Miss Mehetabels Son | Page 7

his life away. To
such a man--brooding forever on what might have been and dwelling
wholly in the realm of his fancies--the actual world might indeed
become as a dream, and nothing seem real but his illusions. I dare say
that thirteen years of Bayley's Four-Corners would have its effect upon
me; though instead of conjuring up golden-haired children of the
Madonna, I should probably see gnomes and kobolds, and goblins
engaged in hoisting false signals and misplacing switches for midnight
express trains.
"No doubt," I said to myself that night, as I lay in bed, thinking over the
matter, "this once possible but now impossible child is a great comfort
to the old gentleman--a greater comfort, perhaps, than a real son would
be. Maybe Andy will vanish with the shades and mists of night, he's
such an unsubstantial infant; but if he does n't, and Mr. Jaffrey finds
pleasure in talking to me about his son, I shall humor the old fellow. It
would n't be a Christian act to knock over his harmless fancy."
I was very impatient to see if Mr. Jaffrey's illusion would stand the test
of daylight. It did. Elkanah Elkins Andrew Jackson Jaffrey was, so to
speak, alive and kicking the next morning. On taking his seat at the
breakfast-table, Mr. Jaffrey whispered to me that Andy had had a
comfortable night.
"Silas!" said Mr. Sewell, sharply, "what are you whispering about?"
Mr. Sewell was in an ill-humor; perhaps he was jealous because I had
passed the evening in Mr. Jaffrey's room; but surely Mr. Sewell could
not expect his boarders to go to bed at eight o'clock every night, as he
did. From time to time during the meal Mr. Sewell regarded me
unkindly out of the corner of his eye, and in helping me to the parsnips
he poniarded them with quite a suggestive air. All this, however, did
not prevent me from repairing to the door of Mr. Jaffrey's snuggery

when night came.
"Well, Mr. Jaffrey, how 's Andy this evening?"
"Got a tooth!" cried Mr. Jaffrey, vivaciously.
"No!"
"Yes, he has! Just through. Gave the nurse a silver dollar. Standing
reward for first tooth."
It was on the tip of my tongue to express surprise that an infant a day
old should cut a tooth, when I suddenly recollected that Richard III.
was born with teeth. Feeling myself to be on unfamiliar ground, I
suppressed my criticism. It was well I did so, for in the next breath I
was advised that half a year had elapsed since the previous evening.
"Andy 's had a hard six months of it," said Mr. Jaffrey, with the
well-known narrative air of fathers. "We 've brought him up by hand.
His grandfather, by the way, was brought up by the bottle"--and
brought down by it, too, I added mentally, recalling Mr. Sewell's
account of the old gentleman's tragic end.
Mr. Jaffrey then went on to give me a history of Andy's first six months,
omitting no detail however insignificant or irrelevant. This history I
would in turn inflict upon the reader, if I were only certain that he is
one of those dreadful parents who, under the aegis of friendship, bore
you at a streets corner with that remarkable thing which Freddy said the
other day, and insist on singing to you, at an evening parly, the Iliad of
Tommy's woes.
But to inflict this enfantillage upon the unmarried reader would be an
act of wanton cruelty. So I pass over that part of Andy's biography, and,
for the same reason, make no record of the next four or five interviews
I had with Mr. Jaffrey. It will be sufficient to state that Andy glided
from extreme infancy to early youth with astonishing celerity--at the
rate of one year per night, if I remember correctly; and--must I confess
it?--before the week came to an end, this invisible hobgoblin of a boy

was only little less of a reality to me than to Mr. Jaffrey.
At first I had lent myself to the old dreamer's whim with a keen
perception of the humor of the thing; but by and by I found that I was
talking and thinking of Miss Mehetabel's son as though he were a
veritable personage. Mr. Jafifrey spoke of the child with such an air of
conviction!--as if Andy were playing among his toys in the next room,
or making mud-pies down in the yard. In these conversations, it should
be observed, the child was never supposed to be present, except on that
single occasion when Mr. Jafifrey leaned over the cradle. After one of
our séances I would lie awake until the small hours, thinking of the boy,
and then fall asleep only to have indigestible dreams about him.
Through the