“My son, my son!”
“It’s so, father. I’m willing to ask for guidance of the Lord, but I’m not willing to have you dictate to the Lord what––what I must do, and so whip me in line with the scourge of prayer.” Peter Junior paused, as he looked in his father’s face and saw the shocked and sorrowful expression there instead of the passionate retort he expected. “I am wrong to talk so, father; forgive me; but––have patience a little. God gave to man the power of choice, didn’t he?”
“Certainly. Through it all manner of evil came into the world.”
“And all manner of good, too. I––a man ought not to be merely an automaton, letting some one else always exercise that right for him. Surely the right of choice would never have been given us if it were not intended that each man should exercise it for himself. One who does not is good for nothing.”
“There is the command you forget; that of obedience to parents.”
“But how long––how long, father? Am I not man enough to choose for myself? Let me choose.”
Then the Elder leaned forward and faced his son as his son was facing him, both resting their elbows on the table and gazing straight into each other’s eyes; and the old man spoke first.
“My father founded this bank before I was born. He came from Scotland when he was but a lad, with his parents, 84 and went to school and profited by his opportunities. He was of good family, as you know. When he was still a very young man, he entered a bank in the city as clerk, and received only ten dollars a week for his services, but he was a steady, good lad, and ambitious, and soon he moved higher––and higher. His father had taken up farming, and at his death, being an only son, he converted the farm, all but the homestead, which we still own, and which will be yours, into capital, and came to town and started this bank. When I was younger than you, my son, I went into the bank and stood at my father’s right hand, as I wish you––for your own sake––to do by me. We are a set race––a determined race, but we are not an insubordinate race, my son.”
Peter Junior was silent for a while; he felt himself being beaten. Then he made one more plea. “It is not that I am insubordinate father, but, as I see it, into each generation something enters, different from the preceding one. New elements are combined. In me there is that which my mother gave me.”
“Your mother has always been a sweet woman, yielding to the judgment of her husband, as is the duty of a good wife.”