The room was dusty and disorderly, for the old housekeeper was as contented as her employer and put first things first, to wit, excellent cooking. But Mr. Struthers, as did the other teachers and all the boys, thought the parlor the most comfortable and serene room in the world, in spite of red rep draperies which sagged and old furniture which did likewise, and a rug that always crunched underfoot with crumbs or fine soot or plain, honest soil. “It’s about a boy, Mr. Englebert,” said young Mr. Struthers. “I’m worried about him.”
“Take a dose of baking soda,” murmured Mr. Englebert, waving a fat hand in the direction of the kitchen. He opened both his eyes after a moment. “What is the hellion up to now?”
“He’s not up to anything, sir,” said the teacher, startled. He was practically new at the school, and so did not know that it was part of his employer’s philosophy that when a teacher was worried about a student that student had been engaged in malicious mischief, a theory that usually proved correct. “He’s an exceptionally good boy in many ways.”
Mr. Englebert, grunting, sat upright with considerable suddenness. “A good boy, eh? What’s wrong with the rascal? Never saw a good boy yet who wasn’t a limb of Satan and a potential danger to his fellow men. Don’t stare at me. And,” he added, in a sinister tone, “if you were a good boy yourself, you’d better resign.”
Mr. Struthers, who was very earnest and, very serious, colored and laughed sheepishly. “Now,” said Mr. Englebert, “I can tell you of real deviltry boys can do, especially boys with imagination. I ought to know. I did it, myself.”
He then told Mr. Struthers some of the more appalling acts of his boyhood, thus deftly putting to work his theory that a man should solve his own problems. Mr. Struthers was entranced by the stories but secretly aghast. “And we used to get hell whaled out of us,” said Mr. Englebert with immense satisfaction. “It did us good. None of this New Progress nonsense you’re beginning to hear about, and the delicate natures of children. Children are barbarians, and tanning their hides, instead of ‘understanding’ them, does more for their immortal souls than all the milky lectures you can pour on their nasty heads. They don’t listen, anyway; they just think you’re a fool if you don’t take direct action on direct transgressions of the law. All right. All right. What’s bothering you, boy?” He sighed; he would have to listen, after all.
“It’s Gregory Enger, who’s fourteen, you may remember.”
Mr. Englebert was all interest now. He nodded, and his three pink chins nodded also. He thought of Edward. He puffed at his cigar.
“Gregory’s a lively, vigorous boy,” said Mr. Struthers. “He’s assistant editor, as you know, on the school magazine.”
Mr. Englebert chuckled. “I think I remember some of those sketches and jokes of his. Damned clever. There was one about me, I believe. I clipped it out. Damned clever.”
Mr. Struthers sighed with relief. “Yes. He tells me he’s supposed to be concentrating on serious literature, majoring in it. And there isn’t a serious sinew in his soul. Full of fun. And he can write! Perhaps his stories are what some people would call trivial, but I call them witty. Why wit isn’t considered as valuable as serious writing is something I never knew. You know, sir, you don’t hear much real laughter, even among children. Europeans call us frivolous, but I don’t know of a more serious country—”
Mr. Englebert nodded. “And that makes us sinister, in the most awfully innocent sense. Remember the Puritans? I’ve just been thinking about them, and how, in spite of the Founding Fathers, they’ve come damn close to ruining America. Funny,” he said reflectively. “You’re beginning to hear more and more about the separation of Church and State, these days, and people clamoring to take God out of the public schools, even a little prayer once in a while. Seems like they think the separation-of-Church-and-State clause was put in the Bill of Rights to protect Protestants from Catholics. But it was just the reverse. Maryland and the Carolinas were mostly settled by Catholics, and then the Puritan influence began to seep down from the New England States, and the Catholics got all alarmed, and why not? They saw a grim Puritan State descending on them, and persecuting ’em, and depriving them of their rights. So they got the old boys in Philadelphia, framing the Constitution, to put in that Article, as their defense against the fellows with the zeal. I always did hate zeal. It’s burned more witches, razed more churches, and started more wars than anything else in the world. You try to civilize men and suggest that they stop killing their brothers with fists and guns and murderous tongues and oppression, and then up come the zealots, all afire, with some goddamn mystique or other, and hell breaks loose. Well, about this Gregory Enger who’s putting lines in your forehead, eh?”
“Well, sir, the boy has a comic and satirical gift, and it’s precious. In my opinion, if you’ll pardon me—”
“Why should I pardon you?” demanded Mr. Englebert, roundly. “Why should a teacher grovel and beg for pardons, when he dares to express his own opinion? He’s got a right, too, hasn’t he? To his own opinion?”
Mr. Struthers remembered another school where the opinions of teachers were regarded with scorn and were repressed. He smiled at Mr. Englebert with gratitude and took a deep breath and sat up.
“I’ll make it short, sir. I’ve talked with Gregory. He’s told me that his brother Edward and his parents think he is a budding Dante or Hugo or Tolstoy. Especially his brother.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Englebert. “Y’know, I’m beginning to be sorry for that big Edward.”
“I never met him,” said Mr. Struthers, flatly.
“A sort of Colossus of Rhodes with nothing to straddle, and that’s a tragedy. There’s an old friend of mine in Waterford, name of George Enreich, who recommended this school to Eddie Enger for his brother. He tells me that if there was ever a man dedicated to an illusion, Eddie Enger is that man, and there’s nothing more pathetic.”
“I think Gregory Enger is pathetic,” said Mr. Struthers, resolutely. “From what he says, that brother of his must be a combination Torquemada and Oliver Cromwell.”
“Tut, tut, my boy. Children are naturally liars, most deliberately so. And they’re whiners, too. They want to stand as shining little creatures always oppressed by unfeeling parents, or teachers, or somebody. Truth is, most of the time they’re monsters, and they want to get away with being monsters, so they look for a shoulder to weep on. Only fools believe them for a minute.”
“Well,” said Mr. Struthers, “I usually take what the boys say with a handful of salt. After all,” he added, with a shy smile, “I remember my own childhood very well and the well-deserved beltings I used to get. But I think, in this case, that Gregory’s complaints have some verity. I persuaded him to show me one of his brother’s letters. The boy was particularly proud of a jocular poem he had written for the school paper. He has quite a sense of humor, mature, too. So he sent the poem to his family, and his brother wrote him in reply. A brutal letter. He was to stop that nonsense and get down to serious work at once. A threat was implied. Gregory loves this school; his brother threatens that if he hears any more of Gregory ‘wasting his time,’ he’ll remove him from here and send him to a better school.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Englebert, “I’m beginning to feel sorry for Edward.” He smoked thoughtfully. “People a-mussin’ in other people’s lives.” He stroked his cat. “Making them better or making them worse: hard to tell apart. Why can’t we leave each other alone, eh, Tom? But that’s too much to expect; that requires intelligence, and some decent respect for others.”
He was much disturbed. He did not slide contentedly back into his drowse. He drank some coffee, muttering again. “No use calling that Enger fella in and telling him what he’s doing to young Gregory. He told me himself that Gregory was a genius, and he said it with a sort of vengefulness—ah, well, send Gregory in to see me at once. I’d like to find out what the whole thing means.”
Gregory, dark and alert and conspicuously neat if not elegant, entered soon
afterward, alone. Mr. Englebert studied him. He saw Gregory’s keen and lively eyes, his broad yet somehow evasive face, his features which subtly just missed the lines of strength. But there was a look of gay malice about this fourteen-year-old boy, and a volatility, and, thought Mr. Englebert, an air of dependence in spite of the knowingness. Mr. Englebert was very wary of dependent and knowing people; he believed them to be dangerous, for their weakness and cunning could be used against others, and by others.
“Sit down, boy,” said Mr. Englebert, waving at the coffee tray and cups. “Cakes, too. Don’t eat ’em all, though. You fellows have no floors to your bellies.”
His manner was so kind, so genial, that Gregory forgot his apprehension at being summoned here, and employed himself eagerly at the trays.
“I thought we’d have a talk,” said the schoolmaster, watching the youth. “Oh, not about your high or low marks. They don’t signify much, one way or another. Remember my own school days; the brightest boys turned out to be bookkeepers or clerks later; the dull boys, or the boys the teachers thought were dull, are the ones now splashing around in golden fountains, or writing the great books or painting the fine pictures or managing big corporations. There was our mathematical genius—but no, I won’t tell you about him. Makes me wince, even after all these years. All right, now. Sit down and let’s have a talk. I hear your family thinks you’re going to write the great American novel one of these days. Somewhat in the manner of Tolstoy, I understand. I never did get through War and Peace. Well? You’re another Tolstoy, eh?”
Gregory’s face became darkly sullen. He murmured, “Yes, sir.”
“Now, where would they get that idea, boy?”
Gregory considered, and slowly his cheeks became suffused. Mr. Englebert shook a finger at him, when he remained silent. “Could be you, eh?”
The youth tried to shrug in his discomfiture. “Well—no. I can write, sir. Mr. Struthers says I can, and so did my other teachers. I was always scribbling, since I first started to write, as a little kid. I was in the second grade when my teacher told my mother I was a natural writer. But to my mother a writer means a Goethe or a Dostoievski. Not what she’d call a scribbler. She doesn’t read magazines or any light books. Just the heavy kind. So to her a writer—is a writer. It’s very complicated,” he added dismally. “You just couldn’t explain to my mother. She’s not the kind you can explain things to. She takes her family very seriously. You see, she was a Von Brunner. If I could write, and the teachers told her I could, I was a Writer, with a capital W, sir.”
“Um,” said Mr. Englebert. “Did she ever read some of your writing recently? The kind you publish in our paper?”
Gregory was puzzled. He stared at Mr. Englebert as if in surprise. “Why, yes, sir, sure she did! And that’s funny, too. She didn’t write me that I was wasting my time, as my brother Ed did. I never thought of that before! It’s Ed that’s the trouble. He’s down on all of us—”
The nostrils of his big nose flared with resentment, and his eyes became vivid with spite. But Mr. Englebert said with great quietness, “How old is your brother? Only nineteen? Now, a man, and particularly such a young man, does not wake up one bright morning and announce firmly to his brother, namely you, that that brother is going to be a famous novelist in the grand manner. No. Someone gave him those opinions of you. The point is, who was it? We won’t discuss your mother’s belief that all writing must be deadly ‘serious.’ Boys never listen to their mothers, anyway, so we won’t accuse Ma right at this minute. Go on.”
Gregory suddenly laughed with ruefulness. “All right, sir. After what my teachers said, there was a family talk. But Ma does believe her family has more brains than—well, than our neighbors’ families. She hates mediocrity. Then Pa gets all enthusiastic. ‘It’s in the Von Brunner blood, to be a genius,’ he says, and looks at Ma in the kind of foolish proud way he has. And Ma goes on sewing or knitting, or whatever she’s always doing. Like she takes things for granted. But you never know what Ma thinks.”
He drew a deep breath. His color was higher. “I remember all about it. We had that discussion; I got the school prize for this composition, you see. Ma read it and said, ‘It is very good. It is very original.’ And Pa stands up and reads it aloud. With gestures. With tears in his eyes. He’s always getting tears in his eyes. And he turns to Ed and says, ‘And so, we have another genius, my Eddie, as well as David and Sylvia.’ Dave and Sylvia are older than me. My younger brother, Ralph, is the youngest, and he hadn’t begun to paint yet.”
Gregory paused. He laced his fingers together, and stared at them with discomfiture. “I guess I got the idea then and there that I was someone special. Well, maybe I am; I can write better than other people; I know that, and I don’t mean to be modest about it. So, I was someone special, to the whole family. They all got excited, except Ma, who kept on sewing or knitting, and Ed, who’s sort of lumpy. Then Ma said, ‘Certainly, our Gregory is talented, but he must work to become truly so.’ And Pa said, ‘Yes, he must study, and be dedicated!’ ‘Dedicated’ is one of Pa’s favorite words, sir.”
“I see,” said Mr. Englebert, wryly. “But I am wondering if he didn’t mean your brother was to be dedicated.”
“What, sir? Please?” asked Gregory, baffled.
Mr. Englebert waved his hand. “Never mind. Go on. I’m beginning to understand, a little. The mother, convinced her son has a gift—if he is willing to develop it. The father convinced that all the Von Brunners are geniuses, not just gifted. They can’t help but be! What a history of meek frustration.”
Gregory eyed him doubtfully. “Well, sir, anyway, it was a lot of fun, and excitement, feeling important. Besides, being geniuses got us a lot of privileges. We didn’t have to do the dirty chores and things. We just had to study, and Ma kept after us there.”
“And your brother, Ed, believed you were all geniuses?”
“Ed? Oh, Ed. Sure he did.” Gregory’s voice rose on a vindictive note. “He says to Ma, and I can just hear it now as if he was saying it this minute, ‘You think Greg is a genius?’ You see, sir, they’re awfully much alike—Ma and Ed—though I didn’t see it until right now. And Ma says, ‘He is very talented.’ And Pa screams I’m a genius. So there it was. And old Garlic and Pickles gets after us, then, and he won’t ever leave us alone. He won’t let us forget we’re geniuses, the kind Pa thinks we are. It isn’t as if he’s our father, or something. We used to call him the Dummy. I’m kind of ashamed of that, now. I guess he isn’t a dummy—” But Gregory’s expression was still vindictive.
“Hardly,” said Mr. Englebert, dryly. “It is your brother Ed, I believe, who is paying your fees in this school and supporting all the rest of the family, too.”
Gregory was vexed, obscurely. “All he can do is make money—”
“A most remarkable and most useful talent, and eminently respectable and admirable,” said Mr. Englebert. “I hope you are not going to add to your—shall we call it stupidity?—by sneering at money and the men who have the genius to make it. After all, you are living on that genius. Or do you think being a parasite is meritorious?”
Gregory, smarting, exclaimed, “But I am—talented, sir! I don’t intend to be a parasite. I can write; Mr. Struthers said I can, and all sorts of things.”
“And I believe Mr. Struthers,” said the schoolmaster gravely. “Though I’m not sure I believe you entirely. I believe you believe you are telling the truth, but there’s something missing out of the whole picture. The missing quantity that I can’t see very clearly, though I feel it is there. Have you anything else to say?”
Gregory became very excited. “Ed rubs it in every chance he gets! ‘I’ve been working for you all my life,’ he says, ‘and you’re not going to fritter away my work and your gift.’ He keeps on saying it all the time. It’s become a sort of—a sort of—threat—”
“A threat?” asked Mr. Englebert, gently.
“Yes, sir! That’s what it is. A threat! But what threat?” He pondere
d, and his mobile hands twitched. “I’ve just thought of something. I think Ed hates us. What he thought about us never seemed important before, but now it does, and I don’t know why.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if he did hate you,” said Mr. Englebert, and sighed. He reflected. “I don’t know what we can do about all this. You’ve done more than help to convince your brother you are a genius. And so I gather that nothing would seem so catastrophic as informing your brother of your real, if lesser, talent. He would think your talent meaner than what he’s now convinced it is—genius. He wouldn’t consider your authentic and sprightly gift a gift at all.” He regarded the boy and thought, Volatile, but no valor. He would not fight silently and strongly for himself or for anyone. His fight would be in the dark, and slyly, and there would be no large abstraction in it but only a personal malice.
“I think, Gregory, that you should become full editor of the school magazine when Johnson is graduated in June. That is all I can do for you. The rest you must do for yourself.”
Gregory stood up, feeling dismissed. “There’s something you don’t know, sir, about Ed. There’s something terrible about him. I don’t know how, but there is.”
“I have no doubt at all,” said Mr. Englebert. “I have no doubt. A man who insists on giving another what he says he wants is truly terrible. Good-by.”
CHAPTER X
The small public library on Winston Street in Waterford closed promptly at six on Saturdays, and it was now fifteen minutes to the hour. Most of the men and women and children had already left; the tired librarians and their assistants were gathering up books left on the long, splintered oak tables. “The salaries are bad enough,” one elderly lady said to another, “and it’s a calamity when you tear a three-cornered rip in your second best white lawn shirtwaist sleeve, catching it on a splinter at the edge of the tables.”