Nathan had seen his father pale before the six-pound fist of Caleb Gridley. He had seen him shiver and quake inwardly when a neighbor announced that he would shoot Johnathan Forge on sight for having wrung the necks of the said neighbor’s chickens and tossed the dead birds over the fence in penalty for wandering into the Forge garden. And Nat wondered at just what point between boyhood and manhood his father had lost his bellicosity and proclivities toward the manly art of self-defense.
That is, he asked himself consciously. But in his heart he knew his father had never whipped any bullies or any one else. He was about as heroic as an old mop. The recount for emulation he was passing on to his boy was pure fabrication in which the end justified the means.
Besides, Nat had heard of these Roman holidays so many times that he could repeat them verbatim, even correct his embattled sire when multiple narration brought exaggeration, or the father went astray on minor detail. Nat turned over wearily, therefore, and went to sleep—in the center of a victory over the Foxboro selectmen in which “all hands had been ingloriously humbled and brought down to the dust”—meaning that the Foxboro selectmen had apologized and paid costs. Which they had not.
“And I used to tell that boy stories by the hour,” Johnathan averred in later years, “—all sorts of virile, manly stories. But he never cared a great deal for anything I said to him. The boy and I simply couldn’t hitch. He had his mother’s blood—he was a Farman through and through!”
Nathan came back to consciousness and realized his father was still by his side, demanding angrily, “Are you listening?” and that Caleb Gridley’s name was mentioned.
“He’s sent word he wants to see you as soon’s you’re fit—over to his office. And for your own sake, young man, let’s hope he doesn’t fire you for this mix-up!”
The father eventually went out and Nathan passed from dreams with his eyes closed to dreams with his eyes open, pondering.
IV
Out of Nat’s convalescence the mother remembered that she “had nursed him faithfully till she was about sick from the strain.” That she had “made of him”—meaning undoubtedly the moment of his awakening when he had embraced her and she had kissed him—and had done her best by him according as the Lord gave her strength.
The father remembered he had “told the lad stories by the hour” (actual talking time, twenty-four minutes of a single half-noon) and “cheered him by praising him for not taking the back talk of anybody.”