The Turmoil, Booth Tarkington [best english novels for beginners .txt] 📗

eyes. “It’s a pity you didn’t run more with Jim, Bibbs, and kind o’ pick up his ways. Think what it’d meant to papa now! You never did run with either Roscoe or Jim any, even before you got sick. Of course, you were younger; but it always did seem queer⁠—and you three bein’ brothers like that. I don’t believe I ever saw you and Jim sit down together for a good talk in my life.”

“Mother, I’ve been away so long,” Bibbs returned, gently. “And since I came home I⁠—”

“Oh, I ain’t reproachin’ you, Bibbs,” she said. “Jim ain’t been home much of an evening since you got back⁠—what with his work and callin’ and goin’ to the theater and places, and often not even at the house for dinner. Right the evening before he got hurt he had his dinner at some miser’ble rest’rant down by the Pump Works, he was so set on overseein’ the night work and gettin’ everything finished up right to the minute he told papa he would. I reckon you might ’a’ put in more time with Jim if there’d been more opportunity, Bibbs. I expect you feel almost as if you scarcely really knew him right well.”

“I suppose I really didn’t, mother. He was busy, you see, and I hadn’t much to say about the things that interested him, because I don’t know much about them.”

“It’s a pity! Oh, it’s a pity!” she moaned. “And you’ll have to learn to know about ’em now, Bibbs! I haven’t said much to you, because I felt it was all between your father and you, but I honestly do believe it will just kill him if he has to have any more trouble on top of all this! You mustn’t let him, Bibbs⁠—you mustn’t! You don’t know how he’s grieved over you, and now he can’t stand any more⁠—he just can’t! Whatever he says for you to do, you do it, Bibbs, you do it! I want you to promise me you will.”

“I would if I could,” he said, sorrowfully.

“No, no! Why can’t you?” she cried, clutching his arm. “He wants you to go back to the machine-shop and⁠—”

“And⁠—‘like it’!” said Bibbs.

“Yes, that’s it⁠—to go in a cheerful spirit. Dr. Gurney said it wouldn’t hurt you if you went in a cheerful spirit⁠—the doctor said that himself, Bibbs. So why can’t you do it? Can’t you do that much for your father? You ought to think what he’s done for you. You got a beautiful house to live in; you got automobiles to ride in; you got fur coats and warm clothes; you been taken care of all your life. And you don’t know how he worked for the money to give all these things to you! You don’t dream what he had to go through and what he risked when we were startin’ out in life; and you never will know! And now this blow has fallen on him out of a clear sky, and you make it out to be a hardship to do like he wants you to! And all on earth he asks is for you to go back to the work in a cheerful spirit, so it won’t hurt you! That’s all he asks. Look, Bibbs, we’re gettin’ back near home, but before we get there I want you to promise me that you’ll do what he asks you to. Promise me!”

In her earnestness she cleared away her black veil that she might see him better, and it blew out on the smoky wind. He readjusted it for her before he spoke.

“I’ll go back in as cheerful a spirit as I can, mother,” he said.

“There!” she exclaimed, satisfied. “That’s a good boy! That’s all I wanted you to say.”

“Don’t give me any credit,” he said, ruefully. “There isn’t anything else for me to do.”

“Now, don’t begin talkin’ that way!”

“No, no,” he soothed her. “We’ll have to begin to make the spirit a cheerful one. We may⁠—” They were turning into their own driveway as he spoke, and he glanced at the old house next door. Mary Vertrees was visible in the twilight, standing upon the front steps, bareheaded, the door open behind her. She bowed gravely.

“ ‘We may’⁠—what?” asked Mrs. Sheridan, with a slight impatience.

“What is it, mother?”

“You said, ‘We may,’ and didn’t finish what you were sayin’.”

“Did I?” said Bibbs, blankly. “Well, what were we saying?”

“Of all the queer boys!” she cried. “You always were. Always! You haven’t forgot what you just promised me, have you?”

“No,” he answered, as the car stopped. “No, the spirit will be as cheerful as the flesh will let it, mother. It won’t do to behave like⁠—”

His voice was low, and in her movement to descend from the car she failed to here his final words.

“Behave like who, Bibbs?”

“Nothing.”

But she was fretful in her grief. “You said it wouldn’t do to behave like somebody. Behave like who?”

“It was just nonsense,” he explained, turning to go in. “An obscure person I don’t think much of lately.”

“Behave like who?” she repeated, and upon his yielding to her petulant insistence, she made up her mind that the only thing to do was to tell Dr. Gurney about it.

“Like Bildad the Shuhite!” was what Bibbs said.

XIV

The outward usualness of things continued after dinner. It was Sheridan’s custom to read the evening paper beside the fire in the library, while his wife, sitting near by, either sewed (from old habit) or allowed herself to be repeatedly baffled by one of the simpler forms of solitaire. Tonight she did neither, but sat in her customary chair, gazing at the fire, while Sheridan let the unfolded paper rest upon his lap, though now and then he lifted it, as if to read, and let it fall back upon his knees again. Bibbs came in noiselessly and sat in a corner, doing nothing; and from a reception-room across the hall an indistinct vocal murmur became just audible at intervals. Once, when