Professor Huskins

by Lettie M. Cummings

Less than a year has elapsed since William's reunion with his family. Merle, Alice and Augustus are visibly stronger and healthier, but Clarissa seemed to fluctuate between better and worse for a considerable length of time. For quite a while after she came to William's home, she appeared greatly improved, almost like a girl again, until after about six months, she suddenly began to show peculiar symptoms.

Usually the soul and life of the home, all, from William to the humblest servant looked to her for approbation, happy when she was happy, and uneasy when she was sad. From her entrance into the home, she had brought sunshine, not only to William's heart, but to his servants and Merle's family as well.

Mrs. Millard and her children rejoiced in William's happiness as though it had been their own, even more. He had been a friend in need, and they regarded him as their adviser and guardian. Gladly would any of them have suffered to purchase or enhance his happiness. The knowledge he had a family was a great surprise to them. They were much pleased to learn of his good fortune in being reunited to them, and would have found anyone whom he had claimed as his family pleasing and agreeable, whatever their characteristics might have been. As it was, a wife and son, possessing as they did talents and qualities of mind that commanded their esteem, had become, if possible, still greater objects of veneration than the Professor himself.

Clarissa's marvellous voice charmed and fascinated them beyond expression; to them she was more than a mere woman. Augustus' infirmity endeared him to them; he would have been loved had he not possessed other characteristics, but added to that, he possessed more than ordinary beauty, also great skill in drawing and music. They vied with one another to entertain and humor him, and this deference to his wishes was just what he sought and enjoyed. He spent much of his time with them, and in their home he was king. His slightest whim was law. They were so accustomed to bound their lives by the Professor's work, that they recounted to him such marvelous tales of his father's power and skill, the boy had grown to think him the wisest and most powerful man on earth.

When Augustus wanted to gain some favor or especial promise, he appealed to his mother, whom he knew how to coerce, but no words of love or praise she could bestow upon him filled him with such pride and genuine satisfaction as he knew when his father expressed his approbation of what he did. He grew to watch his father's face very closely, soon acquiring the perception to know whether he was pleased or annoyed even though such sensations were never expressed in words.

He possessed a very sensitive nature. The shock of seeing his mother in a mesmeric sleep, which he had mistaken for death, was an experience he could never forget, and while he was very proud of his father's reputation as the strongest and most powerful mesmerist of the age, he feared seeing anyone in that state; still, his mind was too active and vigorous not to desire to know the principles underlying the phenomena that terrified him, so he frequently questioned his father as to the nature of it, although he could not be urged nor persuaded to either be influenced himself or to see others placed in the trance state.

William was very anxious to place Augustus in a mesmeric condition, believing that by so doing he could restore his physical vigor, and knowing the boy's aversion to being, or seeing anyone else placed there, he strove to control him without his knowledge. He soon found the process did not conduce to improve the boy's health, however, as he became exceedingly irritable and nervous, so much so indeed, that on one occasion, when he had persisted in concentrating his thoughts upon him, Augustus had become hysterical, and nearly gone into convulsions. He would undoubtedly have done so had his father persisted in his resolve.

This was a condition William did not comprehend. He sought by every method to reconcile Augustus to the idea to be mesmerized willingly, hoping by means of the trance state to obtain some explanation of the strange phenomenon, as the boy's personality promised him an unusual subject if he could only subjugate his prejudice. He was the most difficult subject he had ever encountered. This was not because he did not possess the power to conquer his resistance either waking or sleeping, but he disliked to evoke the conditions necessary to control his individuality by force.

When Augustus sickened, he not only had this condition to combat, but Clarissa and Merle's family and the servants all became agitated and alarmed, and looked upon him as the source of relief. Thus, to control Augustus, he was obliged to control them all. Strange to say, he could control all far easier than he could Augustus. He tried to bribe him to see Merle or Alice in a trance, hoping in this way to take from his consciousness all thoughts of fear, but he was never successful.

Augustus could not separate the trance state from thought of death. While in a stranger William would not have humored a repugnance, he, like Clarissa, felt the boy's infirmity was due in part to his fault, although unwittingly so, therefore thought it his duty to make all possible excuses for him. His best judgment was never exercised toward Augustus. Thus, when Clarissa began to show the desire to retire by herself, the father and son naturally grew nearer and nearer to one another, in thought and deed, while neither would acknowledge the vast difference they noted in her actions.