In a Little Town

by Rupert Hughes

And when his first term was ended the Democrats and Republicans, realizing that they had at last found a perfectly wise and honorable ruler, nominated him by acclamation at both conventions. The result was delightful; both parties elected their candidate.

Marthy and Will sat with Eric in the carriage at the second inaugural, too. There was an argument again about who should ride backward. Rudd said:

"Eric, your Excellency, these here crowds came to see you, and you ought to face 'em. As your dad I order you to set there 'side of your mother."

But Eric said, "Dad, your Majesty, the people have seen me often enough, and as the President of these here United States I order you to set there 'side of your wife."

And of course Rudd had to do it. Folks looked very much surprised to see him and there was quite a piece in the papers about it.

To every man his day's work and his night's dream. Will Rudd has poor nourishment of the former, but he is richly fed of the latter. His failures and his poverty and the monotony of his existence are public knowledge; his dream is his own triumph and the greater for being his secret.

The Fates seemed to go out of their way to be cruel to Will Rudd, but he beat them at their own game. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos kept Jupiter himself in awe of their shears, and the old Norns, Urdur, Verdandi, and Skuld, ruined Wotan's power and his glory. But they could not touch the shoe clerk. They shattered his little scheme of things to bits, but he rebuilt it nearer to his heart's desire. He spread a sky about his private planet and ruled his little universe like a tribal god. He, alone of all men, had won the oldest, vainest prayer that was ever said or sung: "O God, keep the woman I love young and beautiful, and grant our child happiness and success without sin or sorrow."

If, sometimes, the imagination of the matter-of-fact man wavers, and the ugliness of his loneliness overwhelms him, thrusts through his dream like a hideous mountainside when an avalanche strips the barren crags of their fleece; and if he then breaks down and calls aloud for his child and his wife to be given back to him from Out There—these panics are also his secret. Only the homely sitting-room of the lonely frame house knows them. He opens the door of the wood-stove or follows his pipe smoke and rallies his courage, resumes his dream. The next morning sees him emerge from his door and go briskly to the shop as always, whether his path is through rain or sleet, or past the recurrent lilacs that have scattered many a purple snow across his sidewalk since the bankruptcy of his ambitions.

He would have been proud to be the unknown father of a great man. He was not permitted to be the father even of a humble man. Yet being denied the reality, he has taken sustenance in what might have been, and has turned "the saddest words of tongue or pen" into something almost sweet. If his child has missed the glories of what might have been, he has escaped the shames that might have been, and the bruises and heartaches and remorses that must have been, that always have been. That is the increasing consolation a bitter world offers to those who love and have lost. That was Rudd's solace. And he made the most of it; added to it a dream. He was a wise man.

After he paid his sorrowful debts his next slow savings went to the building of a monument for his family. It is one of the handsomest shafts in the cemetery. If Rudd could brag of anything he would brag of that. The inscription took a long time to write. You could tell that by its simplicity. And you might notice the blank space left for his own name when all three shall be together again.