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

panted, choking. “If he’s shown gumption enough to guess right the first time in his life, it’s enough for me to begin learnin’ him on!” And, struggling with the doctor, he leaned toward Bibbs, thrusting forward his convulsed face, which was deathly pale. “My name ain’t Tracy, I tell you!” he screamed, hoarsely. “You give in, you stubborn fool! I’ve had my way with you before, and I’ll have my way with you now!”

Bibbs’s face was as white as his father’s, but he kept remembering that splendid look of Mary’s which he had told her would give him courage in a struggle, so that he would never give up.

“No. You can’t have your way,” he said. And then, obeying a significant motion of Gurney’s head, he went out quickly, leaving them struggling.

XXVII

Mrs. Sheridan, in a wrapper, noiselessly opened the door of her husband’s room at daybreak the next morning, and peered within the darkened chamber. At the old house they had shared a room, but the architect had chosen to separate them at the New, and they had not known how to formulate an objection, although to both of them something seemed vaguely reprehensible in the new arrangement.

Sheridan did not stir, and she was withdrawing her head from the aperture when he spoke.

“Oh, I’m awake! Come in, if you want to, and shut the door.”

She came and sat by the bed. “I woke up thinkin’ about it,” she explained. “And the more I thought about it the surer I got I must be right, and I knew you’d be tormentin’ yourself if you was awake, so⁠—well, you got plenty other troubles, but I’m just sure you ain’t goin’ to have the worry with Bibbs it looks like.”

“You bet I ain’t!” he grunted.

“Look how biddable he was about goin’ back to the Works,” she continued. “He’s a right good-hearted boy, really, and sometimes I honestly have to say he seems right smart, too. Now and then he’ll say something sounds right bright. ’Course, most always it doesn’t, and a good deal of the time, when he says things, why, I have to feel glad we haven’t got company, because they’d think he didn’t have any gumption at all. Yet, look at the way he did when Jim⁠—when Jim got hurt. He took right hold o’ things. ’Course he’d been sick himself so much and all⁠—and the rest of us never had, much, and we were kind o’ green about what to do in that kind o’ trouble⁠—still, he did take hold, and everything went off all right; you’ll have to say that much, papa. And Dr. Gurney says he’s got brains, and you can’t deny but what the doctor’s right considerable of a man. He acts sleepy, but that’s only because he’s got such a large practice⁠—he’s a pretty wide-awake kind of a man some ways. Well, what he says last night about Bibbs himself bein’ asleep, and how much he’d amount to if he ever woke up⁠—that’s what I got to thinkin’ about. You heard him, papa; he says, ‘Bibbs’ll be a bigger business man than what Jim and Roscoe was put together⁠—if he ever wakes up,’ he says. Wasn’t that exactly what he says?”

“I suppose so,” said Sheridan, without exhibiting any interest. “Gurney’s crazier’n Bibbs, but if he wasn’t⁠—if what he says was true⁠—what of it?”

“Listen, papa. Just suppose Bibbs took it into his mind to get married. You know where he goes all the time⁠—”

“Oh, Lord, yes!” Sheridan turned over in the bed, his face to the wall, leaving visible of himself only the thick grizzle of his hair. “You better go back to sleep. He runs over there⁠—every minute she’ll let him, I suppose. Go back to bed. There’s nothin’ in it.”

“Why ain’t there?” she urged. “I know better⁠—there is, too! You wait and see. There’s just one thing in the world that’ll wake the sleepiest young man alive up⁠—yes, and make him jump up⁠—and I don’t care who he is or how sound asleep it looks like he is. That’s when he takes it into his head to pick out some girl and settle down and have a home and chuldern of his own. Then, I guess, he’ll go out after the money! You’ll see. I’ve known dozens o’ cases, and so’ve you⁠—moony, no-’count young men, all notions and talk, goin’ to be ministers, maybe or something; and there’s just this one thing takes it out of ’em and brings ’em right down to business. Well, I never could make out just what it is Bibbs wants to be, really; doesn’t seem he wants to be a minister exactly⁠—he’s so faraway you can’t tell, and he never says⁠—but I know this is goin’ to get him right down to common sense. Now, I don’t say that Bibbs has got the idea in his head yet⁠—’r else he wouldn’t be talkin’ that fool-talk about nine dollars a week bein’ good enough for him to live on. But it’s comin’, papa, and he’ll jump for whatever you want to hand him out. He will! And I can tell you this much, too: he’ll want all the salary and stock he can get hold of, and he’ll hustle to keep gettin’ more. That girl’s the kind that a young husband just goes crazy to give things to! She’s pretty and fine-lookin’, and things look nice on her, and I guess she’d like to have ’em about as well as the next. And I guess she isn’t gettin’ many these days, either, and she’ll be pretty ready for the change. I saw her with her sleeves rolled up at the kitchen window the other day, and Jackson told me yesterday their cook left two weeks ago, and they haven’t tried to hire another one. He says her and her mother been doin’ the housework a good while, and now they’re doin’ the cookin,’ too. ’Course Bibbs wouldn’t know that unless she’s told him, and I reckon