Wesblock, the autobiography of an automaton

by Harry McDonald Walters

After his death I heard my father say to some card-playing cronies, “We planted Uncle Allan to-day.” Everybody laughed, but I thought it was hard-hearted. Nothing about my great-uncle seemed, however, to matter, or to be serious, not even his death. He inspired neither dislike nor fondness. He was just one of those who do not count—a human vegetable.

A pack of cards was a thing never seen in the houses of my great-grandfather or either of my grandmothers, but in our house they were the main source of amusement. Father could not see the harm in cards that the older branches of our family saw. My earliest memories are associated with cards. Father played nearly nightly except on Sundays. Every one who came to our house was a card-player. The neighbours with whom we associated were card players. Possibly cards are a safe amusement for a certain type of character. They are like everything else—used with discretion they are good; without discretion, and in league with drink and gambling, they are bad.

Thus it came about quite naturally that while still young I learned many games of cards. If father and I were left alone together of an evening we played cribbage. If we were three—mother, he and I—we played bezique. If we were four it was whist. If others dropped in, or were invited, we played draw-poker for a small stake. Draw-poker never got disreputable or blood-thirsty in our house, as a very low stake was the rule.

Through cards I came to distrust my father’s judgment. He played games of cards the way he felt, sometimes playing with rare skill, at other times madly and feverishly, without thought or judgment. He was a man of impulse. If I had wholly distrusted his wisdom, instead of allowing myself to be dominated by his high-handedness, his life and mine might have been very different. But I was brought up in the days when authority of whatever kind was worshipped. To-day authority must “show cause.” I see now that my father played the game of life the same as he played cards—by impulse, by intuition. I was taught to believe that what he said was sound and wise; and if I continued in this belief for many years, it is not to be wondered at. I had better card-sense than he; but it does not follow that my sense was better in other things.

CHAPTER IV

When I left the Canon’s school, my father declared that every boy ought to go to a public school. So to public school I went, where I made but little progress. Of course I was backward for my age, and, being shy, never plucked up enough courage to ask for help when I should have done so. Even the dullest boys left me behind, and the masters considered me lazy. Perhaps I was, but I do not believe it was so much that as lack of energy. One either generates energy or one does not. I was delicate and growing at a great rate, getting my full height, six feet, before I was sixteen years old. It took all the energy I had to live and grow.

What disposition to make of me, what calling to put me to, must have been a difficult problem to my parents, for I had no great inclination in any direction. I wanted to be let alone and not bothered. A book, a comfortable chair, and a fire in the winter, or a shady spot in the summer, were all I asked for. I could read books for days together, but could not study without falling asleep. At a minute’s notice I could sleep anywhere.

While at public school I made a few friends of my own age, but not many. The hard playing and the big boys who were in the majority were never drawn to me. Weaklings and cripples came to me freely. Among these friends, many of whom I kept all my life, John stands out particularly. Like myself, he had a delicate constitution to nurse, and his eyesight was so poor that he wore glasses of great thickness. He was nervous, quiet and shy. It was through him that I became interested in music. He was an inspired musician and a poet by nature. I had had lessons on the piano for some years, and liked music, but I had not been musically awakened until I met John. One of a very musical family, he played several instruments even when a young boy, and gave me my first valuable knowledge and insight into music. I had been taught by sundry ancient maiden ladies, who only aimed to make a genteel living, not to make musicians. John had been taught by his family with whom music was a religion. When I was considered worthy to play accompaniments in the mystic circle of his family I was very proud. I gave a great deal of time to music both with John and alone. Many afternoons he, his two brothers, and I, would play quartettes for hours. Generally these afternoons passed like a charm. Sometimes they were broken by discussions of time, style and interpretation, when some one of us would lose patience, but they were very mild disagreements. John and I became as brothers. His was a restful house, full of quiet peaceful people, where father, mother, brothers and sisters all united with a common interest in music and books. Their house was nearly a country house, being situated in a sparsely populated suburb; and the week-ends I often spent there gave me my happiest days.

While I was the most unsophisticated of youths when first sent to public school, John was world-wise for his age, knowing many things that were closed to me. His family took their religion like business—as a part of life only. My family took religion like a disease—as a matter of life and death—as the whole of life. Perhaps we were not as strenuous in our devotions as the Canon, but sufficiently so to make Sunday uncomfortable for a boy. Consequently I highly appreciated Sundays at John’s home, where Church once was considered full Sunday duty, the balance of the day being given over to music, books, walks or whatever one felt like doing.

Up to this time girls had not received any attention from me. I despised them, and was ill at ease in their company, while John was fond of their sex, and perfectly at home among them. From him I learned much relative to these mysterious creatures, whose influence is so far-reaching. That I did not consider girls worth while was probably to be accounted for by my lack of the usual health and strength of boys of my age. After chumming with John for a year or more girls began to interest me. But girls never liked me as a boy; nor, for that matter, have women liked me as a man. I see now one of the reasons for this. I thought there were only two kinds of girls—the entirely good and the entirely bad. If, in my opinion, a girl was an angel, I worshipped her so foolishly that I made her ill. If I thought one was bad, I took the worst for granted, thus overshooting the mark, and getting myself very seriously disliked. Consequently some girls thought I was an ass, while others thought I was an abandoned and vicious young man. In fact I was neither. Like most shy people I used badness as a bluff, and the more nervous I was about an advance, the more brazenly I went forward.