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

of his city. More and more, the city became his city, and with all his juggling and tightrope dancing he found time to be mayor of it for a year, and to begin the “Park System” that was afterwards to bring so much beauty to it. One day he drove his father over the ground he had planned to include in this chain of groves and meadows; and he was glad afterwards that they had made the excursion together.

“It’ll be a great thing for the city,” his father said, as Dan’s car turned homeward with them. “It’s a great thing for you to do and to be remembered by. You were a good boy, Dan; and you’re a good man and a good citizen. You serve your fellow-men well, I think.”

Dan laughed, a little embarrassed by this praise; but although Mr. Oliphant perceived his son’s embarrassment, he had more to say, and went on with something like timidity, yet with a gentle persistence: “I’d like to tell you another thing, Dan. It’s something your mother and I never felt we ought to talk about to you, but I believe I’ll mention it to you today. We⁠—you see your mother and I have always thought there’s a danger sometimes in letting a person see that you sympathize with him, because it might make him feel that he’s unhappy, or in trouble, whereas, if you just leave him to himself he may go on cheerfully enough and never think about it. But I would like to tell you⁠—I’d like to say⁠—”

He paused, and Dan asked: “You’d like to say what, sir?”

“Well⁠—I’d like just to tell you that your mother and I think you’ve always been as kind as you could to Lena.”

Surprised, Dan stared at him; and Mr. Oliphant gravely and affectionately returned his look. “Yes, sir,” the son said awkwardly. “I hope so. Thank you, sir.” And he thought that the handsome, kind old face seemed whiter and more fragile than usual.

That was natural, Dan told himself; people couldn’t help growing old, and they grew whiter and thinner as age came upon them; but age didn’t necessarily mean ill-health. For that matter, his father hadn’t nearly reached a really venerable old age; he was more than a decade younger than old-hickory Shelby, who still never missed a day’s work. Nevertheless, there had been something a little disquieting in Mr. Oliphant’s manner; it was as if he had thought that perhaps he might never have another chance to say what he had said;⁠—and that night, on the train to which he had hurried after their drive, Dan thought about his father often.

He thought about him often, too, the next day, in New York; and during the conferences there with the landscape architects who were designing the new parks, his thoughts went uneasily westward;⁠—not to the green stretches of grove and sward that were to be, but to the quiet old man who had walked so slowly between the tall white gateposts after bidding his son goodbye. Recalling this, it seemed to Dan that he had never before seen him walk so slowly; and he went over in his mind, for the fiftieth time, his father’s manner in speaking of Lena⁠—the slight, timid insistence, as if there might never be another opportunity to say something he had always wished to say. It had given what he said the air of a blessing bestowed⁠—and of a valedictory.

Thus Dan’s vague uneasiness grew, and although he scolded himself for it, and told himself he was imaginative beyond reason, he could not be rid of it. That was well for him; since such uneasiness may be of help when life is like a path whereon tigers leap from nowhere, as it is, sometimes;⁠—the wayfarer will not avoid wounds, but may better survive them for having been in some expectance of them.

For a year Mr. Oliphant’s heart had been “not just what it ought to be”; but he told no one that this was his physician’s report to him. Harlan’s telegram reached New York just as Dan was starting home. Mr. Oliphant had indeed taken his last opportunity to say what he had so long wished to say, for now the kind heart beat no longer;⁠—but he had died proud of his son.

XXV

Neither Mr. Oliphant’s daughter-in-law nor his grandson was at home at the time of his death. Lena had gone abroad again, for a “three-months’ furlough,” as she called it; and again in spite of Dan’s vehement protest that the boy “ought to see his own country first,” she had taken Henry with her.

“I wouldn’t mind it so much,” Dan said to her before they went;⁠—“but you never even stop off and show him Niagara Falls when you take him to New York to visit your family; and when I want to take him with me, you always say he’s got a cold or something and has to stay at home. It seems to me pretty near a disgrace for parents to carry their children all over Europe and pay no attention to the greatest natural wonders in the world, right here at home. My father and mother went to Europe with Harlan and me, but not before they’d taken us to see Mammoth Cave and Niagara Falls. Why, it’d take five Europes to give me the thrill I got the first time I ever looked at the Falls! It’s not fair to Henry, and besides, look what it does to his school work! He picked up some French, yes, the other time you had him over there; but he dropped a whole year in his classes. And how much French is he goin’ to need when I take him into business with me? Not a thimbleful in a lifetime! He’s the best boy I ever knew and got the finest nature; and he ought to be given the opportunity to learn something about his own country instead of too much Paris!”

This patriotic vehemence went for nothing,