“Oh, I dunno,” he answered after a time. Then he sat staring into space.
Many husbands in Paris sat staring into space after reading Nat’s poem that night. A few, however, did not get the chance to stare into space.
“Cost me twenty-five dollars!” growled Artemus Harrington in the Smoke Shoppe Cigar Store later that evening. “My wife says it was the best thing she’d ever read and it would do a heap o’ men around town good to read it, too. One thing led to another and we ended up in a fight. She made me ‘fork over,’ and she sashayed home to her mother’s.”
Cora Whipple, Nathan’s former teacher, declared it was bizarre, but nevertheless Literature. She said it ought to be printed in all the best magazines. Her prim old-maid sister called it the height of obscenity and gave the Telegraph’s editor a piece of her mind over the ‘phone, ringing off before Sam had the chance to reply. The poem set the town by the ears, so to speak.
“You sure can pick out which hubbies love their wives and which women ain’t happily married by the way that poetry sets on their stummicks!” observed Uncle Joe Fodder. “B’dam whether I think the kid writ it himself or whether he’s got some old person coachin’ him. But believe me, if Sam goes on printin’ the likes of that poem he’s sure goin’ to swell his subscription list. And not because folks want to see the report o’ the tax commissioners, either.”
It was old Doctor Dodd who caused the direct reaction on Nathan, however. The poem—particularly the last two lines—perturbed the old minister grievously. And he “took it up in prayer meeting” that evening.
Johnathan had read the verses shortly after supper while waiting for the drone of the weekly church bell. Nathan had luckily returned downtown before the carrier boy tossed a Telegraph on the Forge veranda.
The father sat stupefied for a moment, after bringing the front legs of his chair to the floor with a clump. Then as the “coat” fitted him perfectly, he proceeded to put it on. He left the house without speaking and wandered through the neighborhood, hands clasped behind his back, lips set tightly.
Reaching the church, hoping to receive comfort and consolation from the service in this latest parental “trial”, Doctor Dodd “opened up” on it. And the father’s blood ran icy cold.
The minister’s subject was “Train up a child in the way he shall go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Every person in that vestry knew to whom and what the pastor was referring. Every face was turned toward the ashen mask that was Johnathan’s countenance before that discourse ended.