Part 4 (1/2)

Oh, but it was really the best thing, Mrs. Whittaker explained in her gentle, patient voice.

”You wouldn't want to see Father go on like this,” she pointed out. Mr. Bain echoed her, as if struck with the idea. Mrs. Bain had nothing to reply to them. No, she wouldn't want to see the Old Gentleman go on like this.

Five years before, Mrs. Whittaker had decided that the Old Gentleman was getting too old to live alone with only old Annie to cook for him and look after him. It was only a question of a little time before it ”wouldn't have looked right,” his living alone, when he had his children to take care of him. Mrs. Whittaker always stopped things before they got to the stage where they didn't look right. So he had come to live with the Bains.

Some of his furniture had been sold; a few things, such as his silver, his tall clock, and the Persian rug he had bought at the Exposition, Mrs. Whittaker had found room for in her own house; and some he brought with him to the Bains'.

Mrs. Whittaker's house was much larger than her sister's, and she had three servants and no children. But, as she told her friends, she had held back and let Allie and Lewis have the Old Gentleman.

”You see,” she explained, dropping her voice to the tones reserved for not very pretty subjects, ”Allie and Lewis are-well, they haven't a great deal.”

So it was gathered that the Old Gentleman would do big things for the Bains when he came to live with them. Not exactly by paying board-it is a little too much to ask your father to pay for his food and lodging, as if he were a stranger. But, as Mrs. Whittaker suggested, he could do a great deal in the way of buying needed things for the house and keeping everything going.

And the Old Gentleman did contribute to the Bain household. He bought an electric heater and an electric fan, new curtains, storm-windows, and light-fixtures, all for his bedroom; and had a nice little bathroom for his personal use made out of the small guest-room adjoining it.

He shopped for days until he found a coffee-cup large enough for his taste; he bought several large ash-trays, and a dozen extra-size bath-towels, that Mrs. Bain marked with his initials. And every Christmas and birthday he gave Mrs. Bain a round, new, s.h.i.+ning ten-dollar gold piece. Of course, he presented gold pieces to Mrs. Whittaker, too, on like appropriate occasions. The Old Gentleman prided himself always on his fair-mindedness. He often said that he was not one to show any favoritism.

Mrs. Whittaker was Cordelia-like to her father during his declining years. She came to see him several times a month, bringing him jelly or potted hyacinths. Sometimes she sent her car and chauffeur for him, so that he might take an easy drive through the town, and Mrs. Bain might be afforded a chance to drop her cooking and accompany him. When Mrs. Whittaker was away on trips with her husband, she almost never neglected to send her father picture post-cards of various points of interest.

The Old Gentleman appreciated her affection, and took pride in her. He enjoyed being told that she was like him.

”That Hattie,” he used to tell Mrs. Bain, ”she's a fine woman-a fine woman.”

As soon as she had heard that the Old Gentleman was dying Mrs. Whittaker had come right over, stopping only to change her dress and have her dinner. Her husband was away in the woods with some men, fis.h.i.+ng. She explained to the Bains that there was no use in disturbing him-it would have been impossible for him to get back that night. As soon as-well, if anything happened she would telegraph him, and he could return in time for the funeral.

Mrs. Bain was sorry that he was away. She liked her ruddy, jovial, loud-voiced brother-in-law.

”It's too bad that Clint couldn't be here,” she said, as she had said several times before. ”He's so fond of cider,” she added.

”Father,” said Mrs. Whittaker, ”was always very fond of Clint.” Already the Old Gentleman had slipped into the past tense.

”Everybody likes Clint,” Mr. Bain stated.

He was included in the ”everybody.” The last time he had failed in business, Clint had given him the clerical position he had since held over at the brush works. It was pretty generally understood that this had been brought about through Mrs. Whittaker's intervention, but still they were Clint's brush works, and it was Clint who paid him his salary. And forty dollars a week is indubitably forty dollars a week.

”I hope he'll be sure and be here in time for the funeral,” said Mrs. Bain. ”It will be Wednesday morning, I suppose, Hat?”

Mrs. Whittaker nodded.

”Or perhaps around two o'clock Wednesday afternoon,” she amended. ”I always think that's a nice time. Father has his frock coat, Allie?”

”Oh, yes,” Mrs. Bain said eagerly. ”And it's all clean and lovely. He has everything. Hattie, I noticed the other day at Mr. Newton's funeral they had more of a blue necktie on him, so I suppose they're wearing them-Mollie Newton always has everything just so. But I don't know--”

”I think,” said Mrs. Whittaker firmly, ”that there is nothing lovelier than black for an old gentleman.”

”Poor Old Gentleman,” said Mr. Bain, shaking his head. ”He would have been eighty-five if he just could have lived till next September. Well, I suppose it's all for the best.”

He took a small draft of cider and another cooky.

”A wonderful, wonderful life,” summarized Mrs. Whittaker. ”And a wonderful, wonderful old gentleman.”

”Well, I should say so,” said Mrs. Bain. ”Why, up to the last year he was as interested in everything! It was, 'Allie, how much do you have to give for your eggs now?' and 'Allie, why don't you change your butcher?-this one's robbing you,' and 'Allie, who was that you were talking to on the telephone?' all day long! Everybody used to speak of it.”

”And he used to come to the table right up to this stroke,” Mr. Bain related, chuckling reminiscently. ”My, he used to raise Cain when Allie didn't cut up his meat fast enough to suit him. Always had a temper, I'll tell you, the Old Gentleman did. Wouldn't stand for us having anybody in to meals-he didn't like that worth a cent. Eighty-four years old, and sitting right up there at the table with us!”

They vied in telling instances of the Old Gentleman's intelligence and liveliness, as parents cap one another's anecdotes of precocious children.

”It's only the past year that he had to be helped up- and downstairs,” said Mrs. Bain. ”Walked up-stairs all by himself, and more than eighty years old!”

Mrs. Whittaker was amused.

”I remember you said that once when Clint was here,” she remarked, ”and Clint said, 'Well, if you can't walk up-stairs by the time you're eighty, when are you going to learn?' ”

Mrs. Bain smiled politely, because her brother-in-law had said it. Otherwise she would have been shocked and wounded.

”Yes, sir,” said Mr. Bain. ”Wonderful.”

”The only thing I could have wished,” Mrs. Bain said, after a pause-”I could have wished he'd been a little different about Paul. Somehow I've never felt quite right since Paul went into the navy.”

Mrs. Whittaker's voice fell into the key used for the subject that has been gone over and over and over again.

”Now, Allie,” she said, ”you know yourself that was the best thing that could have happened. Father told you that himself, often and often. Paul was young, and he wanted to have all his young friends running in and out of the house, banging doors and making all sorts of racket, and it would have been a terrible nuisance for father. You must realize that father was more than eighty years old, Allie.”

”Yes, I know,” Mrs. Bain said. Her eyes went to the photograph of her son in his seaman's uniform, and she sighed.

”And besides,” Mrs. Whittaker pointed out triumphantly, ”now that Miss Chester's here in Paul's room, there wouldn't have been any room for him. So you see!”

There was rather a long pause. Then Mrs. Bain edged toward the other thing that had been weighing upon her.

”Hattie,” she said, ”I suppose-I suppose we'd ought to let Matt know?”

”I shouldn't,” said Mrs. Whittaker composedly. She always took great pains with her ”shall's” and ”will's.” ”I only hope that he doesn't see it in the papers in time to come on for the funeral. If you want to have your brother turn up drunk at the services, Allie, I don't.”

”But I thought he'd straightened up,” said Mr. Bain. ”Thought he was all right since he got married.”

”Yes, I know, I know, Lewis,” Mrs. Whittaker said wearily. ”I've heard all about that. All I say is, I know what Matt is.”

”John Loomis was telling me,” reported Mr. Bain, ”he was going through Akron, and he stopped off to see Matt. Said they had a nice little place, and he seemed to be getting along fine. Said she seemed like a cracker-jack housekeeper.”

Mrs. Whittaker smiled.

”Yes,” she said, ”John Loomis and Matt were always two of a kind-you couldn't believe a word either of them said. Probably she did seem to be a good housekeeper. I've no doubt she acted the part very well. Matt never made any bones of the fact that she was on the stage once, for almost a year. Excuse me from having that woman come to Father's funeral. If you want to know what I think, I think that Matt marrying a woman like that had a good deal to do with hastening Father's death.”

The Bains sat in awe.

”And after all Father did for Matt, too,” added Mrs. Whittaker, her voice shaken.

”Well, I should think so,” Mr. Bain was glad to agree. I remember how the Old Gentleman used to try and help Matt get along. He'd go down, like it was to Mr. Fuller, that time Matt was working at the bank, and he'd explain to him, 'Now, Mr. Fuller,' he'd say, 'I don't know whether you know it, but this son of mine has always been what you might call the black sheep of the family. He's been kind of a drinker,' he'd say, 'and he's got himself into trouble a couple of times, and if you'd just keep an eye on him, so's to see he keeps straight, it'd be a favor to me.'