“Yes, I do,” I said; “your mother has the most perfect temper in the world. Go on.”
“Ordinarily, yes,” testified her son; “but when she gets a thing on her mind, or her conscience, or wherever it is, she never lets it rest. She is that way. She gets sort of keyed up or wound up or whatever it is, and then she goes off like an alarm clock. When she gets excited, father begins to jest, and he keeps his head for a while. But she sticks at him till he stops jesting; and then he gets more excited than she is; and then—it’s all up.”
“Well?”
“Well, all spring mother had been dinning at him—”
“Oh, get out!” I exclaimed, “Your mother doesn’t ‘din.’”
“Oh, doesn’t she! Doesn’t she! Very well. All spring, mother had been gently speaking to dad at rather frequent intervals about his not backing her up in her ideas for Dolly’s and my salvation. Of course you understand that young people of our age are always in danger of heading for the City of Destruction.”
“Yes, that’s obvious enough,” I said.
“Well, one day I overheard them at it—overheard my mother gently reminding my father about me. She said to him: ‘I warned you and warned you and warned you, that if you didn’t take a father’s part and back me up, Oliver would get into trouble; but you just laughed and encouraged him. Now see what you have brought on us.’ That subject wasn’t very pleasant to any of us in the first place; and my father had got sick of it in the form of cold hash. Dad said: ‘Here beginneth the ninety-ninth lesson!’ Mother said: ‘But you have got to take a father’s part.’ Dad said: ‘As it was in the beginning: I don’t want to hear any more about that.’ Mother repeated precisely the same thing in different words. He said: ‘Look here! I thought we had agreed to let that subject rest.’ Mother varied the phrase and presented her thought again. Father exclaimed: ‘Don’t repeat that! Are you crazy?’ Mother instantly replied: ‘You never, never, back me up. You never do a father’s part. And now see this horrible, horrible thing you have got us into!’ Father began to lose his temper; and as soon as he does that, she seems possessed with a desire to see how far she can make him go.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“All right, you needn’t. But you wouldn’t forget if you had ever heard it. Mother said it again—the same thing identically, only with a little more sting in it. Then dad began to swear; but he always hates himself for a week afterward when he does, so he pulled himself up, and told her to stop or he didn’t know what he’d do. Well, I sat still and counted, and my mother jabbed him in the wound nine times in all by actual count with that identical taunt. Then poor old dad, who had been stalking back and forth like the tiger over in Balboa Park, bolted without a word. He went down to Washington for a couple of days. When he came back, he just quietly announced that he was going to Paris. ‘You may say, to work on my book—for an indefinite period.’ Mother said in her most impervious manner: ‘Very well, then: go.’ Father replied,—as frosty as a wedding cake,—‘Thank you, I will.’ Then they both bowed. It was like a play. Dorothy and I came in from the wings and offered friendly mediation; in vain. Father packed up and went. Dolly and I don’t think either of them is quite sensible.”