And from the veranda came a sweet, rich voice, crying:
“Yes, Henry–do you know where they can get a good nurse girl?”
103CHAPTER XI
HERE OUR FOOL GROPES FOR A SPIRIT AND CAN FIND ONLY DUST
Henry Fenn and Margaret Müller sat naming their wedding day, while Grant Adams walked home with his burden. Henry Fenn had been fighting through a long winter, against the lust for liquor that was consuming his flesh. At times it seemed to him that her presence as he fought his battle, helped him; but there were phases of his fight, when she too fashioned herself in his imagination as a temptress, and she seemed to blow upon the coals that were searing his weak flesh.
At such times he was taciturn, and went about his day’s work as one who is busy at a serious task. He smiled his amiable smile, he played his man’s part in the world without whimpering, and fought on like a gentleman. The night he met Grant and the child at the steps of the house where Margaret lived, he had called to set the day for their marriage. And that night she glowed before him and in his arms like a very brand of a woman blown upon by some wind from another world. When he left her his throat grew parched and dry and his lips quivered with a desire for liquor that seemed to simmer in his vitals. But he set his teeth, and ran to his room, and locked himself in, throwing the key out of the window into the yard. He sat shivering and whimpering and fighting, by turns conquering his devil, and panting under its weight, but always with the figure and face of his beloved in his eyes, sometimes beckoning him to fight on, sometimes coaxing him to yield and stop the struggle. But as the day came in he fell asleep with one more battle to his credit.
In Harvey for many years Henry Fenn’s name was a byword; but the pitying angels who have seen him fight in the days of his strength and manhood–they looked at Henry 104Fenn, and touched reverent foreheads in his high honor. Then why did they who know our hearts so well, let the blow fall upon him, you ask. But there you trespass upon that old question that the Doctor and Amos Adams have thrashed out so long. Has man a free will, or has the illusion of time and space wound him up in its predestined tangle, to act as he must and be what he is without appeal or resistance, or even hope of a pardon?
Doctor Nesbit and Amos Adams were trying to solve the mystery of human destiny at the gate of the Adams’ home the day after the funeral. Amos had his foot on the hub of the Doctor’s buggy and was saying: “But Doctor, can’t you see that it isn’t all material? Suppose that every atom of the universe does affect every other atom, and that the accumulated effect of past action holds the stars in their courses, and that if we knew what all the past was we should be able to foretell the future, because it would be mathematically calculable–what of it? That does not prove your case, man! Can’t you see that in free will another element enters–the spiritual, if you please, that is not amenable to atomic action past or present?” Amos smiled deprecatingly and added sadly: “Got that last night from Schopenhauer.” The Doctor, clearly unawed by Schopenhauer, broke out: “Aye, there I have you, Amos. Isn’t the brain matter, and doesn’t the brain secrete consciousness?”
“Does this buggy secrete distance, Jim? Go ’long with you, man.” Before the Doctor could reply, around the corner of the house, bringing little Kenyon Adams in his best bib and tucker, came the lofty figure of Mrs. Nesbit. With her came her daughter. Then up spoke Mrs. Bedelia Satterthwaite Nesbit of the Maryland Satterthwaites, “Look here, Amos Adams–I don’t care what you say, I’m going to take this baby.” There was strong emphasis upon the “I’m,” and she went on: “You can have him every night, and Grant can take care of the child after supper when he comes home from work. But every morning at eight I’m going to have this baby.” Further emphasis upon the first person. “I’m not going to see a child turned over to a hired girl all day and me with a big house and no baby and a daughter about to marry and leave me and a houseful of 105help, if I needed it, which thank Heavens I don’t.” She put her lips together sternly, and, “Not a word, Amos Adams,” she said to Amos, who had not opened his mouth. “Not another word. Kenyon will be home at six o’clock.”
She put the child into the Doctor’s submissive arms–helped her daughter into the buggy, and when she had climbed in herself, she glared triumphantly over her glasses and above her Roman nose, as she said: “Now, Amos–have some sense. Doctor,–go on.” And in a moment the buggy was spinning up the hill toward the town.