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Page 6
And yet he, the unsullied, the fine theoretical moralist, was to return
along that road a thief. A thief of parts, of depraved daring.
"Gramper" and "Grammer" proved to be an incredibly old couple, brown and
withered and gray of locks, shrunken in stature, slow and feeble in
action, and even rather timid themselves in their greetings. They made
much of this grandchild, but they were diffident. Slowly it came to his
knowledge that he was set up as a creature to adore. He enjoyed a
blissful new sensation of being deferred to. Thereafter he lorded it
over them, speaking in confident tones and making wild demands of
entertainment. His mother had been right. They were Beans and,
therefore, not much. He had brought his own silver napkin-ring and had
meant to show them how wonderfully he folded and rolled his napkin after
each meal. But it seemed they possessed no napkins whatever. Even his
mother hadn't thought anything so repulsive as that of these people. He
now boldly played the new game at table that his mother had frowned on.
This was to measure off your meat and potatoes into an equal number of
"bites," so that they would "come out even." If you were careful and
counted right, the thing could be done every time.
And for the first time in all his years he asked for more pie. Of course
this was anarchy. He knew well enough that one piece of pie is the
heaven-allotted portion; that no one, even partly a Bunker, should crave
beyond it; yet this fatuous old pair seemed to invite just that
licentiousness, and they watched him with doting eyes while he swaggered
through his second helping.
If more had been needed to show the Beanish lowness, it would have come
after the first supper, for Gramper and Grammer sat out on a little
vine-covered porch and smoked cob-pipes which they refilled at intervals
from a sack of tobacco passed companionably back and forth. His own
father was supposed to smoke but once a week, on Sunday, and then a
cigar such as even a male Bunker might reputably burn. But a _pipe_, and
between the lips of Grammer! She managed it with deftness and exhaled
clouds of smoke into the still air of evening with a relish most painful
to her amazed descendant. Yet she inspired him with an unholy ambition.
Asked the next day about the habit of smoking, Gramper said it was a bad
habit; that it stunted people and shortened their days. Both he and
Grammer were victims and warnings. Grammer had lumbago sometimes so you
wouldn't hardly believe any one could suffer that way and live. As for
Gramper himself, he had a cough brought on by tobacco that would carry
him off dead one of these days; yes, sir, just like that! And then, to
point his warning, Gramper coughed falsely. Even to the unpractised ear
of his grandson the cough did not ring true. It lacked poignance.
Late that afternoon, when both the old ones slept, he abstracted a pipe,
stuffed it with the rich black flakes and fled with matches to a nook of
charming secrecy in the midst of the lilac clump. Thence arose presently
clouds of smoke from the strongest tobacco money could buy.
At last he had dared something that didn't hurt him. He puffed
valiantly, blowing out the smoke even as Grammer had done. Up to a
certain moment his exaltation was intense, his scared soul expanding to
greater deeds.
Then he coughed rather alarmingly. But that was to be expected. He drew
in another breath of the stuff and coughed again. It was an honest
cough; no doubt about that. Perhaps Gramper's cough had been honest.
Perhaps the pipe he had selected was Gramper's own pipe, the one that
made coughs. He became conscious of something more than throaty
discomfort. Tiny beads of sweat bejewelled his brow, the lilac bush
began to revolve swiftly about him. He must have taken Grammer's pipe
after all--the one that led to lumbago. From revolving with a mere
horizontal motion the lilacs now began also to whirl vertically. He had
eaten a great deal at dinner....
A pallid remnant of himself declined supper that night. Never could he
sit at table again to eat of food. Gramper and Grammer were at first
alarmed and there was talk of sending for a veterinary, the nearest to a
professional man of medicine within miles and miles. But this talk died
out after Gramper had made a cursory examination of the big yard, with
especial attention to the lilac clump, where a pipe and other evidence
was noticed. After that they not only became strangely reassured, but
during their evening smoke on the little porch they often chuckled as if
relishing in secret some rare jest. It did not occur to Bean that they
laughed at him. He did not suspect that any one could laugh at a little
boy who had nearly died of lumbago. And he sat far away that night. The
sight of the fuming pipes made him dizzy. His lesson had told. He was
never to become an accomplished smoker.
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