Chapter XVI: Part 16

“Dear Mrs. Schuyler,” cried Dora, and stepped over the impediment of Dave’s cheap, light-yellow suitcase and neatly-wrapped shoe-box of lunch, which he had consistently tried to keep kicked out of her sight, “look what I’ve brought him, if he thinks you’re kind of fussy about—about little things. I knitted it myself. All but the orange stripe. Mary Chipman was sleeping with me one Saturday night, and she knows the zigzag stitch—she did the stripe.”

“A muffler! For me—all but the stripe—gee, swell—fellow needs muffler—all but the stripe—gee——”

“He—wouldn’t let me put the one I knitted for him in,” sobbed Mathilda, the words tumbling off her lips like coals, and then making a forward jump as if she would scrape them all back again.

“Why, you darling, of course he wouldn’t. No son in the world ever would.”

“He—he—said—no——”

“Mother, I didn’t mean——”

“You did!” said Dora, who had an armful of Mathilda, and stamped her foot. “You did! You were horrid! You did!”

“He didn’t!” cried Mathilda. “You see, it was a gray one. Of a bit of wool left over from his father’s socks. He was always a child liked color. It’s the orange in this one. He didn’t!”

“That’s exactly what I meant, dear—he did—I mean he didn’t—I—mean—of course I mean he did.”

Oh, Dora—Dora—sweet, appeasing, ever-ready Dora——

Things began to happen then, starting with the faint shivering of the timbers under their feet and a blast of whistle. A door blew open on a gust of sleet.

Tom Willets slammed down the ticket grating and the straggle of travelers made stooping dives for their luggage. Katie hoisted her babies. Henry strode in, and as if shooed, the group began to move out to the ice-sheeted platform.

“Got your ticket, Dave?”

“Yep, Henry.”

“Remember us to the folks down Springfield, Dave.”

“Yep.”

“Don’t forget to give Rita that strip of red flannel, son. It’s packed under your shirts. Phil writes baby had quite another spell of croup.”

“No’m.”

“Write a body, son, and come home by the first holiday they give you. Don’t bang that shoe-box, Dave. There’s a jar of cole-slaw in it. Don’t throw the glass away. Take it to Rita for her jelly-time. There’s mustard in a separate paper for the sliced bologna, son. Plenty of it the way you like.”

How terrible. How Terrible. How TERRIBLE. Dora’s eyes laughing—at him!

“Mother!”

“I hope you put in a good dill-pickle, Mrs. Schuyler. He used to steal them for me out of your crocks and squirm through the hedge with large, green, luscious beauties for me.”

“Two of them are in there, Dave. And a bit of corned-beef to munch with the cole-slaw. He’s a great one for corned-beef and cole-slaw, Dora. Queer combination. Never saw the like.”[70]

“Corned-beef and cole-slaw,” in front of Dora, when his heart was bursting to tell her that her eyes were violets! Tears would come. Humiliated hot ones which he kept swallowing back. Corned beef——

“Goodby, Dave! I’ll be waiting.”

“Dora! Dora! goodby, Dora!”

“Goodby, son! God bless you!”

“Mother, goodby!”

“Boy! Boy! Boy!”

“Yes, Mother!”

“Goodby, son! God bless you!”

“Father—oh, Father!”

“Carry your own torch, son, for what you think is right, even if it’s a torch no bigger than a lightning-bug.”

“Yes—Father—goodby!”

“Goodby, Davey—Trina sends word, goodby, too.”

“Goodby, Katie——”

“Tell my twins goodby, Davey!”

“Goodby, youngsters!”

The train dove in then, parting the sleet like a curtain and Charlie Herkhimer sprang up out of nowhere, in furiously greasy overalls and a torch, and began poking in and out of the day-coach entrails.

“So long, Dave! Luck!”

“S’long, Charlie! Well, well! Guess I’m off Henry!”

“Yep!”

“All aboard!”

“Oh, Davey—there comes Bek!”

“Goodby, Dave! Catch! It’s a sack of chestnuts Roasted them for you this morning.”

“Thanks, Bek! Goodby, Bek!”

“Don’t eat them, son; they’re bad for your headaches Take them to Phil.”

“Mother—Father—all—Bek—Dora—Goodby!”

“Your shoe-box, son! Don’t crush! It’s lunch!”

“Wave goodby to my twins, Davey!”

“’By, twins!”

“Oh!”

Sleet bounced down against the shoulders of the little group on the platform, as the train that bore David Schuyler out of the years of his childhood, wound like snake around the end of the old South Meadow of the now historic House on Sycamore Street.

FINIS

FOOTNOTES:

[70] The night of his (David’s) election to second term (the most overwhelming landslide in the history of our country), he and Dora spent the larger part of that exciting evening quietly in my brother’s private study, viewing the street scenes of New York, Chicago and Denver through the television. Henry and Henriette, Winslow and I, and Stevey’s eldest daughter, the Senator, had flown over to New York to see the returns come in at Phil’s, who was bedridden at the time, with a broken leg, at his home in Upper Level, Park Avenue. We were all invited, however, upon our return from New York that midnight, to join Dora and David at a late snack of supper.

While wires hummed and buzzed around us, and messages the world over were pouring in, there we sat cozily sealed against it all, watching scenes in Nome, Alaska, and Bangor, Maine, through the television, and talking among ourselves. It was over corned-beef and cole-slaw, personally prepared by Dora, that my brother practically thought aloud, Henry taking it down shorthand and interpolating here and there, the first draft of an idea long discussed with Henry and which was beginning to take concrete shape in his mind.

It was his Superstate World-policy, which needs no explanation here.

_This book is set in_ Caslon Old Style _and_ Caslon Old Face _types, following the lines of those originally designed by_ WILLIAM CASLON _in the early part of the eighteenth century. Working at a time when type designing had fallen into a state of uninspired mediocrity_, CASLON, _by the beauty of his new types, did much to revitalize the art of printing. After two centuries of constant use, they are still considered the finest faces for book composition, embodying, as they do, both pleasing grace of line and maximum readability._ _The text is printed on Lorette laid stock from_ Perkins & Squier Company, _bound in glazed black Holliston vellum, stamped in art gold with linoleum-block printed sides designed by_ A.W. Rushmore. _Set, printed, and bound by the_ Haddon Craftsmen _in Camden, New Jersey, for the publishers_, HARPER & BROTHERS

Transcriber’s Notes

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.

Some of the original text was printed very close to the margin, and
in some cases, the last letter of the line was stamped twice or cut
off. Every effort was made to preserve the original intent of the
author.

While the original text was described as printed in Caslon Old Style,
the typeface for the digital copy of this book has been left at
default for readability.

p17 “yodle” changed to (used to yodel thus).
p55 “snivvle” changed to (nothing to snivel over.)
p69 Opening quote added to (“Now I lay me down to sleep.)
p84 “planging” changed to (made a great clanging sound).
p88 “whose” changed to (who’s coming home today?)
p120 Opening quote added to (“... but you cannot—make him drink,”).
p124 Double quotes changed to single in (‘The spokes in a wheel.’)
p134 “It” added to (It had about the consistency).
p186 Opening quotes removed from (It can’t be true!)
p214 Period added to (Jesse James—The Boy.)
p273 “Dolly” changed to (from Dolley Madison).
p274 “phaëton” changed to (rode into Centralia in the phaeton).
p275 “calcimime-stained” changed to (calcimine-stained, daub-faced).
p278 “manifying” changed to (without Henry’s magnifying glass.)
p290 “Panzas” changed to (like Sancho Panza on mules.)
p294 “pace” changed to (had fallen into place.)
p302 “Mathus” changed to (Malthus, it seems, was).
p345 “turnnel” changed to (funny little tunnel).
p329 “phäeton” changed to (But the Old Gentleman’s phaeton).
p378 “heir” changed to (grayed her hair.)
p406 “aeroplane-field” changed to (shine of the Tallahassee
Aeroplane Field).
p409 “didincha” changed to (why the dickens didencha say so?)
p454 “lenseless” changed to (lensless pair of Henry’s field-glasses).