PUPPY DOGS, AND A PSYCHOLOGICAL FACT

The story of the life of any person begins with the moment of his birth and ends with the last breath that leaves his body. The complete account of the inward and outward experiences that go to make up any one individual life would, if properly told, be the most fascinating story in the world, for there never lived a person who did not carry about within himself the materials for a great and complete novel. Such stories have never yet been written, and probably never will be, partly because they would be too long and partly because the thing would be so confoundedly hard to do. So as to make it interesting, that is. We have chosen to begin this account of the lives, or rather, a section of the lives, of Harry and James at the death of their mother because that was their first great outward experience. It influenced their inward lives even more fundamentally. It lifted their thoughts, their whole outlook on life, from what, for want of a better expression, might be called the level of youthful development and sent them branching and soaring into new and strange regions.

One of the most important outward changes that Edith Wimbourne's death caused in the life of her household was the substitution, as far as such a thing could be, of her younger sister, Agatha Fraile, in her place. Such was, in a word, the ultimate fruit of the conversation between Aunt Selina and Aunt Cecilia that occurred a chapter or two ago. James Wimbourne was approached and convinced, and in his turn approached and convinced his brother Hilary, who, in his turn, came back to his half-sister Selina and persuaded her to approach and convince that lady in question on his behalf. Aunt Selina was perfectly willing to do this, though she had not counted on it.

"Miss Fraile," she said, on the first occasion for speech that presented itself; "my brother Hilary has asked me to put a proposition to you on his behalf. What would you say to coming here and living with him as his housekeeper and having an eye on those two boys, until—well, say till it is time for them to go off to a boarding-school?"

This direct manner of approach was perhaps the one best calculated to win Miss Fraile, who after a very little parley, assented to the proposition. She was a very young and fragile-looking woman, having but lately passed her thirtieth birthday, but she was in reality quite as able to take care of herself as the next person, if not, indeed, a great deal more so. She was the very antithesis, as the boys presently discovered, of Aunt Selina, being all smiles and cordiality on the outside and about as hard as tempered steel when you got a little below the surface, in spite of her smiles, and in spite, moreover, of her really unusual and perfectly sincere piety.

"I think," went on Aunt Selina rather magnificently, after the main point had been gained, "that in the matter of the stipend there will be no difficulty at all. You will find my brother entirely liberal in such matters." Here she named a sum, Miss Fraile instantly decided that it would not do, and proceeded after her own fashion to the work of raising her opponent's bid.

"How very good of him," she murmured, letting her eyes fall to the carpet. "All of our family have unfortunately been obliged to devote so much thought and attention to money matters since our dear father's death left us so badly off. Let me see.... I suppose my duties here would take up very nearly all my time, would they not?"

"I do not know.... I daresay...."

"Exactly; one has to look so far ahead in all these matters, does one not? I mean, that looking after this great house and those two dear boys and Hilary himself would not leave me much time for anything like music lessons, would it? Perhaps you did not know that I gave music lessons at home?... Money is such a bother—! I suppose I should scarcely have time to practise here myself, with one thing and another—household affairs do pile up so, do they not?—without thinking of lessons or anything of that sort; yet I daresay I should somehow be able to ... to make it up, that is, if—"

"How much more would you need?" asked Aunt Selina bluntly.

Miss Fraile named a sum half as large again as the one previously mentioned, but Aunt Selina, stifling a gasp, clinched the matter there.

After the funeral Miss Fraile returned to her home in semi-rural Pennsylvania "to collect my traps" as she brightly put it, and a week or so later came back to New Haven and settled down in her new position. The boys on the whole liked their Aunt Agatha, though even their exuberant boyish natures occasionally found her cheerfulness a little oppressive, and she certainly did very well for them and for their father. She ordered the meals, saw to the housework, arranged the flowers, dusted the bric-À-brac with her own hands, did most of the mending and presided at the head of the table at meals, fairly radiating peace and cheer.

Hilary was a little appalled, to be sure, when she would burst on him on his returning to the house of an evening with a pair of warmed slippers in her hand and a musical little peal of laughter on her lips, but he did not have to see much of her, and besides, he so thoroughly approved of her.

"It is like living with Mary and Martha rolled into one," he told his brother a month or two after her arrival; "with a little of Job and the archangel Gabriel thrown in, flavored with a spice of St. Elizabeth of Hungary—that bread woman, you know—and just a dash of St. Francis of Assisi. She has covered the lawn knee-deep with bread crumbs for the sparrows, and when she is not busy with her church work, which she almost always is, she goes about kissing strange children on the head and asking them if they say their prayers regularly. They all seem to like her, too; that's the funny part of it. The boys are entirely happy with her, and she is splendid for them. In short, I am entertaining an angel, though not unawares—oh, no, certainly not unawares."

The two boys were thrown on each other's society much more constantly than formerly, especially as, during the first weeks, at any rate, they had small heart for the games of their schoolmates. James especially, during these days of retirement, observed his brother with a newly-awakened interest, and in the light, of course, of his mother's last words to him. He had always thought of Harry as more irresponsible and light-headed than himself, but it had never occurred to him that he could give him any help against his impulsiveness beyond the customary fraternal criticism and banter. Now he began to see that his position of elder brother, combined with his superior balance and poise of character, gave him a considerable influence over Harry, and he began to feel at times an actual sense of responsibility very different from the attitude of tolerant and half-amused superiority with which he had previously regarded Harry's vagaries. At such times he would drop his ridicule or blame, whichever it happened to be, and would become silent and embarrassed, feeling that he should be helping Harry instead of merely laying stress on his shortcomings, and yet not having the first idea of how to go to work about it.

One day they were returning to the house after a walk through a somewhat slummy and hoodlum-infested neighborhood and came upon a group of boys tormenting a small, dirty, yellow mongrel puppy after the humorous manner of their kind. They were not actually cruel to the dog, but they were certainly not giving it a good time, and Harry's tender heart was stirred to its core. Without a word or a second thought he rushed into the middle of the gang, extracted the puppy and ran off with it to a place of safety. The thing was done in the modern rather than in the romantic style; he did not strike out at boys twice as big as himself—there were none there, in the first place, and in any case he had no desire for a fight—nor did he indulge in a lengthy tirade against cruelty to animals; he simply grabbed the dog and ran. The "micks" followed him at first, but he could run faster than they and none of them cared much about a puppy, one way or the other.

James, meanwhile, had run off a different way, and when presently he came upon his brother again he was walking leisurely along clasping the puppy in a close embrace.

"You certainly are a young fool," said James, half amused and half irritated; "what did you want to get mixed up in a street row like that for? Darned lucky you didn't get your head smashed."

Harry thought it needless to reply to this, as the facts spoke for themselves, and merely walked on, hugging and kissing his prize.

Then suddenly the situation dawned on James in its new light, and he walked on, silent as Harry himself and far more perplexed. Harry's fundamental motive was a good one, no doubt, but he realized what disproportionate trouble the reckless following up of Harry's good motives might bring him into. This time he had luckily escaped scot free, but the next time he would very likely get mixed up in a street fight, and would be lucky if he were able to walk home. And all about so little—the dog was not really suffering; being a slum dog it had probably thrived on teasing and mistreatment since before its eyes were open. And the worst part of the situation was that he was so helpless in making Harry see the thing in its true light.

At any rate, he reflected, his first attitude was of no avail. Calling Harry a fool, he knew, would not convince him of his foolishness; it would more likely have the effect of making him think he was more right than ever. As he walked silently on, beside his brother, Harry's shortcomings seemed to dwindle and his own to increase.

"Let's have a look at the beast," he said presently in an altered tone, stopping and taking the puppy from Harry's arms. "He's not such a bad puppy, after all. Wonder how old he is." He sat down on a nearby curbstone and balancing the puppy on his knee apostrophized him further: "Well, it was poor pupsy-wupsy; did the naughty boys throw stones at it? That was a dirty shame, it was!"

James put the puppy down in the gutter and encouraged playfulness. For a few minutes the two boys watched its somewhat reluctant antics; then James asked:

"What are you going to do with it, anyway?"

"Take it home, I suppose."

"What'll you do with it there? Keep him in the house?"

"No. That is, I suppose Father wouldn't hear of it."

"I suppose not A puppy...! There are three dogs in the house anyway."

"What about the stable, then?"

"I don't know. There's Thomas." Thomas was the coachman, who made no secret of his dislike for dogs "under the horses' hoofs."

"Yes," said Harry, "and Spark, too. Spark would try to bite him, I'm afraid."

"What are you going to do with him, then?"

"I don't know; what shall we?"

"It's for you to say—he's your dog."

"Do you think," said Harry, lowering his voice and gazing furtively around, "do you think it would be all right just to leave him here?"

James laughed, inwardly. Then a bright idea struck him. Grasping the puppy in one hand he walked across the street to a small and dirty front yard in which a small and dirty child of four or five was sitting playing.

"Hullo, kid," said James breezily, "do you want a puppy dog? Here you are, then. He's a very valuable dog, so be careful of him. Mind you don't pull his tail now, or he'll bite."

James walked off well pleased with the turn of events, which left Harry relieved and satisfied and the dog honorably disposed of. As for Harry, he was profoundly grateful. He would have liked to give some expression to his gratitude, but the words would not come, and he walked on for some time without speaking. But he was determined to give some sign of what he felt.

"Thank you, James," he said at length in a low voice, and blushed to the roots of his hair.

"What? Oh, that's all right." James' surprise was no affectation; the matter had really passed from his mind. But he gave to Harry's words the full meaning that the speaker placed in them. They made him feel suddenly ashamed of himself; what had Harry done that was wrong? What had he done but what was right and praiseworthy, when you came to look at it? Should he not be ashamed himself of not having run in and rescued the dog before Harry?

And yet, most of the things that Harry did worked out wrong, somehow, even when they were prompted by the best of motives.

"Poor Harry," thought James, "he's always getting into scrapes, and yet I suppose, if everything were known, people would see that he was twice as good as I am, at bottom. I would never have thought of saving that dog; Harry thinks out such funny things to do.... I can generally do the right thing, if it's put directly up to me, but Harry goes out and searches for the right thing to do; I guess that's what it amounts to. Only, I wish he didn't have to search in such strange places."

As James settled down into his position of mentor to his brother he found out a curious thing; he was fonder of Harry than formerly. The old sense of unconscious, taking-it-for-granted companionship gradually became infused with positive affection which, for the reason that it found little if any outward expression in the daily round of work and play, escaped the notice of everybody except James himself.

"Do you think that doing something for a person would ever make you fonder of that person?" he once asked of his father when they were alone together. "I mean—I should think, that is, that it would work out the other way, so that the person you did the thing for would be fonder of you."

"It's a well known psychological fact," replied his father; "I've often noticed it. If you merely stop a person in the street and ask him the way, or what time it is, you can see his expression change from one of indifference, or even dislike, to interest and cordiality. And if you ever feel that a man, an acquaintance, doesn't like you, ask him to do you some slight service, and he'll admire you intensely from that moment on. And conversely, if you want to make a man your enemy, the best way of going about it is to do something for him.—Why, what made you think of it?"

"Thomas," replied James promptly, being prepared for the question. "He was cross as two sticks the other day when we wanted to build forts in the haymow, but after I asked him to help me put the chain on my bicycle," etc., etc. But James was disturbed by his father's development of the theory. What if his "helping out" Harry should have the effect of making him hate him, James, the very effect of all others he desired to avoid? He resolved to keep his new-found feeling to himself, and give his brother's resentment no foothold; but he could not entirely live it down, for all that. Unconsciously he found fault less with him, unconsciously he would take his part in squabbles with the servants or with his father; and as he noticed no change in Harry's conduct toward him he congratulated himself on his powers of concealment.

But he need have had no worries on the score of Harry's resenting his protection. To Harry, James had always appeared to partake somewhat of the nature of a divinity; if not Apollo or Jupiter, out and out, he was at least Hercules, say, or Theseus. And though, in the very nature of things in general and the fraternal relation in particular, he was obliged outwardly to deny James' superiority in everything and more especially the right to boss younger brothers, he was acutely, almost pathetically, sensitive to James' demeanor toward him and was entirely ready to respond to any increase in good feeling, if James would lead the way.

James, with all his insight and quickness of perception, failed to count upon the fact that Harry would be as slow in making a parade of his feelings as he himself, and was a little surprised that Harry made so slight a demonstration of sorrow when, about a year after their mother's death, James was sent off to school. Harry, indeed, sought to cover his secret conviction that he would really miss his brother very much by repeated harpings upon the blessings that James' presence had ever kept from him, and now, the obstacle being removed, would shower copiously on his deserving, but hitherto officially unrecognized, head. Now he would get the first go at all dishes at table, now he would always sit on the box beside Thomas and drive, now people would see whether he could not be on time for breakfast without his brother's assistance, and so forth. James smiled tolerantly at all such talk; he knew that it did not amount to much, though even he failed to realize quite how little.

When the fatal morning came the brothers parted with complete cordiality and every outward expression of mutual contempt.

"Be very careful about putting on your clothes in the morning, kid," said James as the train that was to take him off rolled into the station. "You put on your undershirt first, remember, then your shirt and coat. Don't go putting your undershirt over your coat; people might laugh."

"All right, you dear thoughtful boy, I'll try to remember, but I shall be pretty busy hoping that those other kids'll lick the tar out of you, for the first time in your innocent life. You're a good boy at heart, James; all you need is to have the nonsense knocked out of you!"

James' first letter to his brother from school, written some ten days after his departure, is still extant, and may be quoted in full as a document in the story.

St. Barnabas' School.

October 5.

Dear Harry:

I meant to have written you before, but I have been so busy that there was no time. This certainly is a fine place, and I like it a lot already. There are 21 new boys this term, which is fewer than usual, but they say we are an unusually good crowd. We say so, at any rate! There was a big rough-house in our corridor Saturday night. A lot of the old boys came down and turned the new fellows after lights were out, and also made them run the gauntlet down the hall, standing at the sides and swatting them with belts and things as they went by. That was much worse than the turning, which did not amount to much. I got turned five times, and Brush, the fellow that rooms with me, six times. That was not much. There was one chap that got turned 22 times that one night. That was Hawley. They call him 'Stink' Hawley already, because he is so dirty looking. They say he has not washed his face since he came. Gosh, I wonder what you will be called when you get here!"

"What a filthy lie!" shrieked Harry when he reached this, making up in vehemence what he lacked in coherence. His alleged aversion to the wash-basin was a standing joke in the family, and any reference to it invariably brought a rise.

"Gracious, dear," murmured Aunt Agatha, and smiled.

"Let's hear," said his father, suspending judgment. (The scene took place at the breakfast table.) Harry read the letter aloud up to the point in question, and was relieved to observe an exculpatory smile on his father's lips when he stopped.

"I admit there is an implication in that last remark," said Hilary, "that might prove irritating. However, that's no excuse for making a menagerie of yourself. What else does James say?" Harry read on:

There always is a big rough-house the first two or three Saturday nights every year, and after that they keep pretty quiet. They say the masters let them do what they like, almost, those first nights, because they behave better afterwards and it keeps the new boys from being too fresh. That's what I'll be doing to you, you see, next year!

I have been playing football every day, and am trying for the fourth team. Do you remember Roswell Banks, that boy we saw up at Northeast? He is going to make the first team this year, probably. They say he tackles better than any one else here. Kid Leffingwell also plays a peach of a game, but he won't make the first this year. He is too light, but he has got lots of nerve.

I must stop now, so good-night.

Your affectionate brother,

James.

The present writer has no quarrel with any one who is unable to detect in this letter symptoms of any particularly keen brotherly affection. It is his private opinion, however, that such exist there. He thinks, imprimis, that James, strange as it may appear, laid himself out to be more agreeable in that letter than he would if he had written it, say, a year previously. It is longer and fuller than James' letters usually were. And—though this may be drawing the point too fine—he thinks that the exclamation point after "that's what I'll be doing to you next year" would not have been put in under the old rÉgime. An exclamation point does so much toward toning down and softening a disagreeable remark! And for the manner of signature, of course James might have signed himself like that to Harry at any time of his life. Yet the writer, even at the risk of being called super-sensitive, will not ignore the fact that most of James' letters to his brother previous to this date are signed, more casually, "Yours affect'ly," or "Ever yours," or simply "Good-by,—James," and though he realizes that at best the point is not an all-important one, he feels he can do no better than give the reader all the information he has at his command, be it never so trifling, and let him draw conclusions for himself.