The Second Generation

ation of his conviction that his calamity was unjust; Adelaide and her mother, of their conviction that in the end it could not but be well with Arthur. For Hiram there was no consolation

ky gullies between. That rough, rude way, however, was the single way open to him here. Whenever it had become necessary for him to be firm with those he loved, it had rarely been possible for him to do right in the right way; he had usually been forced to do right in the wrong way-to hide h

bitter medicine upon his son, the cure for a disease for which he was himself responsible; he could see his son's look and could no

akness; he would endure, and go forward. His wife understood him by a kind of intuition which, like most of our insight into the true natures of those close about us, was a gradual permeation fr

her tone unintentionally made Hiram feel more than ever as if he had senten

right, maybe," she hastened to add, "though"-this wistfully, in a feminine and maternal subtlety of laying the first lines for sapping and min

uncompromisingly, "and to be busy about foolis

e shallow, comfortable philosophy of most people-those "go easys" and "do nothings" and "get nowheres" wherewith Saint X and the surrounding country we

the worst, though it looks the worst. The boy's got brains.

pression w

him to get some clothes that won't look ridiculous." He paused, then added; "A man that ain'

ed, he thought of giving literature's road to distinction the preference over the several others that must be smooth before him. Daylight put these imaginings into silly countenance, and he felt silly for having lingered in their company, even in the dark. As he dressed he had much less than his wonted content with himself. He did not take the same satisfaction in his clothes, as evidence of his good taste, or in his admired variations of the fashion of wea

rsonal superiority, suddenly slipped from under him. With a rueful smile at his plight, he said: "The governor has called me down." Then, resentfully, and with a return of his mood of dignity outraged and pride tr

ar. When clear of the town he "took it out" on his horse, using whip and spur until it gripped the bit and ran away. He fought savagely with it; at a turn in the road it slipped and fell, all but carrying him under. He was in such a frenzy that if he had had a pistol he would have shot it. The chemical action of his crisis precipitated in a black mass all the poison his nature had been a

he resentment that had gone too deep to be ejected in an instant, he added: "But that doesn't excuse him." His father was to blame for the whole ugly business-for his plight within and without. Still, fixing the blame was obviously unimportant beside the problem of the way ou

Arthur, isn't it

xercise, being by nature as lazy, luxurious, and self-indulgent physically as she was alert and industrious mentally. From October to July she ate and drank about what she pleased, never set foot upon the ground if she could help it, and held her tendency to hips in check by

into a cordial smile; and at once that ugly mass of precipitate

a fall, ha

ble meaning that stung him. She turned; they walked together. After a brief debate as to the time for confessing his "fall," which, at best, could remain a secret no longer than Monday, he chose the present. "Father's begun to cut up rough," sa

he fundamental difference in the characters of the two men. Both were iron of will; but there was in Whitney-and not in Hiram-a selfishness that took the form of absolute indifference to anything and everything which did not directly concern himself-his business or his physical comfort. Thus his wife had had her way in all matters of the social career, and he would have forced upon her the whole responsibility for

favorably to his children. As the bills grew heavier and heavier, from year to year, with the wife and two children assiduously expanding them, he paid none the less cheerfully. "There is some satisfaction in paying up fo

ody can do anything with father; he's narrow and obstinate. If you

-the familiar means by which the heartless cheat themselves into a reputation for heart. She always left the objects of her benevolence the poorer for her ministrations, though they did not realize it. She adopted as the guiding principle of her life the cynical philosophy-"Give people what they want, never what they need." By sympathizing effusively with those

she ministered soothingly unto his vanity. His father was altogether wrong, tyrannical,

instant his father had shown the teeth and claws of tyranny, instead of being an impulse of ju

ck. You ought to be more than considerate. And, also, you should be car

e accepted the other conditions of his environment-all to which he was born and in which consisted his title to be regarded as of the "upper classes," like his associates at Harvard. Thinking now on the insinuated proposition t

and, while she felt that it would be an outrage for Hiram Ranger to cut off his son for making what she regarded as the beginning of the highest career, the career of "gentlema

aid he, "but I guess you're right. I must not forg

anet; Mrs. Whitney he

man of property some day, and you will need to know enough about business to be able to supervise the managers of your estate. You kn

*

ut in his struggle not to show his feelings he exaggerated his pose into a seeming of bored indifference. The door of his father's private room was open; there sat Hiram, absorbed in dictating to a stenographer. When his son appeared

his father was shrinking as a criminal from the branding iron, that every nerve in that huge, powerful, seemingly impassive body was in torture from this

her, turning his face toward his boy bu

rew. Hiram sat nerving himself, his distress accentuating the stern strength

l do for the office," said Art

sneer of a tyrant. "It's run from the mill. It prospers-it always has prospered-because I work with the men. I know what

he would master the business, would gather such knowledge as might be necessary successfully to direct it, and would bestow that knowledge in the humble, out-of-the-way corner of his mind befitti

ant me to do?"

better learn barrel-making first," said he. He rose. "I'll take you to the foreman of the cooperage, and to-

that great enterprise, the part that in a way was not without appeal to the imagination, he felt that he might gradually have accustomed himself to it; but to be put into

ooking men slaving in torn and patched and stained clothing. He did not look at the foreman as his father was introducing them and igno

s attributing the cold and vacant stare to stupidity. "A regular damn dude," he was saying to himself. "As soon as the old man's gone, some fellow with brains'll do him out of the busines

d: "I reckon that's about all we can do to-day. You'd better go to Black and Peters's and get you some clo

was performing a cruelly painful operation, must have caused some part of what he felt to penetrate to the young man; for, instead of burs

ne?" ask

cked himself from going on to explain that he thought it would mean a waste

"Most of what we've got is invested here. Who's to look after y

t to learn the management," said Arthur, "

the most priggish ignorance. "There's only one way to learn," said he quietly. "That's the way I've marked out for yo

onventional people on earth. What would it avail to be in character the refined person in the community and in position the admired person, if he spent his days at menial toil and wore the livery of labor? He knew Janet Whitney would blush as she bowed to him, and that she wouldn't bow to him unless she we

simplest, most expensive-looking, most unpractical-looking white. From hat to heels she was the embodiment of luxurious, "ladylike" idleness, the kind that not only is idle itself, but also, being beautiful, attractive, and compel

" she

. "And he's got me on the hip. I don't dare treat him as he deserves. If I did, he's got just devil enou

which had sprung up as if by magic. Across it she studied him with a pain in her hear

so?" he

h his own." Then she softened this by add

etorted her brother.

ted. "We haven't any right to

we're living o

itatingly. "I've never thought it ou

s to a certain station-to a certain way of living. It's his duty in

that if parents bring their children up to be the right sort-useful and decent and a credit," said she, "the

will giving it all to you, Del," he said, affecting the mann

e should raise the question at a time when raising it

o take care of money. And you'd see it; and the will would stand. Oh, you'd see it! I know human nature. If it was a small estate-in those cases brothers and sisters always act generously-no, not always. Some of 'em, lots of 'em, quarrel and fight over a few pie

she replied gently; "but I hope I'd not be made al

and it'd seem just. You'd only be obeying a dead father's last wishes and guard

kness and of fright; for his presentation of the other side of the case made her afraid of what she might do, or be tempted to do, in the circumstances he pictured. She knew she wouldn't-at least, not so long as she remained the person she then was. But how long would that be? How many

that he wasn't really to blame; that, but for his father's harshness toward him, he would never have had such sinister thoughts about him or Adelaide.

ried, his brain confused, his blood on fire. "I don't care what you do. Cut me off! M

owly, like a statue falling, he stiffly tilted forward, crashed at full length face downward on the floor. He lay as he had fallen, breathing heavily, h