Peter: A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

Peter threw up his hands and sprang to his feet.

“What!—You want to—Why, Jack! Are you crazy! Me! My dear boy, it's very lovely of you to wish to do it, but just think. Oh, you dear Jack! No!—no, no!” He was beating the air now deprecatingly with his outspread fingers as he strode around the room, laughing short laughs in his effort to keep back the tears.

Jack followed him in his circuit, talking all the while, until he had penned the old gentleman in a corner between the open desk and the window.

“But, Uncle Peter—think what you have done for me! Do you suppose for one moment that I don't know that it was you and not I who sold the property? Do you think Mr. Guthrie would have added that five thousand dollars to the price if he hadn't wanted to help you as well as me?”

“Five thousand dollars, my dear Jack, is no more to Robert Guthrie than a ferry ticket is to you or me. He gave you the full price because you trusted to his honesty and told him the truth, and he saw your inexperience.”

“No—it was YOU he was thinking of, I tell you,” protested Jack, with eager emphasis. “He would never have sent Ballantree for me had you not talked to him—and it has been so with everything since I knew you. You have been father, friend, everybody to me. You gave me Ruth and my work. Everything I am I owe to you. You must—you SHALL have half of this money! Ruth and I can be married, and that is all we want, and what is left I can put into our new work to help Mr. MacFarlane. Please, Uncle Peter!—we will both be so much happier if we know you share it with us.” Here his voice rose and a strain of determination rang through it. “And, by George!—Uncle Peter, the more I think of it, the more I am convinced that it is fair. It's yours—not mine. I WILL have it that way—you are getting old, and you need it.”

Peter broke into a laugh. It was the only way he could keep down the tears.

“What a dear boy you are, Jack,” he said, backing toward the sofa and regaining his seat. “You've got a heart as big as a house, and I'm proud of you, but no—not a penny of your money. Think a moment! Your father didn't leave the property to me—not any part of it—he left it to you, you spendthrift! When I get too old to work I am going up to Felicia's and pick out an easy-chair and sit in a corner and dry up gradually and be laid away in lavender. No, my lad, not a penny! Gift money should go to cripples and hypochondriacs, not to spry old gentlemen. I would not take it from my own father's estate when I was your age, and I certainly won't take it now from you. I made Felicia take it all.” Jack opened his eyes. He had often wondered why Peter had so little and she so much. “Oh, yes, nearly forty years ago! But I have never regretted it since! And you must see how just it was, for there wasn't enough for two, and Felicia was a woman. No—be very careful of gift money, my boy, and be very careful, also, of too much of anybody's money—even your own. What makes me most glad in this whole affair is that Guthrie didn't give you a million—that might have spoilt you. This is just enough. You and Ruth can start square. You can help Henry—and you ought to, he has been mighty good to you. And, best of all, you can keep at work. Yes—that's the best part of it—that you can keep at work. Go right on as you are; work every single day of your life, and earn your bread as you have done ever since you left New York, and, one thing more, and don't you ever forget it: Be sure you take your proper share of fun and rest as you go. Eight hours' work, eight hours' play, eight hours' sleep—that's the golden rule and the only one to live by. Money will never get its grip on you if you keep this up. This fortune hasn't yet tightened its fingers around your throat, or you would never have come up here to give me half of it—and never let it! Money is your servant, my boy, not your master. And now go home and kiss Ruth for me, and tell her that I love her dearly. Wait a moment. I will go with you as far as Isaac's. I am going to tell him the good news. Then I'll have him measure me for a coat to dance at your wedding.”

And the Unexpecteds are not yet over. There was still another, of quite a different character, about to fall—and out of another clear sky, too—a sort of April-shower sky, where you get wet on one side of the street and keep dry on the other. Jack had the dry side this time, and went on his way rejoicing, but the head of the house of Breen caught the downpour, and a very wet downpour it was.

It all occurred when Jack was hurrying to the ferry and when he ran into the senior member of the firm, who was hurrying in the opposite direction.