National Avenue - Booth Tarkington (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📗

said. Her husband, a gentle, submissive old man, was frail and bent with his years, though they had brought him great worldly prosperity; and the grandchildren of this couple never spoke of the house as “Grandpa Savage’s,” but always as “Grandma Savage’s,” an intuitive discrimination that revealed the rulership. Mrs. Savage ruled by means of a talent she had for destructive criticism, which several times prevented her optimistic husband from venturing into ruin, and had established her as the voice of wisdom.

“Daniel,” she said presently;⁠—“you’re not eating.”

“Yes, I am, grandma.”

“No. Ever since you came to the table, you’ve been sitting there with your head bent down like that and moving your hands to pretend you’re eating, but not eating. What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothin’,” he muttered, not lifting his head. “I’m all right.”

“Adelaide,” Mrs. Savage said to his mother;⁠—“has his appetite been failing lately?”

“Why, no, mamma,” Mrs. Oliphant answered. She was a pretty woman, quietly cheerful and little given to alarms or anxieties. “Not seriously,” she added, smiling. “He did very well at lunch, at least.”

“He looks sickish,” said Mrs. Savage grimly. “He looks as if he were beginning a serious illness. Well people don’t sit with their heads down like that. What is the matter with you, Daniel?”

“Nothin’,” he said. “I told you I’m all right.”

“He isn’t though,” Mrs. Savage insisted, addressing the others. “Do you know what’s the matter with him, Harlan?”

“Too much glue, I expect.”

“What?”

“Too much glue,” Harlan repeated. “He was playing with a lot of nasty glue and paint all afternoon, and I expect the smell’s made him sick. Too much glue and too much Jew.”

“Jew?” his grandmother inquired. “What do you mean by ‘too much Jew,’ Harlan?”

“He had a dirty little bowlegged Jew playing with him.”

“See here!” Dan said huskily, but he did not look up. “You be careful!”

“Careful of what?” Harlan inquired scornfully.

“Careful of what you say.”

“Daniel, were you playing with a Jew?” his grandmother asked.

“Yes, I was.”

He still did not look up, but his voice had a tone, plaintive and badgered, that attracted the attention of his grandfather, and the old gentleman interposed soothingly: “Don’t let ’em fret you, Dannie. It wasn’t particularly wicked of you to play with a Jew, I expect.”

“No,” said Dan’s father. “I don’t believe I’d let myself be much worried over that, if I were you, Dan.”

“No?” said Mrs. Savage, and inquired further, somewhat formidably: “You don’t prefer your sons to choose companions from their own circle, Henry Oliphant?”

“Oh, yes, I do, ma’am,” he returned amiably. “As a general thing I believe it’s better for them to be intimate with the children of their mother’s and father’s old family friends; but at the same time I hope Dan and Harlan won’t forget that we live in a country founded on democratic principles. The population seems to me to begin to show signs of altering with emigration from Europe; and it’s no harm for the boys to know something of the new elements, though for that matter we’ve always had Jews, and they’re certainly not bad citizens. I don’t see any great harm in Dan’s playing a little with a Jewish boy, if he wants to.”

“I wasn’t playin’,” Dan said.

“Weren’t you?” his father asked. “What were you doing?”

“We were⁠—we were manufacturing. We were manufacturing useful articles.”

“What were they?”

“Ornamental brackets to nail on walls and put things on. We were goin’ to make good money out of it.”

“Well, that was all right,” Mr. Oliphant said genially. “Not a bad idea at all. You’re all right, Dannie.”

Unfortunately, a word of sympathy often undermines the composure of the recipient; and upon this Dan’s lower lip began to quiver, though he inclined his head still farther to conceal the new tokens of his agitation.

He was not aided by his coolly observant young brother. “Going to cry about it?” Harlan asked, quietly amused.

“You let Dannie alone,” said the grandfather; whereupon Harlan laughed. “You ought to see what he and his little Jew partner called brackets!” he said. “Dan’s always thinking he’s making something, and it’s always something just awful. What he and that Sam Kohn were really making today was a horrible mess of our summerhouse. It’ll take a week’s work for somebody to get it cleaned up, and he got mad at me and was going to hit me because mamma sent me to tell him to come in the house and get ready for dinner.”

“I did not,” Dan muttered.

“You didn’t? Didn’t you act like you were going to hit me?”

“Yes,” Dan said. “But it wasn’t because what you say. It was because you called Sam names.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did!” And now Dan looked up, showing eyes that glistened along the lower lids. “You⁠—you hurt his feelings.”

Harlan had the air of a self-contained person who begins to be exasperated by a persistent injustice, and he appealed to the company. “I told him time and again mamma wanted him to come in and get ready to come here for dinner, and he simply wouldn’t do it.”

Mrs. Savage shook her head. “I’ve always told you,” she said to her daughter, “you’ll repent bitterly some day for your lack of discipline with your children. You’re not raising them the way I raised mine, and some day⁠—”

But Harlan had not finished his explanation. “So, after I waited and waited,” he continued, “and they just went on messing up our summerhouse, I told him he’d better come in and let the dirty little Jew boy go home. That’s all I said, and he was going to hit me for it.”

“You⁠—you hurt his fuf-feelings,” Dan stammered, as his emotion increased. “I told you, you hurt his feelings!”

“Pooh!” Harlan returned lightly. “What feelings has he got? He wouldn’t be around where he doesn’t belong if he had any.”

“I asked him there,” Dan said, the tears in his eyes overflowing as he spoke; and he began to grope hurriedly through his various pockets for a handkerchief. “He had a right to be where he was invited, didn’t he? You⁠—you called him⁠—”

“I said he was just exactly what he is, and