Under the Big Dipper

by Desiderius George Dery

He had married a beautiful girl, the daughter of an old Southern family and had settled in Cleveland where he built a fine mansion. In spite of his increasing wealth, his tastes remained simple and his manners unassuming. Neither he nor his wife took any active part in what is known as “Society,” though they maintained a beautiful country house overlooking the Hudson.

When his son was born, he was called after his grandfather, John Morton. As the boy grew up he became his father’s pride and hope. Dan Morton looked on him as the reincarnation of himself, the child who would grow up to be a man to carry on the work he had begun. When the young man was ready to enter college, he developed a rather unexpected taste for study and research—most un-Morton like, as his mother would say. His father decided not to discourage the youth, but hoped that in time he would turn from these strange gods and worship the gods of his fathers. Indeed, he even encouraged him, possibly because he realized that opposition might but confirm him in his inclinations. But so wise a man as was Dan Morton knew also that an earnest search for truth and a true desire for knowledge are in themselves ennobling and must result in useful work. That John should apparently be engaged in profitless labor, never for a moment touched his almost religious conviction, that his son would return to the Morton fold and hold the belief that life meant working for a reward and that it was the reward that gave meaning to life.

During the years John spent at the various colleges, he attended at home and abroad, acquiring learning if not wisdom, his father kept on piling up riches, and patiently waiting for the young man to exhaust himself of his dreamy desires and to come back to earth, as he put it. But he always spoke of him with great pride, and if anyone referred to his son’s aimlessness, he would say: “John won’t play second fiddle to anybody—not even to me. And when I’m ready to quit, John will take my place—a better man than his old dad was.”

This was the man that John came to know as he had never known him before during their quiet chats in the sick-room. It was to this man, so practical in his every thought that it seemed as if there could not possibly be a chord in his being that would vibrate to romance, it was to this man that John unbosomed himself of his secret. He told him in detail of all that had happened, descanted, as only a lover can, of the beauty of the girl and wound up by saying: “I intend, dad, to make that girl my wife—if—if she will have me.”

“My boy, I am proud of you,” said his father. “You showed yourself a man. If she won’t have you, she’s no judge of what a man is—and the future generations of Mortons won’t be the losers. But if she is all you describe her to be, she knows a hawk from a hernshaw.”

John laughed at his father’s way of stating the case; but the words made him very happy. As time passed and but scant and unsatisfying news came from either Tyler or Don, he became very restless. He had received one letter from Helène which he treasured; but it contained what he took as merely a courteous acknowledgment of her gratitude. He took several flying trips to New York at his father’s request, but always returned distrait and unhappy. He wrote several heartfelt letters to the Comtesse, but received no replies.

Christmas came and with it a severe winter. It was a quiet and subdued Yule-tide for the Mortons. Old Dan Morton was failing fast. The shadow of the coming tragedy had fallen on the house. Before the New Year had arrived, the elder Morton lay dead in the stilled solemn room. The man who had been such a power in the world had no longer any power. Henceforth the forces of nature which he had conquered would deal with him in their own silent, resistless and inevitable fashion.

John took his heartbroken mother and sister South, away from the place where they had known joy and experienced sorrow. They recovered somewhat their interest in life amid the richer scenes and more vivid life of the sun-bathed lands. It was here that he spoke, for the first time, to his mother of his feelings for a girl he had met in Europe. She said very little, because she knew it would be of no use; and she also knew that she could trust his taste. She saw that it was very near to his heart, and urged him to go back. If, she said, he felt convinced that the girl was, indeed, necessary to his happiness, he must lose no time in winning her. He had not told her everything and declined to give the girl’s name or station in life. She was good and beautiful, he said, and he was sure his mother would welcome her and love her. In that case, his mother urged, his first duty was to himself. He must go at once.

It was not his mother’s words, however, but a cable from McCormick that decided him. Donald had cabled that the Comtesse Helène had left the Ducal Palace secretly five days ago leaving no trace behind. She had been hunted for high and low and even detectives had been employed. Would Mr. Morton cable further instructions.

John lost no time in instructing Don to continue the search and advised him that he was sailing for Europe by the first boat. To his mother he gave an envelope with Helène’s handwriting on it, at the same time begging her, if a letter came from Europe for him addressed in the same hand, to notify him by cable of its receipt.