II
Nathan was “goin’ on fourteen” now. He had grown older, somehow, older than the twenty months which had intervened since I had last seen him warranted.
These three—Nathan, the Dresden Doll and a shocky-headed young troglodyte who had just arrived from the wilds of Foxboro Center—were seated near one another during that year in the seventh grade of the old Academy on the hill.
The American public school being the great common denominator for juvenile humanity, it had developed after several months’ scholastic propinquity between Nathan and Bernie that he was not quite so impossible as the Dresden Doll had at first assumed. And Bernie’s teachers had rather caustic ideas about the Gridley “blood.” The Dresden Doll became a little more human.
“What are you going to give me for my birthday, boy?” she demanded of Nathan one day, accosting him on the edge of the school yard. “I’m going to have a party, you know. Everybody’s coming and must bring me something.”
The abruptness of meeting and question left Nathan speechless. With his temperament and home training—or lack of it—it was only natural he should have been awkward in her presence.
But he finally rallied.
“Well, I’ll try to give you something bigger ’n better than you’ll get from anybody else. You can bet on that!”
His declaration implied a promise. Moreover, after the nature of such youthful indiscretions, it grew plain he would have to make that promise good or be forever discredited and go through the rest of life a celibant.
What could he give her that would be greater and finer and better than any other person—chiefly boy—might offer? It became an awful quandary. Though only “goin’ on fourteen”, it came to him he had thrust a foot into one of life’s traps. In his little cot-bed up under the eaves of the cottage John Forge had taken for his family in Spring Street, he pondered feverishly far into each night. And with sickening speed the date of the affair approached and found him still debating.
The underlying cause of his predicament was financial. He hadn’t a cent, was never allowed money and would have to steal and lie to get any. If he had millions he could of course present her with a diamond ring or a Maltese cat or something like that. But not a cent! It was humiliating.
The solution finally came via the unwitting agency of the Duchess. She called on Mrs. Forge to purchase some geranium slips and remained to discuss the precocity of Bernice-Theresa.
“I am convinced she will be literary,” the Duchess declared. “She has already finished the Bible, ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ and ‘Rollo’s Travels in Switzerland.’ I think I shall start her next on the poets.”
Nathan’s mother asked which poets. And the Duchess answered: “I understand ‘Dauntless Inferno’ by John Milton is being read these days by all the best people. After that I shall try Shakespeare. He’s so romantic!”
Nathan lay in bed that night, turning this sudden literary proclivity of the Gridley girl over in his mind. Then, by the strange and wonderful convolutions of a boy’s brain, he had it! He could scarcely wait until morning to get to Weathersbee & Hawkins’ Second-hand Furniture Store. There, after much mysterious maneuvering, he contracted for the article he sought, agreeing to saw wood for Mr. Hawkins Saturdays to pay for it. He carried it home the night before the memorable birthday party and hid it in the loft of the Forge woodshed.
The affair began at two-thirty the next day. Twenty-seven boys and girls, painfully starched and ironed, gathered awkwardly upon the Gridley lawn. A table had been placed beside the veranda steps and upon it the birthday gifts were deposited. Article by article the pile grew, some of them pathetically inexpensive, a few indicating want of taste far more than worldly goods.
When the Forge boy looked upon the daintiness and delicacy of most of the gifts, an awful qualm smote him. He wondered if he might not have overdone the present business in his anxiety to make an impression? But Bernice was demanding impatiently to know how he had fulfilled his promise. There was no time to reconsider now—certainly not to go back and buy another present. He went to a secret place in the hedge and brought his gift from its hiding.
Across the lawn he carried it with difficulty, for it was nearly as large as himself. To the gift-altar he brought it, small heart palpitating painfully.
“My goodness!” exclaimed the little patrician. “Whatever can it be?”
The children, patronized by a few mothers, gathered around to learn what the Forge boy had brought his dainty little hostess which should leave all present speechless by its cleverness and elegance. Nathan, badly scared, unwound copious quantities of newspaper and cast them aside. Then, using all his thirteen-year strength, up onto the table amid the lesser gifts, its weight causing that table to rock rather groggily for a moment, Nathan added—a life-sized bust of Julius Cæsar. Cæsar. In chalk!
The Duchess raised her lorgnette. She and Cæsar exchanged mutual glances of stupefaction for an instant.
“But who is it?” she demanded.
“It must be a new kind of a big doll!” exclaimed a little girl with violent pigtails.
“Why—why—it’s a—it’s a——” Nathan wanted all present to understand that it was sculpture of most poetic motif having to do with the literary ramifications of one W. Shakespeare. But he could not recall the words “sculpture”, “statue” or “bust.”
“It’s a monument!” he choked. “For Julius Cæsar—I mean of Julius Cæsar. He divided Gaul into three parts and they stabbed him!”
“A monument!” cried the Duchess. “Stabbed him! And do you think he’s buried hereabouts, that Bernice-Theresa should be edified with his tombstone for a plaything?”
“You told Ma that Bernie was goin’ to read the best poets. I thought o’ this mon-mon-monument I s-s-seen in Weatherbee’s store. He’s got an ear gone and his nose is bunged and maybe he needs washin’. But as far’s the missin’ ear goes, you could stand it in a corner somewheres so’s his head would be against the wall——”
“My God!” choked the Duchess. “William! William! Where’s William?”
William Chew, the elderly person of color, came forward.
“William,” cried the Duchess, “remove this nightmare. God love us! It looks as if this unspeakable boy had brought Bernice-Theresa the upper half of somebody’s whitewashed corpse!”
“Yes, ma’am!” assented William. “What yo’ want ah should do with it, ma’am?”
“Do with it?” gasped the Duchess. “Take it home to your family! Set it up on your front lawn! Hand it down to your children! Only get the hideous thing off these premises and never bring it back!”
William obediently toted off the bust. Then the Duchess looked about for the giver of this good and perfect gift. But Nathan had reached the gate and was fleeing down the walk. For him there was no party.
William took the “monument” home. The last seen of it was atop a post in the center of the Chew cornfield. The colored man had draped a coat around the classic bust, hung trousers beneath it, put an old straw hat on the brow that produced the Commentaries, and relegated it to the job of scaring off the crows. Its end came when old Webster Nelson wandered into the field one night under the influence of liquor, beheld the chalky features beneath the hat, and reduced it to fragments under the crazed obsession that he was being confronted by the supernatural.