Read Ebook: Take It from Dad by Livermore George Griswold

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Ebook has 686 lines and 36926 words, and 14 pages

Little beast that Ted was, he took upon himself great credit for his humiliation and acted like a perfect cad for the rest of the evening, starting delighted giggles whenever possible by brilliant remarks about his backwoodsman.

Later, as Ted and his fair companion were walking down Main Street on the way to her home, they met a little rat-eyed "townie" by the name of Dick Cooke whom Ted had thrashed a week before, for trying to steal his coat from a locker in the gym. He made an insulting remark to the girl and started to run. Seeing, as Ted believed, a cheap chance to play the hero, he piled after him. He only went a few feet, then turned and from out of the shadows of one of those old houses, four of his cronies lit into Ted.

Ted went down with a crash, his head hitting the sidewalk so hard he saw stars. Then he heard a shout, "Stick it out, Ted, I'm coming!" There was a rush of heavy feet and spat, spat, spat, came the sound of bare fists landing where they were aimed.

When Ted struggled to his feet his gawky roommate was standing beside him, and the "townies" were tearing down the street as though Old Nick himself were after them.

Ted didn't make a long speech of apology for his meanness to his roommate. It's only in stories a boy does that, but, believe me, he treated him differently.

And, would you believe it, in less than two months Aroostook was wading through the Andover line as if it were so much knitting yarn, and at mid-year Ted was taken into the Plata Dates on the sole recommendation of being his roommate.

A fellow by the name of Burns once said, "Rank is but the guinea's stamp"; now, I don't know much about guineas, but what I do know is that the grain on a side of sole leather don't tell the whole story. It's the sound, clean, close-knit fibers underneath that make it figure right.

Son, there's going to be a place at our Sunday dinner table for that "ham" of yours. Bring him home. I've a notion it's sweet pickle he needs to be cured in, not sour.

Your affectionate father,

WILLIAM SOULE.

DEAR TED:

You could; but I wouldn't. If you go to the principal and tell him a senior sold you the wall paper in your room, he'd get your money back for you; and you'd get interest with it, not the six per cent kind either; but a guying from the whole school, and probably the nickname of "Wally", that would stick to you closer for the rest of your life than that paper stuck to your wall.

You seemed surprised that any one who talked so nicely and seemed such a likeable, jovial sort of good fellow, would flim-flam you like that. Let me tell you right here, that the easy talkers and jolly good fellows, are the ones you want to watch in business sharper than an old maid watches her neighbors.

The short worded man I'll listen to, for he condenses all he has to say, and is usually worth hearing. But when one of your slick word wrestlers gets by the outer guard, and begins filling my office with clouds of rosy talk of how I'll soon have John D. shining my shoes if I'll only buy goods of him, I slip my wallet into my hip pocket and lean back on it, while I make signs to Mike to clear a path to the door.

Honestly, Ted, I'm glad you bought that wall paper. The male human is so constituted that he has got to make at least one fool investment during his life and it's just as well to get it out of your system early. If I were you, I'd write that six dollars down in my expense book as spent in a worthy cause, for it may save you from some day buying stock in the Panama Canal, or a controlling interest in the Brooklyn Bridge.

Speaking of fool buys, naturally reminds me of the time your Ma and I were boarding with your Aunt Maria over in Saugus. We'd just been married, and I was spending my days bossing the sole leather room in Clough & Spinney's, and my nights in trying to figure how the fellow who said two can live as cheaply as one got his answer.

Your Aunt Maria was a good woman, but so tight she squeaked, and when she let go of a dollar the eagle usually left his tail feathers behind.

Aunt Maria, in my estimation, was the most unlikely prospect in the whole of Massachusetts, for a book agent, but one day a slick specimen representing, "The Heroines of English Literature," blew into her parlor, and when he left he had fifty dollars, in cash mind you, of her money, and an order for a set of twenty volumes.

The next day, when she had somewhat recovered from the effects of her severe gassing; and had begun to think of that fifty, lost forever, her mouth looked as though she had been eating green persimmons, and she was about as amicable as a former heavy weight champion just after he has lost his title.

For a month we had so many baked bean suppers, your Ma and I began to wonder if she had bought the world's supply, and took to accepting invitations from people we didn't like.

Now Aunt Maria in spite of her closeness, was some punkins in Saugus society. She was president of the Sewing Circle, and a strenuous leader in the Eastern Star, and one Saturday afternoon about six weeks after she had invested in, "The Heroines of English Literature," the Sewing Circle was holding a meeting in her parlor, while I was in the dining room trying to figure out a trip to the Isle of Shoals for your Ma and me.

After they had got through shooting to pieces the reputation of the absent members, and had guzzled their tea, one of the bunch spied "The Heroines" on a little side table where Aunt Maria had installed them upon their arrival. Out of sheer curiosity, the crowd fell upon them with cackles of delight, and to make themselves solid with their president, praised the books to the sky.

Aunt Maria saw a great light; and before her guests left she had sold them enough sets so that the commissions from the publishers more than made up her fifty dollars, and as a special favor to her dearest friend she delivered her own set to her then and there. For a time, after that, "The Heroines" were the most popular reading matter that ever hit Saugus. Popular with the women, I mean, for the men figured Aunt Maria's epidemic of literature cost them a good many new suits of clothes, and the village watch dogs almost went on a strike, because there were so many collectors coming around after partial payments it was hard for a dog to tell whether they were tramps or new members of his family.

Which all goes to prove that even a poor buy may sometimes be turned into a good account. Now you can draw some, Ted, or at least your teacher said you could, when he pried a hundred dollars out of me for pictures to decorate the high school.

I told him you could overdraw your allowance all right, but he insisted you had true technique, whatever that is, so I loosened up.

Why not try a little freehand stuff on your newly acquired wall paper! You might start a fad like Aunt Maria did, that would stamp you as one of the school weisenheimers, and by the way if the boy who sold you the wall paper isn't going to college tell him I'd like to see him some day. I'll need a cub salesman in the Middle West, next summer, and I don't like to see so much natural ability going to waste.

Your affectionate father,

WILLIAM SOULE.

DEAR TED:

There have been farmers and doctors and lawyers and preachers in the Soule family, and, in the old days, I believe we boasted of a pirate and a highwayman or two, but no artists, and I'd rather you didn't break the record.

Am glad though the faculty didn't fire you, for carrying out that fool suggestion of mine of decorating the other boy's wall paper. Fifteen rooms is going some Ted, and the .00 you received will come in real handy to pay for new school books, won't it?

After you've been tried here in the factory, to prove whether you can ever be made into a shoe manufacturer, and we decide you can't; I have no objection to your joining the grave diggers union, or driving a garbage cart, but as for your being an artist, you haven't a chance. Your Ma says I am prejudiced against artists because they are temperamental, but so far as I can see the accent must all be on the first part of the word for I never knew one who had brains enough to make a living.

You remember Percy Benson, son of old man Benson who lived on Ocean Street, don't you? Well, Percy was a promising youngster until he began to draw the cover designs of the high school Clarion, although I told his father when he was born that the name Percy was too much of a handicap for any kid to carry successfully. The old man allowed he'd never heard of a shoe manufacturer with that name but said, "The boy's Ma got it out of a book she'd been reading and that settled it." and knowing Mrs. Benson I guess he was right.

As I was saying, Percy did real well until he started drawing covers for the high school paper. After these had been accepted he swelled up like a pouter pigeon and nothing would do but he must go abroad to study. His father kicked like a steer; but in the end Percy and his mother prevailed, and Lynn lost sight of him for a few years.

For a time, I used to ask the old man how Percy was getting along with his painting, but as he always changed the subject to the leather market, I soon quit. One day after Percy had been gone about three years, I came home early and found your Ma holding a tea fight in the parlor.

After balancing a cup on my knees without spilling more than half of its contents, and getting myself so smeared with the frosting of the cake I was supposed to eat that I'd have given ten dollars for a shower bath, the conversation lulled, and remembering your Ma had told me I never talked enough in society, I asked Mrs. Benson how Percy was doing.

Ted it tickled her most to pieces, and she opened up a barrage of technique, color, fore-shortening, and high lights, winding up with the astonishing fact that one of Percy's pictures had been hung in a saloon.

I was gasping for breath like a marathon runner at the end of the twenty-third mile, but your Ma was all smiles so I thought I must be making a hit.

That's where I went wrong, and while you're about it Ted just paste this in your hat for future reference. When you begin to be pleased with yourself you're in as much danger as a fat boy running tiddelies on early November ice.

As saloon was the only word in the Benson cannonade that I understood, I replied when the bombardment was over.

"Glad to hear it, I'm sure. If the French brewers are paying him for pictures to hang in their saloons, he should be able to paint some snappy clothing ads for American manufacturers before long."

Mrs. Benson choked, gasped, strangled, and grew so red in the face I thought she was going to have apoplexy. Then she bounded out of her chair with one word, "insulting," and made for the door with your Ma one jump behind, imploring her to stay.

When your Ma returned, I learned saloon was the French word for picture gallery, and that my society stock had gone down like an aviator in a nose dive.

About a year later Old Man Benson busted trying to flood the retailers with bronze kid boots, and it was a real honest-to-goodness failure. The old man was wiped out and Percy came home from Paris.

One morning I was over at the Benson's factory along with a bunch of other creditors. The meeting had hardly got under way, when Percy entered in a cloud of cigarette smoke, and with a breath that made me think the French knew what they were about when they called the place at which he had been studying Booze Arts.

No one there had much love for Percy, but we all realized his father was too old to start again and that it was up to Percy to go to work, for from his general appearance it did not look as though the artist business was paying any dividends. So as gently as I could, I suggested he paint the inside of my factory at per. I was pretty sure it was more than he was worth, but I felt sorry for the old man. Did he take it? He did not. He gave me one scornful glance and strode out of the room with the air of an insulted king. Did he go to work? Not much! He married a waitress at the Dairy Lunch who ought to have known better, and to-day she is working in the stitching room at Fair Bros. while Percy spends his days coloring photographs for about ten a week, and his nights preaching revolution at radical meetings.

Forget the artist stuff Ted, and take a second helping of the education they pass around so liberally at Exeter. It can't hurt you any, and who knows but it may do you some good. And by the way if you can spare the time from your studies why not play a little football?

Your Ma says she's afraid you'll have your brains knocked out, but I tell her not to worry over the impossible.

Your affectionate father,

WILLIAM SOULE.

DEAR TED:

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