“That’s just it,” answered Fenn.
He looked hopelessly at Grant and finally said as he reached his hands across the table and grasped Grant’s big flinty paw, “Grant–let me tell you something–it’s Margaret. 490I’m a fool–a motley fool i’ the forest, Grant, but I can’t help it; I can’t help it,” he cried. “So long as she lives–she may need me. I don’t trust that damn scoundrel, Grant. She may need me, and I stand ready to go to hell itself with her if I live a thousand years. It’s not that I want her any more; but, Grant–maybe you know her; maybe you understand. She used to hate you for some reason, and maybe that will help you to know how I feel. But–I know I’m weak–God knows I’m putty in my soul. And I’m ashamed. But I mustn’t get married. It wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be square to Violet, nor the kids, nor to any one. So long as Margaret is on this earth–it’s my job to stand guard and wait till she needs me.”
He turned a troubled, heartbroken face up to the younger man and concluded, “I know she despises me–that she loathes me. But I can’t help it, Grant–and I came to you to kind of help me with Violet. It wouldn’t be right to–well, to let this thing go on.” He heaved a deep sigh, then he added as he fumbled with the red tablecloth, “What a fool a man is–Lord, what a fool!”
In the end, Grant had to agree to let Violet know, by some round about procedure devised by Mr. Fenn’s legal mind, that he was not a marriageable person. At the same time, Grant had to agree not to frighten away the Hogan children.
The next morning as Grant and his father rode from their home into town, Grant told his father of the invitation to the Captain’s party.
“If your mother could have lived just to see the Captain on his grand plutocratic spree, Grant–” said his father. He did not finish the sentence, but cracked the lines on the old mare’s back and looked at the sky. He turned his white beard and gentle eyes upon his son and said, “There was a time last night, before you came in, when I thought I had her. Some one was greatly interested in you and some new project you have in mind. Emerson thinks well of it,” said Amos, “though,” he added, “Emerson thinks it won’t amount to much–in practical immediate results. But I think, Grant, now of course, I can’t be sure,” the father rubbed his jaw and shook a meditative head, “it certainly did seem to me mother was there for a time. Something kept 491bothering Emerson–calling Grantie–the way she used to–all the time he was talking!”
The father let Grant out of the buggy at the Vanderbilt House in South Harvey, and the old mare and her driver jogged up town to the Tribune office. There he creaked out of the buggy and went to his work. It was nine o’clock before the Captain came capering in, and the two old codgers in their seventies went into the plot of the surprise party with the enthusiasm of boys.
After the Captain had explained the purpose of the surprise, Amos Adams sat with his hands on his knees and smiled. “Well–well, Ezry–I didn’t realize it. Time certainly does fly. And it’s all right,” he added, “I’m glad you’re going to do it. She certainly will approve it. And the girls–” the old man chuckled, “you surely will settle them for good and all.”
He laughed a little treble laugh, cracked and yet gleeful. “Nice girls–all of ’em. But Grant says Jap’s a kind of shining around your Ruth–that’s the singing one, isn’t it? Well, I suppose, Ezry, either of ’em might do worse. Of course, this singing one doesn’t remember her mother much, so I suppose she won’t be much affected by your surprise?” He asked a question, but after his manner went on, “Well, maybe it was Jap and Ruth that was bothering Mary last night. I kind of thought someway, for the first time maybe I’d get her. But nothing much came of it,” he said sadly. “It’s funny about the way I’ve never been able to get her direct, when every one else comes–isn’t it?”
The Captain was in no humor for occult things, so he cut in with: “Now listen here, Amos–what do you think of me asking Mrs. Herdicker to sit at one end of the table, eh? Of course I know what the girls will think–but then,” he winked with immense slyness, “that’s all right. I was talking to her about it, and she’s going to have a brand new dress–somepin swell–eh? By the jumping John Rogers, Amos–there’s a woman–eh?”