It seemed to The Boy that his father knew everything. Any question upon any subject was sure to bring a prompt, intelligent, and intelligible answer; and, usually, an answer followed by a question, on the father’s part, which made The Boy think the matter out for himself.
The Boy was always a little bit afraid of his father, while he loved and respected him. He believed everything his father told him, because his father never fooled him but once, and that was about Santa Claus!
When his father said, “Do this,” it was done. When his father told him to go or to come, he went or he came. And yet he never felt the weight of his father’s hand, except in the way of kindness; and, as he looks back upon his boyhood and his manhood, he cannot recall an angry or a hasty word or a rebuke [p 6]
that was not merited and kindly bestowed. His father, like the true Scotchman he was, never praised him; but he never blamed him—except for cause.
The Boy has no recollection of his first tooth, but he remembers his first toothache as distinctly as he remembers his latest; and he could not quite understand then why, when The Boy cried over that raging molar, the father walked the floor and seemed to suffer from it even more than did The Boy; or why, when The Boy had a sore throat, the father always had symptoms of bronchitis or quinsy.
The father, alas! did not live long enough to find out whether The Boy was to amount to much or not; and while The Boy is proud of the fact that he is his father’s son, he would be prouder still if he could think that he had done something to make his father proud of him.
From his father The Boy received many things besides birth and education; many things better than pocket-money or a fixed sum per annum; but, best of all, the father taught The Boy never to cut a string. The Boy has pulled various cords during his uneventful life, but he has untied them all. Some of the knots have been difficult and perplexing, and the contents of the bundles, generally, have been of little import when they have been revealed; but he saved the strings unbroken, and invariably he has found those strings of great help to him in the proper [p 7]
fastening of the next package he has had occasion to send away.
ST. JOHN’S CHAPEL AND PARK
The father had that strong sense of humor which Dr. Johnson—who had no sense of humor whatever—denied to all Scotchmen. No surgical operation was necessary to put one of Sydney Smith’s jokes into the father’s head, or to keep it there. His own jokes were as original as they were harmless, and they were as delightful as was his quick appreciation of the jokes of other persons.