“It is really quite an old idea—at least twenty-four hundred years.” And Bunny went on to tell about that young Lord Siddhartha, in far off India, who is known to the western world as Buddha; how he gave up his lands and his treasures, and went out to wander with a beggar’s bowl, in the hope of finding some truth about life that was not known at court. “The palace which the king had given to the prince was resplendent with all the luxuries of India; for the king was anxious to see his son happy. All sorrowful sights, all misery, and all knowledge of misery were kept away from Siddhartha, and he knew not that there was evil in the world. But as the chained elephant longs for the wilds of the jungle, so the prince was eager to see the world, and he asked his father, the king, for permission to do so. And Shuddhodana ordered a jewel-fronted chariot with four stately horses to be held ready, and commanded the roads to be adorned where his son would pass.” And then Bunny, seeing the bewildered look on Shuddhodana’s face, began to laugh. “Which would you rather I became, Dad—a Buddhist or a Bolshevik?”
And truly, Dad wouldn’t have known what to decide!
XI
There has been during the present century a new universe opened up to knowledge—the subconscious mind—and many strange things are told about it. It is accustomed to make determined efforts to have its own way; and sometimes when it is balked it will go to such lengths as to make the body ill. A jealous wife will suffer nervous collapse, a quite genuine case, thus retaining the attentions of her husband; and so on through a catalog of strange phenomena. But the Freudian theories, not being consistent with Methodist theology, had not yet penetrated into Southern Pacific. So Bunny was entirely unsuspicious when it happened, just after his graduation, and before he set out with Gregor Nikolaieff, that Dad came down with a severe attack of the flu. Of course Bunny had to postpone his leaving, and was able to find all the trouble he needed at home. There were several days when it was not certain if Dad would live; and Bunny felt all the remorse that Vernon Roscoe had foretold. Also he faced the alarming prospect, he might have to take over control of all those millions of Dad’s money!
The old man pulled through; but he was very weak, and pitiful, and the doctor warned his family that the flu was apt to leave the heart in bad condition, and he would have to be guarded and kept from shock. Down in the deeps of Dad there must have been a merry chuckling, for now it was impossible for Bunny to go away. The father clung to his boy’s hand like a child, and Bunny must sit and read to him the sad and tender story of the young Lord Siddhartha. Had Dad said something to Vee about the plot, or was it a telepathic contact between two subconscious minds? She came frequently to the house, and was so kind and sympathetic—the wild elephant in Bunny’s spirit was tied down with a million silken cords.
And then, when Dad was able to be about, and to sit on the porch in the sunshine, his shrewd conscious mind started work, and presently he had a scheme. “Son, I’ve been thinking about your problem, and I realize that you have a right to express your ideas. I’ve been wondering if we mightn’t work out a compromise, and let me help.”
“How, Dad?”
“Well, you might have some money that you could use in your own way, and wouldn’t feel you were taking from mine. Of course, I wouldn’t feel it was right to help you do anything that was against the law; but if there is some kind of education that isn’t for violence, why, that would be all right, and if you had an income of a thousand dollars a month that you might use for such propaganda—would that help?”
A thousand dollars a month! Gee whiz! Bunny forgot the standards of his own class, according to which a thousand dollars a month would not keep a string of polo-ponies or a small racing yacht; he thought according to the standards of the radicals, to whom a thousand dollars a month meant a whole labor college or a weekly paper! Nothing was said about Bunny’s staying at home, but he understood that the offer was a bribe; he would have to administer the fund! He yielded to the temptation, and hastened to phone Rachel—he had a job in sight for her!
He invited her to lunch; and all the way as he drove to the place, his busy mind was flying from scheme to scheme. Rachel would remain secretary of the “Ypsels,” and be paid a salary for her work, the same as she would have got as a social worker. The young Socialists would hire a larger hall, and would publish a weekly paper, aimed at the high schools and colleges of Angel City. Bunny was now free from the promise he had made to Dr. Cowper, not to make propaganda in Southern Pacific. And he was going to make it, you bet! The students of that university and all others would learn something about modern thought, and about the labor movement, and about Socialism, and—well, not too much about Communism, of course, because Dad would call that violence, and it might be breaking the law!