The 13th Resolution (2 page)

“Well, folks, here’s number twelve. Well, I am resolving that this year I want to know my family a little better.”

The four Rs eyed one another in a circle. They were used to a good many surprises in their father and that was one of the characteristics that made him refreshingly interesting to them; but just what he was up to now, they could not guess.

“You can’t guess what I mean by this resolution, so I had better tell you. I feel that you folks have been going the gait pretty well independently. I haven’t pried into your personal affairs and I give you fair warning I am not going to spy on you or enter in on anything that is none of my business; but I am your father and the only one you have and I have a notion that I have a right to know some of the interests that belong to us all. I haven’t asked you where you are nights and other times because I have trusted you, but I don’t know what you are studying in college or school, I don’t know who your teachers are or your companions. You all have liberal allowances and I have seldom asked you how you spend them; but I give you fair notice. I am going to ask you to let me know about a number of things this year. I want you to tell me without my asking very often. Take the matter of books and amusements. Seems to me Mother and I have some right to say something about them, without interfering with our own liberty. In the matter of your associates, I—”

Richard spoke up, glancing over at Rachel. “Rachel has so many beaux that they form a line clear across the lawn on Friday nights.”

Rachel looked indignantly at her brother. “It’s not true, Father. It is one of his stories.”

“Did you see that story in the
Saturday Evening Blade
, Mother? One of the high-school fellows who took Rachel out to the class party last week made me think of it.”

“Does this story illustrate what we are discussing?” asked Richard’s father.

“Yes, sir, it sure does. It seems a young man was calling on a girl, and he was waiting in the parlor for the girl to come down. He had been there for what seemed to him like three or four hours when the young lady’s little brother came into the parlor holding out his hand closed over something and said to the anxious young man, ‘You don’t know what is in my hand.’ ‘Of course I don’t,’ says the young man, ‘unless I can see what you have.’ The little brother opened his hand, and the young man looked over and said, ‘Why, those are beans.’ ‘You do know beans, don’t you?’ said the little brother. ‘I heard my father say you didn’t.’”

Rachel looked angrily at her brother, but Mr. Blaisdell spoke up, “Now, Rachel, don’t worry. This is the last story Richard will be allowed to tell at this meeting. If this young fellow really does know beans he knows more than some seem to know whom I have noticed around the house. Oh I am not so unobserving as you folks sometimes seem to think; but let me get on. Number thirteen: I want to be of more use to the church in every way this year, and I am going to see how many of my business acquaintances I can persuade to join it. This town is full of men who are not professing Christians, and I have never in all my life spoken to one of my friends about the Christian life.”

Perhaps nothing Mr. Blaisdell had ever done had cost him quite so much as this simple statement made to the members of his own family. The effect of it on them was almost magical. For all their lives these children had never for one moment had any occasion to question the perfect sincerity of their father. He had never made any pretense to an ideal life, made few promises, and was the furthest possible removed from hypocrisy; so the statement he now made of a desire to extend his influence as a Christian moved them all deeply. Mrs. Blaisdell had tears again in her eyes, but this time they were not of remorse or self-reproach; they were glistening jewels of pride in her husband that overcame any other feeling she ever had for him.

“Well, folks,” said Mr. Blaisdell after the silence, speaking cheerfully as he folded up the paper and put it in his pocket, “I must be going.” He took out his watch, and he rose and said, “Thunder, I must hurry if I want to get down in time to meet Randall. I promised to be there at nine, and if I walk, I’ll have to move.” He ran into the coat room off the hall and came back saying, “Good-bye, folks. I’ll be back for lunch. We close up this afternoon anyway, you know, on account of New Year’s.”

“James, you’ve forgotten something!” called Mrs. Blaisdell to him as he reached the front door.

Mr. Blaisdell paused only a fraction of a second. Then he came slowly back and put his arms around his wife, as she had risen from her place at the table, and kissed her twice. “Once for forgetting and twice for remembering,” he said with a look she fully understood. As though unable to say more, he turned and went out. As the door shut, Mrs. Blaisdell looked at her girls.

“My daily prayer is that you may be as fortunate as I have been,” she said, and there was a reverent silence around the table for some time.

Chapter Two

Executing the Resolutions

James Blaisdell walked along at a good swift pace for several blocks. Then he began to slow down as he realized he had a corn on one foot that felt as hot as though it were roasted. He began to limp disgracefully and was irritated to think people he passed were noticing him. Soon he was aware that a big touring car had slid close up to the curb, and as he looked up, there were the four Rs. Robert shouted as the car came to a stop, “Better get in and ride down the rest of the way, Dad.”

“Yes, come on, Father, you’ve kept enough of that resolution,” seconded Rachel, beckoning with a slim and daintily gloved hand.

James Blaisdell looked over at the round faces and then said, “No, I’m going to walk all the way. Much obliged to you. If I am not asking too much, might I venture to ask where you are all going?”

Robert replied with some unwonted hesitation, “Why, we were going down to Lawrence to see some of the boys who couldn’t get home for the holidays.”

“And then where?” insisted Mr. Blaisdell, easing his sore feet a little.

Rachel blushed a little. “We were planning to come back to town this afternoon.…”

“There’s a party on for tonight, Father,” said Ruth, “and we were going to that, after a tea at one of the girls’ houses.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Blaisdell rather indifferently. “I didn’t know, seeing it was New Year’s Day that—perhaps your mother and I—well, never mind. Don’t let me keep any of you waiting.”

“Oh, Dad, please get in, and let us take you to the store,” cried Rachel.

“No, I prefer to walk. A happy New Year to you all!” He started along bravely enough, but the effort caused him almost as much pain as though he were walking on hot griddles. The four Rs looked at him in silence; then the car started up again and continued down the street.

They had crossed the Santa Fe tracks before any of them said anything. Robert broke the embarrassing silence by saying, “I say, fellows, we are a set of chumps. We ought to have climbed out and made Dad ride. He was limping.”

“It does seem almost a shame, doesn’t it, that we don’t all get together tonight, New Year’s,” volunteered Ruth.

“But I don’t see how I can give up the party,” argued Rachel, her pretty face frowning with anxiety. “I promised—”

“Pretty rotten, I call it,” broke in Robert again. “Dad has done everything for us, and we—”

“What are we going to do about this going-to-church business?” spoke up Richard. “I don’t see how I can go. I play in the Sunday-school orchestra, I go to the Record Class afterwards, and I’m too tired to—”

“Better not make that alibi,” interrupted Robert. “You know it’s bunk. Nobody’s ever too tired to do what he wants to do.”

“Why did father want to make such a ridiculous resolution?” cried Rachel petulantly. “Church is too stupid for anything. I don’t understand the Doctor’s sermons. They bore me to death.”

“But you could try to look interested, you know,” suggested Robert. “The duller he becomes the more you might lean forward and look intelligent. It might help him to be more interesting. That’s psychology, you know.”

“Oh dear, well,” was all Richard could contribute; and it was not by any means a happy New Year’s car load of Rs that finally rolled down the hill into Lawrence.

Just as they were going up the street near the Eldridge Hotel, Robert delivered himself of an ultimatum. “I want to say to the rest of you fellows, that in my opinion we are a set of chumps. Here’s Dad slaved all his life for us, giving us everything we ask for, liberal allowance, a good home, education and all that, and we know how good he is all the time, and then when he asks for some little favor, we feel grieved. You can do what you like, but I’m going to cut out the party tonight and stay at home. You will find me in the family pew tomorrow if I have to sit there alone. Fix up your alibis.”

When the car came to a stop on Massachusetts Avenue, the Blaisdell “fellows” sat there for some time, looking at one another but not saying much.

When James Blaisdell finally limped into the store, it was half past nine. He went into his office and found his partner there. Randall was a large, heavy-featured man, and he was plainly disturbed by Mr. Blaisdell’s late arrival. “Look over that invoice, will you?” he said as his partner came in.

Mr. Blaisdell cut short his “Happy New Year, Dan!” He took the paper and began to look at it when the head bookkeeper came to the office door, beaming all over.

“Happy New Year, Mr. Blaisdell, Mr. Randall. The stork left a fine ten-pound boy at our house early this morning.”

“Congratulations,” offered Mr. Blaisdell. “You ought to take a whole day off and go home to visit that newcomer. He must weigh more than ten pounds by this time.”

“We’re going to name him Blaisdell Cummings, with your permission, Mr. Blaisdell,” said Cummings.

James felt a glow all over. “It’s a compliment. I appreciate it. Tell Mrs. Cummings so for me. Thank you, Cummings, thank you. Happy New Year, a lot of ’em.”

As soon as Cummings stepped out, Randall said, “Well, you see that doesn’t look very good, does it? Looks like a dead loss.”

“What does?” asked Mr. Blaisdell. “You don’t mean Cummings’ ten pounder?”

“Ten pounder nothing. Read the invoice. It means a thousand dollar loss to us. Bad beginning for a New Year.”

Mr. Blaisdell read the paper and grasped the meaning of a financial blunder somewhere. At once he realized that it was not an opportune time to propose to his partner the resolution to close the store on Saturday afternoons. He spent the rest of the morning going over several trying events that Randall managed to drag in to spoil a holiday.

At one o’clock after the store finally closed, Mr. Blaisdell went out, caught a crowded streetcar, and reached home tired and dispirited to find Mary waiting for him with a good lunch all ready. His feet hurt him so much that he lay down in the library. There was a drizzling sleet falling, and the day was darkening with signs of a dull storm coming on.

Mary came up to the couch where her husband was lying, doing his best to choke down a groan. “It’s too bad, James. You ought not to try to walk that far. I told the children to hurry up with the car, catch up with you, and take you down. Did they find you? They were not certain just what street you took.”

“They found me all right, but I thought I’d better stick to my resolution. I think they really felt bad to go on without me.” He brightened a little as he recalled the look and the voice of Rachel.

“Where were they going?” asked Mary.

“Didn’t they tell you?”

“I was called over to the telephone while they were getting the car out, and I guess they forgot. They had gone when I came back into the dining room.”

“Well, they were going down to Lawrence to see some of their friends, and then they were coming back to town for the afternoon, and this evening they were all going to a party.”

Mary did not speak. She was bending over her husband, pretending to replace a hot cloth on the sore foot; but she could not prevent a warm tear from falling on James’ hand as he reached out to pat her cheek. “Never mind, dear, we have each other.”

“Yes, we have each other,” faltered Mary.

“Looks like it’s going to be a stormy night,” said Mr. Blaisdell as he sat up and put an arm around Mary.

“Yes,” she replied, as she ran her fingers through her husband’s rather ragged locks, “it does look like a stormy afternoon and night; but we have each other.”

“Each other,” murmured James Blaisdell, cheerfully. “Nobody can rob us of each other, can they, Mary?”

Mary answered bravely, as the afternoon darkened quickly, “No, no, nobody.”

Chapter Three

The Aftermath

One year later in the Blaisdell home on New Year’s Eve, James and Mary Blaisdell were sitting in their front room. It was decorated for a special event. A hum of pleasant voices sounded from upstairs, but for the moment James and Mary were together alone. There was a look of joy and peace on their faces that seemed to be established. Mr. Blaisdell said, “We have so much to be thankful for, Mary, dear, haven’t we?”

“Yes, but it didn’t look like it a year ago, did it?”

“Well, hardly, I lay there on that couch with a corn-founded foot, and you were weeping like a thunder cloud. When all of a sudden—”

“Yes,” interrupted Mrs. Blaisdell with a tearful laugh, “like a fairy story, in came the four Rs, with their friends. My, what an evening we did have! Do you remember how the children made us stay in here while they prepared dinner?”

“Do I? It was bum dinner, for you know Ruth and Rachel couldn’t cook a boiled egg without burning it, and they knew Maggie had gone home for New Year’s; but it was the best dinner we ever ate.”

“What a year we have had, James, dearest.”

“Yes, it’s been a great year. Too good to be true. Those resolutions went up in smoke, some of them.”

“But some of them took fire. How can you ever tell what your example about the money for the church did for other members? It has been wonderful.”

Mr. Blaisdell was silent for a moment. “You know I had no idea of making that public, but it got out somehow, and it seemed to take with quite a group of the church members. It added over a thousand dollars to the treasury.”

“And the doubling of your pledge, James. How that spread. Why, we never can tell how much that meant to the committee at the every member canvass last month. The Doctor says the budget went clear over the top for the first time in the history of the church.”

“Yes, that was great, but I don’t take the credit for that.”

“You remember Richard doubled his.”

“Yes, give him a medal. I bought him a new violin. Saved it for New Year’s instead of Christmas to celebrate this occasion.”

“You have? Where is it?”

“I left it at the store, but I’ll ask Cummings to bring it out.” James walked over to the telephone and called up Cummings.

When he returned, he was greatly excited. “Mary, Cummings says he and his wife are coming right out to pay a New Year’s call if we don’t mind, and they’re bringing Blaisdell. He says the boy can talk several languages and can walk with a little help from his grandfather and grandmother. I hope Cummings will see that boy grows up without corns. He must not begin to walk too soon.”

“How many boys have the store clerks named after you, Jim?”

“By—well, it’s getting embarrassing. I have to buy a number of silver cups and things every time. But we never got the store closed Saturdays. Randall wouldn’t hear to it.”

“That’s a small matter, James, but you have learned to slow down and not rush so much, haven’t you?”

“Well, yes, I guess so, but I come pretty near having a wreck yesterday crossing Topeka Avenue. I forgot the stop sign.”

“I have been thinking, James, about the best one of all. Your resolution about the … the—talking to men about church life. If you hadn’t made any other resolution, James, that alone would have made a New Year for you.”

“It certainly would.” They were both silent again, for this was one of the resolutions they could not talk about much, but the past year had been a great experience for James Blaisdell. In some ways it was the greatest he had ever known, and no one except his pastor and a few others will ever know the meaning of that resolution in the lives of several men.

“And the Sunday resolution. The children with us. And the example has spread.”

“Yes, and I believe the preaching is more interesting. Some psychology perhaps.”

“I have been thinking that we ought to be most thankful about the children, James. What a wonderful thing to have them with us tonight.”

“Wonderful, but we came pretty near to losing Rachel.”

“I can’t bear to think of that. Oh, James, if you hadn’t come to feel that the children ought to share their lives with us, what a tragedy we might have for our memories tonight.”

“That fellow whom Rachel seemed to be infatuated with! It stopped just in time. How the girl ever—well, Mary, we didn’t begin right with the children. I’m going to tell you now why I had that resolution meeting a year ago. The facts I found out about the children’s habits of reading, their associates, and all that made me fairly sick for a while. But I believe they had a foundation, and you are to thank for that, of solid common sense that saved the situation many times. The children are all with us and happy tonight. Fairies do exist, don’t they?”

“Yes, and you’re one of them. Here comes the rest of them.”

There was a rush down the stairs, and the four Rs came into the front room shouting. They made for their dad and mother and gathered them up in a circling embrace. If there was a happier family in town, James and Mary Blaisdell did not know where it could be. Resolution thirteen proved to be lucky. Mr. Blaisdell looked proud of his flock. Mary looked younger than when he courted her on the campus. Robert had thickened up a little and had added dignity, for his shingle was out and he was a full-fledged lawyer with an office over his father’s store. Richard was to graduate in music next year and had begun to write what he called musical stories. Ruth succeeded in getting an article in
The Youth’s Companion
and never cashed the check but mounted it in a frame. Rachel gave up some of the artificial coloring and enhanced her beauty accordingly. She clung to her father that happy night a little longer than the others, for she had begun to realize from all her dad saved her.

The whole group waited for the Cummings, including Blaisdell, the ten pounder who had grown to twenty-six. “Twenty-six. Just my wife’s age and mine when we were married, Mrs. Cummings,” said Mr. Blaisdell as he grabbed his namesake, under protest from Mary that he hold the child right side up.

“We planned to get here just in time for dinner,” said Cummings, as he looked into the dining room.

“And you’re mighty lucky that Maggie is staying over this year, and you’ll get a good one,” replied Mr. Blaisdell, winking at the girls.

“Dinner is served,” announced Maggie, who had a new hat made by Mary and a new necklace given to her by the girls, for Maggie was one of the family and had named one of her children after Mary.

After Mr. Blaisdell asked grace, he looked around. “Where’s that bundle you brought out, Cummings?”

Cummings excused himself, went to the hall, and brought out the new violin. As soon as Mr. Blaisdell handed the package to Richard, the boy opened it and rested his new violin on his shoulder with a look of supreme delight. “Father, have you heard my musical story about the first family in the Garden of Eden?”

“If it’s one of your compositions, play it now,” replied Mr. Blaisdell.

“Words and music all my own,” said Richard, winking at Rachel:

“Oh, there was a happy family

In Eden years ago,

It hadn’t any past, for there wasn’t any, you know;

It hadn’t any neighbors,

To bother it at all,

And every day was summer

Until there was a fall;

It celebrated New Year’s

With jollity and fun,

And there wasn’t another family in all the world

As happy as this one.

Oh, this family in Eden

Wasn’t anybody’s fool,

But they never went to college

For there wasn’t any school;

And it never had to worry

Over any income tax

For there wasn’t any income

To supply the country’s lacks.

And it might have been all summer

If it hadn’t been for fall,

For of all the families living

’Twas the happiest of all.”

Mr. Blaisdell looked across the table at Mary, who wore the “permanent wave” smile. It was there to stay all through the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and thirty.