On the Stairs | Page 9

and none of us thought it remotely
possible to withstand him. "Enough for one morning," he added, and he
waved both arms with a broad scoop to motion us toward the street
gate.
"Oh, father, now!" began Johnny (with no smile at all), conscious of his
position as host.
"No more, to-day," said his father. "School six days a week would be
about my idea."
Raymond said nothing, but drew up his mouth to one side and himself
led us toward the street.
VII
I would not seem to stress either the saliency or the significance of
these incidents. I simply put them down, after many years, just as they
return to my memory. Memory is sporadic; memory is capricious;
memory is inconsequent, sometimes forgetting the large thing to record
the little. And memory may again prove itself all these, and more, if I

attempt to rescue from the past a children's party.
It was my young sister who "gave" it, as our expression was; parents in
the background, providing the funds and engineering the mechanism,
were not allowed greatly to count. The party was given for my sister's
visitor, a little girl from some small interior town whose name (whether
child's or town's) I have long since forgotten. Raymond was invited, of
course;--"though he isn't very nice to us," as my sister ruefully
observed; and some prompting toward fair play (as I vaguely termed it
to myself) made me suggest Johnny McComas. He came.
There must have been some twenty-five of us--all that our small house
would hold. There were more games than dances; and the games were
largely "kissing" games: "post-office," "clap-in, clap-out," "drop the
handkerchief," and such-like innocent infantilities. Some of us thought
ourselves too old for this sort of thing, and would willingly have left it
to the younger children; but the eager lady from next door, who was
"helping," insisted that we all take part. This is the place for the
Gertrudes and the Adeles, and they were there in good measure,
be-bowed and be-sashed and fluttering about (or romping about)
flushed and happy. And this would be pre-eminently the place for Elsie,
Jehiel's granddaughter and Raymond's cousin. Elsie would naturally be,
in the general scheme, my childhood sweetheart; later, my fiancée; and
ultimately my wife. Such a relationship would help me, of course, to
keep tab more easily on Raymond during the long course of his life.
For instance, at this very party I see her doing a polka with Johnny
McComas, while Raymond (who had been sent to dancing-school, but
had steadfastly refused to "learn") views Johnny with a mixture of envy
and contempt. A year or two later, I see Elsie seated in the twilight at
the head of her grandfather's grandiose front steps, surrounded by boys
of seventeen or eighteen, while Raymond, sent on some errand to his
grandfather's house, picks his way through the crowd to say to himself,
censoriously, in the vestibule: "Well, if I can't talk any better at that age
than they do...!" Yes, Elsie would undeniably have been an aid; but she
never existed, and we must dispense with her for once and for all.
Raymond could always make himself difficult, and he usually did so at

parties. To be difficult was to be choice, and to be choice was to be
desirable. Therefore he got more of the kisses than he might have got
otherwise--many more, in fact, than he cared for. But on this occasion a
good part of his talent for making himself difficult was reserved until
refreshment time. Most of the boys and girls had paired instinctively to
make a prompt raid on the dining-room table, with Johnny McComas
unabashedly to the fore; but Raymond lingered behind. My mother
presently found him moping alone in the parlor, where he was looking
with an over-emphatic care at the pictures.
"Why, Raymond dear! Why aren't you out with the others? Don't you
want anything to eat?"
No; Raymond didn't want anything.
"But you do--of course you do. Come."
Then Raymond, thus urged and escorted,--and, above all,
individualized,--allowed himself to be led out to the refreshments; and,
to do him justice, he ate as much and as happily as any one else.
Johnny McComas, with his mouth full, and with Gertrudes and Adeles
all around him, welcomed him with the high sign of jovial
camaraderie.
Yes, Johnny took his full share of the ice-cream and macaroons; he got
his full quota of letters from the "post-office"; the handkerchief was
dropped behind him every third or fourth time, and he always caught
the attentive little girl who was whisking away--if he wanted to. He
even took a manful part in the dancing.
"What a good schottische!" exclaimed one of the Adeles, as the
industrious lady from next door,