, there.”
upstairs, they heard the door open.
