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

to us in the end, nor what day it’s got set to bust loose, but it’s frothin’ and bubblin’ in the boiler. This country’s been fillin’ up with it from all over the world for a good many years, and the old camp-meetin’ days are dead and done with. Church ain’t what it used to be. Nothin’s what it used to be⁠—everything’s turned up from the bottom, and the growth is so big the roots stick out in the air. There’s an awful ruction goin’ on, and you got to keep hoppin’ if you’re goin’ to keep your balance on the top of it. And the schemers! They run like bugs on the bottom of a board⁠—after any piece o’ money they hear is loose. Fool schemes and crooked schemes; the fool ones are the most and the worst! You got to fight to keep your money after you’ve made it. And the woods are full o’ mighty industrious men that’s got only one motto: ‘Get the other fellow’s money before he gets yours!’ And when a man’s built as I have, when he’s built good and strong, and made good things grow and prosper⁠—those are the fellows that lay for the chance to slide in and sneak the benefit of it and put their names to it! And what’s the use of my havin’ ever been born, if such a thing as that is goin’ to happen? What’s the use of my havin’ worked my life and soul into my business, if it’s all goin’ to be dispersed and scattered soon as I’m in the ground?”

He strode up and down the long room, gesticulating⁠—little regarding the troubled and drowsy figure by the fireside. His throat rumbled thunderously; the words came with stormy bitterness. “You think this is a time for young men to be lyin’ on beds of ease? I tell you there never was such a time before; there never was such opportunity. The sluggard is despoiled while he sleeps⁠—yes, by George! if a man lays down they’ll eat him before he wakes!⁠—but the live man can build straight up till he touches the sky! This is the business man’s day; it used to be the soldier’s day and the statesman’s day, but this is ours! And it ain’t a Sunday to go fishin’⁠—it’s turmoil! turmoil!⁠—and you got to go out and live it and breathe it and make it yourself, or you’ll only be a dead man walkin’ around dreamin’ you’re alive. And that’s what my son Bibbs has been doin’ all his life, and what he’d rather do now than go out and do his part by me. And if anything happens to Roscoe⁠—”

“Oh, do stop worryin’ over such nonsense,” Mrs. Sheridan interrupted, irritated into sharp wakefulness for the moment. “There isn’t anything goin’ to happen to Roscoe, and you’re just tormentin’ yourself about nothin’. Aren’t you ever goin’ to bed?”

Sheridan halted. “All right, mamma,” he said, with a vast sigh. “Let’s go up.” And he snapped off the electric light, leaving only the rosy glow of the fire.

“Did you speak to Roscoe?” she yawned, rising lopsidedly in her drowsiness. “Did you mention about what I told you the other evening?”

“No. I will tomorrow.”

But Roscoe did not come downtown the next day, nor the next; nor did Sheridan see fit to enter his son’s house. He waited. Then, on the fourth day of the month, Roscoe walked into his father’s office at nine in the morning, when Sheridan happened to be alone.

“They told me downstairs you’d left word you wanted to see me.”

“Sit down,” said Sheridan, rising.

Roscoe sat. His father walked close to him, sniffed suspiciously, and then walked away, smiling bitterly. “Boh!” he exclaimed. “Still at it!”

“Yes,” said Roscoe. “I’ve had a couple of drinks this morning. What about it?”

“I reckon I better adopt some decent young man,” his father returned. “I’d bring Bibbs up here and put him in your place if he was fit. I would!”

“Better do it,” Roscoe assented, sullenly.

“When’d you begin this thing?”

“I always did drink a little. Ever since I grew up, that is.”

“Leave that talk out! You know what I mean.”

“Well, I don’t know as I ever had too much in office hours⁠—until the other day.”

Sheridan began cutting. “It’s a lie. I’ve had Ray Wills up from your office. He didn’t want to give you away, but I put the hooks into him, and he came through. You were drunk twice before and couldn’t work. You been leavin’ your office for drinks every few hours for the last three weeks. I been over your books. Your office is way behind. You haven’t done any work, to count, in a month.”

“All right,” said Roscoe, drooping under the torture. “It’s all true.”

“What you goin’ to do about it?”

Roscoe’s head was sunk between his shoulders. “I can’t stand very much talk about it, father,” he said, pleadingly.

“No!” Sheridan cried. “Neither can I! What do you think it means to me?” He dropped into the chair at his big desk, groaning. “I can’t stand to talk about it any more’n you can to listen, but I’m goin’ to find out what’s the matter with you, and I’m goin’ to straighten you out!”

Roscoe shook his head helplessly.

“You can’t straighten me out.”

“See here!” said Sheridan. “Can you go back to your office and stay sober today, while I get my work done, or will I have to hire a couple o’ huskies to follow you around and knock the whiskey out o’ your hand if they see you tryin’ to take it?”

“You needn’t worry about that,” said Roscoe, looking up with a faint resentment. “I’m not drinking because I’ve got a thirst.”

“Well, what have you got?”

“Nothing. Nothing you can do anything about. Nothing, I tell you.”

“We’ll see about that!” said Sheridan, harshly. “Now I can’t fool with you today, and you get up out o’ that chair and get out o’ my office. You bring your wife to dinner tomorrow. You didn’t come last Sunday⁠—but you