Marshall Saunders - The Story of the Gravelys

Roger nodded.

“Being in the bank, I’d like to rise,” Bonny went on, irritably, “but somehow or other there seems a little prejudice in the air against me. Has any one said anything to you?”

“Not a word.”

The boy drew a long breath. “Perhaps it’s partly imagination. They’re very down on fun in our bank. Now when hours are over, and I come out, there’s a whole gang of nice fellows ready to do anything that’s going. Sometimes we play billiards. On fine days we’re always on the river. There’s no harm in that, is there?”

“Not that I see,” observed Roger, cautiously.

“Then, when evening comes, and we want to sit down somewhere, we have a quiet little game of cards. There’s no harm in that, is there?”

“Do you play for money?”

“Sometimes—well, perhaps nearly always, but there’s no harm in that, is there?”

“Let me hear the rest of your story.”

“Sometimes I’m late getting home. We get interested, but that’s nothing. I’m almost a man. Five hours’ sleep is enough for me.”

A long pause followed, broken finally by Roger, who said, calmly, “You have given an account of your time. What is wrong with it?”

“It’s all wrong,” blurted the boy, “and you know it.”

“I haven’t said so.”

“But you feel it. You’re just like Grandma—bother it! Don’t I know she thinks I ought to spend my evenings at home, reading about banking, so as to work myself up to a president’s chair?”

“Don’t you get any time for reading through the day?”

“How can I?” said the boy, eloquently, “when I was almost brought up out-of-doors, and as soon as the bank closes every square inch of flesh of me is squealing to get on the river. Now what do you think I ought to do?”

“It’s a puzzling case,” said Roger, with a slow shake of his head. “According to your own account, you are leading a blameless life. Yet, according to the same account, you are not happy in it, though no one is finding fault with you.”

“No one finding fault!” said the boy, sulkily. “Why, the very stones in the street stare at me and say, ‘Animal! Animal! you don’t care for anything but fun. You’d skip the bank every day if you dared.’”

“Why don’t you?”

Bonny gave himself a resounding thwack on the chest. “Because,” he said, “Grandma has planted something here that won’t be downed. Something that won’t let me have a good time when I know she isn’t pleased with me. Sometimes I get so mad that I think I will run away, but that wouldn’t do any good, for she’d run with me. She’d haunt my dreams—I don’t know what I’m going to do!”

Roger, carefully concealing all signs of compassion, gazed steadily at the distressed face. “Do you want to break away from your set?” he asked, at last.

“No, I don’t. They’re good fellows.”

“Well, what are you going to do about that bad feeling inside of you?”

“I don’t know,” said Bonny, bitterly. “I know Grandma thinks I’m going to be like Walt Everest, big and fat and jolly, and everybody’s chum, who can sing a song, and dance a jig, and never does any business, and never will amount to anything.”

“Did she ever say so?”

“No,” growled the boy, “but don’t I tell you I know what Grandma’s thinking about?”

“How does your sister Berty take you?” asked Roger.

“Just like Grandma,” blazed the boy, in sudden wrath, “never says a word but a pleasant one, catches me in a corner and kisses me—kisses me!—just think of it!”

Roger thought deeply for a few minutes, while Bonny took up his miserable ramble about the room.

“Look here, boy,” he said, finally. “You do as I tell you for a week. Begin from this minute. Read that magazine, then go home with me to dinner. After dinner come back here and help me. I’m working on some accounts for a time. That will be an excuse to the boys for not playing cards.”

Bonny’s face was clearing. “A good excuse, too,” he muttered. “If I said I was going with Grandma or the girls, they’d laugh at me.”

“You tell them you are working on my books, and I am paying you. That will shut their mouths, and you’ll not object to the extra money.”

“I guess I won’t. I’m hard pushed all the time.”

“Don’t you save anything from your salary for Grandma?” asked Roger, keenly.

“How can I?” said the boy, indignantly. “She has brought me up to be clean. It takes nearly everything I get to pay my laundry bill—I dare say you think I’m a brute to be so selfish.”

“I’ll send you home every night at ten, and mind you go to bed,” said Roger, calmly. “Five hours’ sleep is not enough for a boy of eighteen. Get up in the morning and go to the bank. As soon as it closes in the afternoon I’ll have business in Cloverdale that will take you on a drive there.”

“You’re a daisy, Roger,” said Bonny, in a low voice.

Roger cast down his eyes. That flushed, disturbed face reminded him of his own beautiful Margaretta. Pray Heaven, he would never see such trouble and dissatisfaction in her blue eyes.

Bonny had already thrown himself into a deep leather-covered armchair, and was apparently absorbed in the magazine. Presently he looked up. “Roger, don’t you tell the girls what I’ve been saying.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Nor Grandma.”

“No, nor Grandma.”

But Grandma knew. There was no hoodwinking that dear, shrewd old lady, and when next she met Roger, which was the following morning, as he was on his way to his office, and she was on her way to call on his wife, her deep-set eyes glistened strangely, and instead of saying “Good morning, dear grandson-in-law,” as she usually did, she said “Good morning, dear son.” She considered him as much one of the family as her three beloved orphan grandchildren.

Yes, Grandma knew, and Grandma approved of what he was doing for her poor, wilful, troubled Bonny.

Every evening for five evenings the lad came to the iron works, and steadfastly set his young face to the sober, unexciting examination of dull rows of figures, stretching indefinitely across white pages.

On the fifth night something went wrong with him. In the first place, he was late in coming. In the second place, his nerves seemed to be stretched to their utmost tension.

“What’s up with you?” asked Roger, when, after a few minutes’ work Bonny pushed aside the big books, and said, “I’m going home.”

“I’m tired,” said Bonny. “I hate this bookkeeping.”

“All right,” said his brother-in-law, composedly. “I’m tired myself. Let’s have a game of chess.”

“I hate chess,” said Bonny, sulkily.

“I wonder whether it’s too early for supper?” asked Roger, good-humouredly getting up and going to a closet.

He looked over his shoulder at Bonny as he spoke. Every night at half-past nine he was in the habit of producing cakes, candy, syrup, fruit, and nuts for the boy’s supper. It was not very long since he had been a boy himself, and he remembered his chronic craving for sweet things.

“You’re always stuffing me,” replied Bonny, disagreeably. “You think you’ll make me good-natured.”

“What’s the matter with you, Bonny?” asked Roger, closing the door and returning to his seat.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” snarled Bonny, miserably, rolling his head about on his folded arms resting on the table. “I hate everything and everybody. I could kill you, Roger.”

“All right—there’s a pair of Indian clubs over there in the corner,” said his brother-in-law, cheerfully.

“I thought I’d be an angel after a few nights’ association with you,” continued the lad, “and you make me feel worse than ever.”