The Brentons | Page 9

than devout. In this
game Mrs. Brenton often joined him, lending her thin soprano voice to
help out his quavering childish notes, and doing her conscientious best,
the while, to keep the songs attuned to the key of proper piety. To be
sure, she did insist upon bringing her sewing into church and, on one
occasion, she patched her young son's trousers into a hideous pucker,
by reason of her greater interest in the method of his expoundings.
"Just for all the world like father!" she was wont to say. "But wherever
did he pick it up, when father was in his grave, three years before the
child was born?"
The question was left unanswered by herself of whom she asked it. All
too soon, moreover, it was joined by another question of similar import,
but far more appalling. Indeed, where did the boy, where does any boy,
pick up the tricks and manners and the phraseology of certain of his
forbears who quitted the world before he fairly entered it? In Scott's
case, the example was a flagrant one.
At the starting of the game of "Grandpa Wheeler," Mrs. Brenton had
been so charmed with the outworkings of heredity as to balk at nothing
Scott might do: sermon, hymn, or even prayer. When she was sure of

her rôle and had the leisure, she joined him in his imitative worship,
delighting in the unconscious fashion in which the sonorous phrases of
convention rolled off from her son's baby lips. And then, one day,
Scott's memory failed him in his invocation. There came a familiar
phrase or two, and then a babble of meaningless syllables, ending in a
long-drawn and relieved Amen. An instant later, Scott lifted up his
head.
"Mo--ther," he shrilled vaingloriously; "I forgetted how it ought to go;
but didn't I put up a bully bluff?"
And, in consequence, Mrs. Brenton took her prayers into bed with her,
that night. Some of them, even, lasted till the dawn.
This was when Scott was only four. By the time he was fourteen, he
took himself more seriously. He still played "Grandpa Wheeler" in
imagination; but he no longer called it play, but plans. Already, he was
looking forward to the hour when, in creaking Sunday shoes and shiny
Sunday broadcloth, he should mount the stairs of the old-fashioned
pulpit in the village church, gather the hearts of the waiting
congregation within the welcoming and graceful gesture which would
prelude his opening prayer, and then scourge those same hearts with the
lashing truths which lead unto regeneration. He saw himself distinctly
in this rôle, more distinctly, even, than in the blurry mirror before
which he performed his morning toilet. It was no especial wonder that
he did so. Ever since he had been old enough to pay heed to anything,
his mother had been holding the picture up before his eyes.
Catie, however, refused to be impressed by the picture.
"What makes you want to be a minister?" she asked him. "I'd rather you
kept a store. There's lots more money in it."
"I don't see what difference it is going to make to you?" Scott answered
rather cavalierly.
Catie's reply was matter-of-fact, regardless of the sentimental nature of
its substance.

"Don't be stupid, Scott. Of course, we shall be married, when we get
grown up, and then you'll have me to support."
It was the first time she had announced this rather radical plan of hers,
so it was no especial wonder that, for the moment, it took Scott's breath
away. Not that he objected especially, however. It was only the novelty
of the idea that staggered him. To his slowly-developing masculine
mind, it never had occurred that he and Catie could not go on for ever,
just chums and playmates and, now and then, lusty foes, without
complicating their relations by more formal, final ties. He rallied
swiftly, however.
"Well, you'll have to marry a minister, then," he told her sturdily.
Her nose wrinkled in disgust.
"And wear shabby clothes and a bad bonnet, like Mrs. Platt, and have
to go to all the funerals in town! How horrid! Oh, Scott, do be some
other kind of a man. A minister's wife can't dance anything but the
Virginia reel, nor play anything more than muggins. Why can't you be a
dentist, if you won't keep a store?"
For the once, Scott showed himself dominant, aggressive.
"Because I'd rather preach. It's what all my people have always done."
Then Catie made her blunder.
"What about your father?" she asked, and her voice was taunting.
Scott forgot his holy heritage and turned upon her swiftly.
"Shut up!" he bade her curtly, and her cheek tingled under the blow he
dealt her.
It was the first time in his life that Scott