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Page 11
Tom had meant well, there was no denying that. And he had always
religiously forwarded his I O U's. Frederick musingly weighed the packet
of them in his hand, as though to determine if any relation existed
between the weight of paper and the sums of money represented on it.
He put the drawer back in the cabinet and passed out. Glancing in at the
big chair he saw Polly just tiptoeing from the room. Tom's head lay
back, and his breathing was softly heavy, the sickness pronouncedly
apparent on his relaxed face.
V
"I have worked hard," Frederick explained to Polly that evening on the
veranda, unaware that when a man explains it is a sign his situation is
growing parlous. "I have done what came to my hand--how creditably it is
for others to say. And I have been paid for it. I have taken care of
others and taken care of myself. The doctors say they have never seen
such a constitution in a man of my years. Why, almost half my life is
yet before me, and we Travers are a long-lived stock. I took care of
myself, you see, and I have myself to show for it. I was not a waster. I
conserved my heart and my arteries, and yet there are few men who can
boast having done as much work as I have done. Look at that hand.
Steady, eh? It will be as steady twenty years from now. There is nothing
in playing fast and loose with oneself."
And all the while Polly had been following the invidious comparison that
lurked behind his words.
"You can write 'Honourable' before your name," she flashed up proudly.
"But my father has been a king. He has lived. Have you lived? What have
you got to show for it? Stocks and bonds, and houses and servants--pouf!
Heart and arteries and a steady hand--is that all? Have you lived merely
to live? Were you afraid to die? I'd rather sing one wild song and burst
my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and
being afraid of the wet. When you are dust, my father will be ashes.
That is the difference."
"But my dear child--" he began.
"What have you got to show for it?" she flamed on. "Listen!"
From within, through the open window, came the tinkling of Tom's
_ukulele_ and the rollicking lilt of his voice in an Hawaiian _hula_. It
ended in a throbbing, primitive love-call from the sensuous tropic night
that no one could mistake. There was a burst of young voices, and a
clamour for more. Frederick did not speak. He had sensed something vague
and significant.
Turning, he glanced through the window at Tom, flushed and royal,
surrounded by the young men and women, under his Viking moustache
lighting a cigarette from a match held to him by one of the girls. It
abruptly struck Frederick that never had he lighted a cigar at a match
held in a woman's hand.
"Doctor Tyler says he oughtn't to smoke--it only aggravates," he said;
and it was all he could say.
As the fall of the year came on, a new type of men began to frequent the
house. They proudly called themselves "sour-doughs," and they were
arriving in San Francisco on the winter's furlough from the
gold-diggings of Alaska. More and more of them came, and they pre-empted
a large portion of one of the down-town hotels. Captain Tom was fading
with the season, and almost lived in the big chair. He drowsed oftener
and longer, but whenever he awoke he was surrounded by his court of
young people, or there was some comrade waiting to sit and yarn about
the old gold days and plan for the new gold days.
For Tom--Husky Travers, the Yukoners named him--never thought that the
end approached. A temporary illness, he called it, the natural
enfeeblement following upon a prolonged bout with Yucatan fever. In the
spring he would be right and fit again. Cold weather was what he needed.
His blood had been cooked. In the meantime it was a case of take it easy
and make the most of the rest.
And no one undeceived him--not even the Yukoners, who smoked pipes and
black cigars and chewed tobacco on Frederick's broad verandas until he
felt like an intruder in his own house. There was no touch with them.
They regarded him as a stranger to be tolerated. They came to see Tom.
And their manner of seeing him was provocative of innocent envy pangs to
Frederick. Day after day he watched them. He would see the Yukoners
meet, perhaps one just leaving the sick room and one just going in. They
would clasp hands, solemnly and silently, outside the door. The
newcomer would question with his eyes, and the other would shake his
head. And more than once Frederick noted the moisture in their eyes.
Then the newcomer would enter and draw his chair up to Tom's, and with
jovial voice proceed to plan the outfitting for the exploration of the
upper Kuskokeem; for it was there Tom was bound in the spring. Dogs
could be had at Larabee's--a clean breed, too, with no taint of the soft
Southland strains. It was rough country, it was reported, but if
sour-doughs couldn't make the traverse from Larabee's in forty days
they'd like to see a _chechako_ do it in sixty.
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