His Family by Ernest Poole (popular ebook readers txt) 📕

glancing at Deborah’s back, he saw that she was tired. It was nearly midnight, but still she kept working doggedly on, moving her shoulder muscles at times as though to shake off aches and pains, then bending again to her labor, her fight against such heavy odds in the winter just beginning for those children in the tenements. He recalled a fragment of the appeal she had made to him only the month before:

“Can’t you see that we’re all of us stunned, and trying to see what war will mean to all the children in the world? And while we’re groping, groping, can’t we give each other a hand?”

And as he looked at his daughter, she made him think of her grandmother, as she had so often done before. For Deborah, too, was a pioneer. She, too, had lived in the wilderness. Clearing roads through jungles? Yes. And freeing slaves of ignorance and building a nation of new men. And now she was doggedly fighting to save what she had builded⁠—not from the raids of the Indians but from the ravages of this war which was sweeping civilization aside. With her school behind her, so to speak, she stood facing this great enemy with stern and angry, steady eyes. Her pioneer grandmother come to life.

So, with the deep craving which was a part of his inmost self, Roger tried to bind together what was old and what was new. But his thoughts grew vague and drifting. He realized how weary he was, and said good night and went to bed. There, just before he fell asleep, again he had a feeling of relief at the knowledge that one at least in the family was to be rich this year. With a guilty sensation he shook off the thought, and within a few moments after that his harsh regular breathing was heard in the room.

XXVI

It was only a few days later that Edith arrived with her children.

Roger met her at the train at eight o’clock in the evening. The fast mountain express of the summer had been taken off some time before, so Edith had had to be up at dawn and to change cars several times on the trip. “She’ll be worn out,” he thought as he waited. The train was late. As he walked about the new station, that monstrous sparkling hive of travel with its huge halls and passageways, its little village of shops underground and its bewildering levels for trains, he remembered the interest Bruce had shown in watching this immense puzzle worked out, the day and night labor year after year without the stopping of a train, this mighty symbol of the times, of all the glorious power and speed in an age that had been as the breath to his nostrils. How Bruce had loved the city! As Roger paced slowly back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back, there came over his heavy visage a look of affection and regret which made even New Yorkers glance at him as they went nervously bustling by. From time to time he smiled to himself. “The Catskills will be Central Park! All this city needs is speed!”

But suddenly he remembered that Bruce had always been here before to meet his wife and children, and that Edith on her approaching train must be dreading her arrival. And when at last the train rolled in, and he spied her shapely little head in the oncoming throng of travellers, Roger saw by her set steady smile and the strained expression on her face that he had guessed right. With a quick surge of compassion he pressed forward, kissed her awkwardly, squeezed her arm, then hastily greeted the children and hurried away to see to the trunks. That much of it was over. And to his relief, when they reached the house, Edith busied herself at once in helping the nurse put the children to bed. Later he came up and told her that he had had a light supper prepared.

“Thank you, dear,” she answered, “it was so thoughtful in you. But I’m too tired to eat anything.” And then with a little assuring smile, “I’ll be all right⁠—I’m going to bed.”

“Good night, child, get a fine long sleep.”

And Roger went down to his study, feeling they had made a good start.

“What has become of Martha?” Edith asked her father at breakfast the next morning.

“She left last month to be married,” he said.

“And Deborah hasn’t replaced her yet?” In her voice was such a readiness for hostility toward her sister, that Roger shot an uneasy glance from under his thick grayish brows.

“Has Deborah left the house?” he asked, to gain time for his answer. Edith’s small lip slightly curled.

“Oh, yes, long ago,” she replied. “She had just a moment to see the children and then she had to be off to school⁠—to her office, I mean. With so many schools on her hands these days, I don’t wonder she hasn’t had time for the servants.”

“No, no, you’re mistaken,” he said. “That isn’t the trouble, it’s not her fault. In fact it was all my idea.”

“Your idea,” she retorted, in an amused affectionate tone. And Roger grimly gathered himself. It would he extremely difficult breaking his unpleasant news.

“Yes,” he answered. “You see this damnable war abroad has hit me in my business.”

“Oh, father! How?” she asked him. In an instant she was all alert. “You don’t mean seriously?” she said.

“Yes, I do,” he answered, and he began to tell her why. But she soon grew impatient. Business details meant nothing to Edith. “I see,” she kept saying, “yes, yes, I see.” She wanted him to come to the point.

“So I’ve had to mortgage the house,” he concluded. “And for very little money, my dear. And a good deal of that⁠—” he cleared his throat⁠—“had to go back into the business.”

“I see,” said Edith mechanically. Her mind was already far away, roving over her plans