Letters from a Son to His Self-Made Father / Being the Replies to Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son

by Charles Eustace Merriman

We made a very merry little party after all. Ma sent out to a caterer's for a good spread and produced some champagne in some mysterious manner—I'd no idea there was any in the house. Pretty soon the General turned up and Ma was wonderfully cordial. She even brought him a bottle of your 1830 Private Stock, and the way stock went down would have tickled the bears on 'Change half to death. The General was good enough to say, before we escorted him to his chamber, that your taste in such things was impeccable—that was his very word, "impeccable, sir." I can't refrain from telling you that he made a deep impression on Ma, and I think if I were you I wouldn't linger in Boston too long.

Do you know that your last letter, so full of philosophy as applied to matrimony, has set me to wondering what has made you such an expert on wives. You talk of nagging women, and sulky women, and violent women, quite as if by the book. Where your vast experience in such matters has come from I can't quite make out. At any rate I want it distinctly understood that it mustn't be taken as reflecting on Ma. Ma is now ace high with Mr. and Mrs. Pierrepont Graham, having proven herself a true thoroughbred. She has cleaned the house entirely of Graham food products, sending them all to the Home for Half Orphans, has hired a decent cook in place of your Scandinavian horror, and allows that she likes the smell of cigars in the drawing-room. From this on, my vote is for Ma, no matter what office she may run for.

I may mention in passing that Ma said a rather curious thing the other day, which you may be able to explain. I had made some foolish remark about getting a divorce because of something Helen had said, and Ma reproved me for it. I laughed and said to Helen, "Mother never could take a joke."

This evidently displeased Ma, for she replied, "You seem to have forgotten, Pierrepont, that I married your father."

Women are queer creatures, anyhow. You are everlastingly right, father, in what you say about the undesirability of having them in places of business. I took Helen to the packing house to-day, intending to show her through the establishment. But one glance at the luckless hogs "travelling into dry salt at the rate of one a minute," as you once so poetically expressed it, drove all idea of further investigation out of her pretty head. She said she'd take for granted all the wonderful facts of sausage and lard, and proposed lunch at the Palmer House instead. So you see, my little experiment took some valuable time out of the house. Helen goes further than either of us in this distaste for women in business and says she doesn't think we ought to have girl typewriters. That was after she caught sight of mine, who isn't the worst ever, as you know.

But, so far, I am pleased to state, the honeymoon has not waned an atom. We are keeping pretty close to the house, for what a shock it would be to society if they knew we had been married without hustling off on a wedding tour. The bridal trip business has always struck me as nonsensical. The way people act after the minister gives the word, you would think that they hated the place where they determined upon the irrevocable step. After you get home and certain matters are adjusted, I think I would like to go to Europe. You see, Helen has been there and no man likes to be at a disadvantage with his wife.

You may feel more friendly towards this foreign tour when I tell you that since Helen forsook her native Heath she has become very confidential with me and has told me some of the particulars of her first meeting with you. I just naturally am pleased with the details, for it is extremely gratifying to a man to feel that his father corroborates his good taste in the selection of the girl of his choice. It is certainly most creditable to the largeness of your paternal heart that you should have paid her so much attention in the first few days out of Liverpool. It was a great courtesy for you to arrange her tray for her on deck and to relieve her of the necessity of feeing the stewards.

Equally kind was your aid in adjusting her wrap on the windy afternoon that you sat alone with her in the lee of the smokestack. But it was unfortunate, was it not, that your forgetfulness in not withdrawing your arm from the back of her steamer chair was called to your attention by Helen's chance remark that she was acquainted with me? Mother has never been abroad, so I have not told her of your gallantry to your fellow-passenger. She might not understand steamer conventions. Helen, perhaps, might mention the matter to her casually. If we go abroad, as I suggest to you, I will take special pains to destroy her entire recollection of the trip with you.

Oh, by the way, it occurs to me to tell you that Cy Willoughby—the widower, not his brother Seth—has disinherited his son Arthur, because he married a typewriter. It was not because of the mésalliance, but it was because it was the father's typewriter that Arthur married. Possibly, when I think of Helen, I should have more than the dictates of filial affection as a reason for gratitude that Ma did not succumb a year ago last winter to pneumonia and the six doctors you insisted on having. As you so succinctly express it, Helen is not getting any the best of it in marrying me. Her pater may not be very much of a financial proposition, and more of a bottle than a battle-scarred warrior, but he can talk about his great-grandfather, and that's more than you care to do, I fancy. Blood may not amount to much, except in racehorses, but when you balance things up, by and large, neither of the two families need to take off their hats to the other. I'm glad Helen has a family whose pictures she's not afraid to show, for it sort of evens things up for our money. (I note that I have omitted the "y" before "our," but you will understand that it belongs there.)

I gather from your last letter that your curiosity is aroused as to how I proposed. I did it in person. It happened at a dance. I told Helen the other day that she really paved the way for my proposal, but I saw by the look on her face that it would not be safe to pursue the subject, so I turned it off with a jest. You will judge. When it came time to dance the cotillion she said she was tired, and that, anyway, she knew a better step than any that would be danced. So we went out into the hallway and she showed me the step, which was on the stairs, and we sat there till the cotillion was over. When we returned to the ballroom she had me guessing as to where I would get the engagement ring, for though love is blind, it's not stone-blind—not if the stone is a diamond.