In the Heart of a Fool. White William Allen
value in dollars and cents gave these objects their chief value in his balance sheet of gain or less in footing up his account with his home. And because what he had was expensive, he prized it. Possibly because he had bought his wife’s devotion, at some material sacrifice to his own natural inclinations toward the feminine world, he listed her high in the assets of the home; and so in the only way he could love, he loved her jealously. She and the rugs and pictures and furniture–all were dear to him, as chattels which he had bought and paid for and could brag about. And because he was too well bred to brag, the repression of that natural instinct he added to the cost of the items listed,–rugs, pictures, wife, furniture, house, trees, lot, and blue grass lawn. So when toward the end of the first year of his marriage, he found that actually he could turn his head and follow with his eyes a pretty petticoat going down Market Street, and still fool his wife; when he found he could pry open the eyes of Miss Mauling at the office again with his old ogle, and still have the beautiful love which he had bought with self-denial, its value dropped.
And his wife, who felt in her soul her value passing in the heart she loved, strove to find her fault and to correct it. Daily her devotion manifested itself more plainly. Daily she lived more singly to the purpose of her soul. And daily she saw that purpose becoming a vain pursuit.
Outwardly the home was unchanged as this tragedy was played within the two hearts. The same scenery surrounded the players. The same voices spoke, in the same tones, the same words of endearment, and the same hours brought the same routine as the days passed. Yet the home was slowly sinking into failure. And the specters that sealed the lips of the parents who stood by and mutely watched the inner drama unfold, watched it unfold and translate itself into life without words, without deeds, without superficial tremor or flinching of any kind–the specters passed the sad story from heart to heart in those mysterious silences wherein souls in this world learn their surest truths.
CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH OUR HERO STROLLS OUT WITH THE DEVIL TO LOOK AT THE HIGH MOUNTAIN
The soup had come and gone; great platters of fried chicken had disappeared, with incidental spinach and new peas and potatoes. A bowl of lettuce splashed with a French dressing had been mowed down as the grass, and the goodly company was surveying something less than an acre of strawberry shortcake at the close of a rather hilarious dinner–a spring dinner, to be exact. Rhoda Kollander was reciting with enthusiasm an elaborate and impossible travesty of a recipe for strawberry shortcake, which she had read somewhere, when the Doctor, in his nankeens, putting his hands on the table cloth as one who was about to deliver an oracle, ran his merry eyes down the table, gathering up the Adamses and Mortons and Mayor Brotherton and Morty Sands; fastened his glance upon the Van Dorns and cut in on the interminable shortcake recipe rather ruthlessly thus in his gay falsetto:
“Tom, here–thinks he’s pretty smart. And George Brotherton, Mayor of all the Harveys, thinks he is a pretty smooth article; and the Honorable Lady Satterthwaite here, she’s got a Maryland notion that she has second sight into the doings of her prince consort.” He chuckled and grinned as he beamed at his daughter: “And there is the princess imperial–she thinks she’s mighty knolledgeous about her father–but,” he cocked his head on one side, enjoying the suspense he was creating as he paused, drawling his words, “I’m just going to show you how I’ve got ’em all fooled.”
He pulled from his pocket a long, official envelope, pulled from the envelope an official document, and also a letter. He laid the official document down before him and opened the letter.
“Kind o’ seems to be signed by the Governor of the State,” he drolled: “And seems like the more I look at it the surer I am it’s addressed to Tom Van Dorn. I’m not much of an elocutionist and never could read at sight, having come from Eendiany, and I guess Rhody here, she’s kind of elocutionary and I’ll jest about ask her to read it to the ladies and gentlemen!” He handed Mrs. Kollander the letter and passed the sealed document to his son-in-law.
Mrs. Kollander read aloud:
“I take pleasure in handing you through the kindness of Senator James Nesbit your appointment to fill the vacancy in your judicial district created to-day by the resignation of Judge Arbuckle of your district to fill a vacancy in the Supreme Court of this State created there by the resignation of Justice Worrell.”
Looking over his wife’s shoulder and seeing the significance of the letter, John Kollander threw back his head and began singing in his roaring voice, “For we’ll rally round the flag, boys, we’ll rally once again, shouting the battle cry of freedom,” and the company at the table clapped its hands. And while George Brotherton was bellowing, “Well–say!” Judge Thomas Van Dorn kissed his wife and beamed his satisfaction upon the company.
When the commotion had subsided the chuckling little man, all a-beam with happiness, his pink, smooth face shining like a headlight, explained thus:
“I jest thought these Maryland Satterthwaites and Schenectady Van Dorns was a-gittin’ too top-lofty, and I’d have to register one for the Grand Duke of Griggsby’s Station, to sort of put ’em in their place!” He was happy; and his vernacular, which always was his pose under emotional stress, was broad, as he went on: “So I says to myself, the Corn Belt Railroad is mighty keen for a Supreme Court decision in the Missouri River rate case, and I says, Worrell J., he’s the boy to write it, but I says to the Corn Belt folks, says I, ‘It would shatter the respect of the people for their courts if Worrell J. should stay on the bench after writing the kind of a decision you want, so we’ll just put him in your law offices at twelve thousand per, which is three times what he is getting now, and then one idear brought on another and here’s Tom’s commission and three men and a railroad all made happy!” He threw back his head and laughed silently as he finished, “and all the justices concurring!” After the hubbub of congratulations had passed and the guests had moved into the parlor of the Nesbit home, the little Doctor, standing among them, regaled himself thus:
“Politics is jobs. Jobs is friends. Friends is politics. The reason why the reformers don’t get anywhere is that they have no friends in politics. They regard the people as sticky and smelly and low. Bedelia has that notion. But I love ’em! Love ’em and vote ’em!”
Amos Adams opened his mouth to protest, but the Doctor waved him into silence. “I know your idear, Amos! But when the folks get tired of politics that is jobs and want politics that is principles, I’ll open as fine a line of principles as ever was shown in this market!”
After the company had gone, Mrs. Nesbit faced her husband with a peremptory: “Well–will you tell me why, Jim Nesbit?” And he sighed and dropped into a chair.
“To save his self-respect! Self-respect grows on what it feeds on, my dear, and I thought maybe if he was a judge”–he looked into the anxious eyes of his wife and went on–“that might hold him!” He rested his head on a hand and drew in a deep breath. “‘Vanity, vanity,’ saith the Preacher–‘all is vanity!’ And I thought I’d hitch it to something that might pull him out of the swamp! And I happened to know that he had a sneaking notion of running for Judge this fall, so I thought I’d slip up and help him.”
He sighed again and his tone changed. “I did it primarily for Laura,” he said wearily, and: “Mother, we might as well face it.”
Mrs. Nesbit looked intently at her husband in understanding silence and asked: “Is it any one in particular, Jim–”
He hesitated, then exclaimed: “Oh, I may be wrong, but somehow I don’t like the air–the way that Mauling girl assumes authority at the office. Why, she’s made me wait in the outer office twice now–for nothing except to show that she could!”
“Yes, Jim–but what good will this judgeship do? How will it solve anything?” persisted the wife. The Doctor let his sigh precede his words: “The office will make him realize that the eyes of the community are on him, that he is in a way a marked man. And then the place will keep him busy and spur on his ambition. And these things should help.”
He looked tenderly into the worried face of his wife and smiled. “Perhaps we’re both wrong. We don’t know. Tom’s young and–” He ended the sentence in a “Ho–ho–ho–hum!”