Ten North Frederick (53 page)

The mother and daughter were not visited until seven-thirty o'clock in the morning, when a nurse brought them coffee, toast, and soft-boiled eggs. Edith telephoned Marian to have Harry bring some day clothes and she then spoke to Joby. To her annoyance and relief Marian had already told the boy the bare facts of Joe's accident.

“Why didn't you tell me about Father?”

“Because you were asleep and there was nothing you could do, now don't be upset, Joby, don't be upset.”

“Can I come over with Harry?”

“Yes, of course, although you'll only be able to see Father for a minute. He's still asleep.”

“Are we going to Europe?”

“Oh, dear,” said Edith. “No, we'll have to cancel all that. A broken leg takes months to heal.”

“Will Father have to carry a cane?”

“At least. In the beginning, crutches.”

“Is he going to have to stay in the hospital?”

“I imagine so, quite a while.”

“All summer?”

“Possibly.”

“Then he won't be able to play golf, either,” said the boy.

“Oh, no. Now I must stop talking, unless there's something important you want to ask me.”

“Is Father going to
die
?”

“No, no, no, Joby. You mustn't think that,” said Edith.

“Well, the paper called up and asked if it was true Father had concussion of the brain.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I answered, they thought I was you on the phone.”

“Well if they call up again, don't tell them anything. Tell them to get in touch with Uncle Arthur McHenry, if they want any information.”

“A boy that was on Gibbsville High football team, he got concussion of the brain and he died. I remember.”

“There are different kinds. Now I must hang up, and you get ready to come with Harry.”

There was gloom on Main Street and in the Lantenengo Street homes with the report of Joe's accident, and in the barber shops and the Gibbsville Club and the Elks Home and on the Market Street one-man trolleys and in cigar stores and soda fountains and at bus stops and in the forty-five speakeasies of Gibbsville, wherever men and women gathered by the half dozen. There was no one to say, “It served him right,” and there were many who said, “It's a goddam shame.” Bob Hooker ran a daily bulletin, a one-column box on Page One, on Joe's condition, and when it was announced, after the third day, that Joe was “off the critical list but unable to receive visitors” Gibbsville accepted Joe as among the ailing, who would be a long while “on the mend.”

Joe was allowed to go home, to the farm, in the second week in August, almost exactly two months after entering the hospital. A bone man from Philadelphia was called in for an opinion when the leg was slow in healing, and in return for his $
1
,
000
fee he provided the information that Joe was forty-seven years old and that he approved the treatment Joe was getting under Dr. English.

“Otherwise, I don't see what good he did,” said Arthur to Edith. “It's nice to know that Billy's a good doctor, but we knew that all along. Of course I'm not particularly enthusiastic over Philadelphia specialists.”

“Forty-seven,” said Edith. “Your bones don't knit as quickly. I just hope the right leg won't be shorter than the other.”

“Billy says it won't be,” said Arthur. “What I don't like—it seems to me Joe himself is still low in spirit.”

“Billy says that's the result of the shock and the concussion.”

“And it may be, but I don't like it. He'll say to me, ‘I'll be back in harness after Labor Day,' and then he'll wonder aloud whether he'll be ready for the November term.”

“Of court?”

“Yes. November's always very heavy because we lawyers ask for postponements in the September term. But one good thing, one consolation. He's achieved one ambition.”

“Which?”

“Just sitting here and lying in the hospital, Joe's made enough money in the stock market so he can give you and each of the children pretty close to a million dollars. Joe's a very rich man. So am I, I might add. At least we don't have to worry about money. Edith, I wonder if it might not be a good idea for you and Joe to go abroad this winter.”

“Let's not talk about that again till he's all recovered.”

“But think about it. Take some of that money and go to the Riviera and have a real rest. Joe's been working hard and scooting about the countryside as though he were running for office. Why don't you start inculcating the idea of a real vacation? The children will be going away to school in the fall.”

“He likes scooting about the countryside.”

“It'll be quite some time before he's able to do it again, and you might as well get him away from temptation. If not Europe, Florida. It doesn't have to be Palm Beach. There are other places. Or California. Sit in the sun and see some new people and get his mind away from work. In less than three years we'll be fifty, Joe and I.”

Joe called to them. “Hey, you two.”

He was in the living room, which had been converted into a downstairs bedroom. The main house on the farm was always cool, what with the shade of the walnut trees and the two brooks that passed in front of and at the side of the house. A hospital bed was set up in the living room and Joe was able to escape most of the August heat.

They went inside and Edith washed Joe's face.

“What dire deeds of derring-do were you plotting?”

“Arthur was doing all the plotting. He thinks we ought to go abroad next winter.”

“That's odd. I think
Arthur
ought to go abroad next winter.”

“Well, then somebody in this firm is going abroad next winter,” said Arthur.

“Not necessarily. Arthur could be just as stubborn about it as I plan to be. Result: neither goes.”

“Result: we'll both collapse. It was just an idea I had, and Edith doesn't take kindly to it.”

“Well, I certainly don't. I don't expect to win the Harvard game with a sixty-five-yard dropkick, but I'll be well enough to let you have a vacation. You're entitled to a good one, and I'm going to insist you get it.”

“It isn't only the office, Joe. You're going around as though you were a traveling salesman.”

“Oh, well, that's fun, that comes under the heading of relaxation.”

“Relaxation? Joe, I've seen you come home from one of those relaxations. Last winter. I remember one time you'd been to Erie, I think it was. Yes, Erie. I don't remember what that trip was for. In fact, I seldom do know. You used to tell me, but in the past year or so you just announce that you're off for Lancaster, or Altoona, and away you go. Sometimes it's an overnight Pullman, other times a long drive, a long exhausting motor trip. Say, hadn't you just come back from one when you tried to take the steps all at once?”

“I don't remember,” said Joe.

“Yes, you had. We had our party for you, and the next day you went to Whitemarsh for the Lawyers Club tournament. And the next day was when you cracked your leg.”

“It might have been, but don't try to see cause and effect there, Arthur,” said Joe.

“Why not? If I can show you that the relaxing trips, as you call them, are taking too much out of you, I'll be doing you a favor. Joe, I was just telling Edith, we're getting close to the fifty mark, and whether we like it or not, we're slowing up. If Billy English were to tell you that the reason—”

“I beg your pardon, Arthur. I know what you're going to say. I don't think Billy English is going to tell you that I broke my leg because I was tired. But even if he did, I'm doing something I like to do, and if I get tired while doing it—at least I'm getting tired at a pastime I enjoy. Fellows we know are out risking their necks fox-hunting, down around Philadelphia. And others are chasing women instead of foxes, and others are ruining their guts on bootleg hootch.”

“I know all that, but you seem to me to be tiring yourself out for thirty pieces of silver.”

“What?”

“Those little cups and cocktail shakers you pick up at golf tournaments, those cigarette boxes they give you for making a speech.”

“Thirty pieces of silver has another connotation that I'm sure Joe doesn't like any more than I do, Arthur,” said Edith.

“It was unfortunate. However, to thine own self be true, and you can be a traitor to yourself, you know.”

Joe moved in his wheelchair. “Ah, I'm glad you said that. I'm doing the exact opposite. If I didn't make those trips, I wouldn't be true to myself.” He turned to Edith. “Shall I tell him?”

“I think you're going to, so why ask me?”

Joe lit a cigarette. “Arthur, in a way I am a traveling salesman. I'm peddling a commodity called Joe Chapin.”

“I see.”

“The trips have often been exhausting, but they've had a purpose, and not just the thirty pieces of silver.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” said Arthur.

“Until this minute Edith has been the only other person to know what's been behind the trips. Oh, I imagine there have been some guesses, but that's all they've been. Guesses.”

“Go ahead.”

“Unconfirmed guesses. The fact of the matter is, I'm running for office.”

Arthur looked at Edith and laughed, but she did not smile. “I'm laughing because I was just saying to Edith, you appeared to be running for office.”

“Well, you were right. I'm running for lieutenant governor.”

Arthur rubbed his chin and stroked his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “It all becomes clear, once you clarify it,” he said. “An ambassador of good will, like Lindbergh. Mending fences before they've been broken.”

“You might say,” said Joe.

“Then I take it you're planning to run next year? That's the next time we vote on lieutenant governor.”

“I hope to,” said Joe.

“Am I to keep this a secret?”

“Oh, yes indeed. I'm waiting for the psychological moment.”

“To announce it to Mike Slattery and the others?”

“Yes.”

“How will you know the psychological moment has come?”

“Well, to some extent I'm relying on instinct. When I'm satisfied that I have enough friends in all the counties of the state, then I'll make my position known. You know, Arthur, I've made at least one appearance in every county in the state, and in some counties, like Allegheny and Lackawanna, Dauphin, Philadelphia, Berks, I've made as many as ten appearances.”

“Good God, there are seventy-six counties in the Commonwealth. You
have
been busy.”

“You're damn right I have.”

“Haven't the professionals been suspicious?”

“Suspicious, but careful. They've had nothing to go on. I've made no political speeches except for a few last year in support of Mr. Hoover.”

“Thereby declaring yourself against Al Smith, and you did declare yourself all right.”

“Well, I'm a Republican. That's no secret, and I meant every word I said against Al Smith. The audacity. Tammany Hall.”

“Well, we've had some rotten eggs in our own basket. However, that's neither here nor there. Water under the bridge, they say. I'm more interested in your campaign. You think you'll have enough of a following to be able to convince the Slatterys and people like that that you're the man?”

“That's what I'm counting on.”

“But for all you know, they've picked their candidate for next year.”

“If they think I'm strong enough, they'll change their minds.”

“True.”

“I notice you haven't expressed any approval or disapproval,” said Joe.

“You've always known how I feel about politics, but you'll always know how I feel about you.”

“Arthur, that's all I wanted to know.”

“I'll back you with every word I can speak and every dollar I can rake up.”

“Yes, I always believed that,” said Joe.

“And I think I can guess why you want the job.”

“I'll tell you if you're right.”

“You want to be as good as your grandfather,” said Arthur.

“Yes,” said Joe. He looked at Edith, who returned his look expressionlessly. He said no more.

“Well, you are, in my opinion, without going to the bother of a political campaign, but I don't write the history books and I guess that's what you have in mind. As a matter of fact, Joe, now that I've had a moment to think it over, it's a praiseworthy ambition. We've had some judges in our family, and I've often thought I'd like to go down in the books as a judge. But never enough to go into politics. However, your ambition, your pride, is stronger than mine, and I always knew that. They couldn't hope to find a better man. But first—before you start mending fences, mend that leg. I must be going.”

When he had gone Edith said: “I was afraid—”

Joe nodded. “I was going to tell him everything. I could tell that. But I feel much better now that I've told him that much. It isn't that we can't trust Arthur, but I think it might
shock
him to know what I really have in mind.”

“Oh, he was shocked anyway,” said Edith. “He doesn't like it.”

“And that's the proof that he's a real friend. He'll support me in spite of his true feelings about politics.”

“What else could he do?” said Edith.

The visits of Dr. English were becoming as much
punctilio
as
medico
. There was little he could do to hasten Nature, and his thrice-weekly calls at
10
North Frederick were scheduled to coincide with the serving of a cup of tea.

“I brought my chauffeur with me, I hope it's all right,” he announced one afternoon. He was followed into the den by his son Julian.