The Danger Mark | Page 9

the receiver with a
deep indrawn breath.
From the nursery above came a joyous clamour and trampling and
shouting.
Suddenly she covered her face with her black-gloved hands.
CHAPTER II
IN TRUST
The enfranchisement of the Seagrave twins proceeded too slowly to
satisfy their increasing desire for personal liberty and their fast-growing

impatience of restraint.
Occasionally, a few carefully selected and assorted children were
permitted to visit them in relays, and play in the nursery for limited
periods without the personal supervision of Kathleen or the nurses; but
no serious innovation was attempted, no radical step taken without
authority from old Remsen Tappan, the trust officer of the great Half
Moon Trust Company.
There could be no arguing with Mr. Tappan.
Shortly before Anthony Seagrave died he had written to his old friend
Tappan:
"If I live, I shall see to it that my grandchildren know nothing of the
fortune awaiting them until they become of age--which will be after I
am ended. Meanwhile, plain food and clothing, wholesome home
seclusion from the promiscuity of modern child life, and an exhaustive
education in every grace, fashion, and accomplishment of body and
intellect is the training I propose for the development in them of the
only thing in the world worth cultivating--unterrified individualism.
"The ignorance which characterises the conduct of modern institutes of
education reduces us all to one mindless level, reproducing _ad
nauseam_ what is known as 'average citizens.' This nation is already
crawling with them; art, religion, letters, government, business, human
ideals remain embryonic because the 'average citizen' can conceive
nothing higher, can comprehend nothing loftier even when the few who
have escaped the deadly levelling grind of modern methods of
education attempt to teach the masses to think for themselves.
"That is bad enough in itself--but add to cut-and-dried pedagogy the
outrageous liberty which modern pupils are permitted in school and
college, and add to that the unheard-of luxury in which they live--and
the result is stupidity and utter ruin.
"My babies must have discipline, system, frugality, and leisure for
individual development drilled into them. I do not wish them to be

ignorant of one single modern grace and accomplishment; mind and
body must be trained together like a pair of Morgan colts.
"But I will not have them victims of pedagogy; I will not have them
masters of their time and money until they are of age; I will not permit
them to choose companions or pursuits for their leisure until they are
fitted to do so.
"If there is in them, latent, any propensity toward viciousness--any
unawakened desire for that which has been my failing--hard work from
dawn till dark is the antidote. An exhausted child is beyond temptation.
"If I pass forward, Tappan, before you--and it is likely because I am
twenty years older and I have lived unwisely--I shall arrange matters in
such shape that you can carry out something of what I have tried to
begin, far better than I, old friend; for I am strong in theory and very
weak in practice; they are such dear little things! And when they cry to
be taken up--and a modern trained nurse says 'No! let them cry!' good
God! Remsen, I sometimes sneak into their thoroughly modern and
scientifically arranged nursery, which resembles an operating room in a
brand-new hospital, and I take up my babies and rock them in my arms,
terrified lest that modern and highly trained nurse discover my
infraction of sanitary rule and precept.
"I don't know; babies were born, and survived cradles and mothers'
arms and kisses long before sterilised milk and bacilli were invented.
"You see I am weak in more ways than one. But I do mean to give
them every chance. It isn't that these old arms ache for them, that this
rather tired heart weakens when they cry for God knows what, and
modern science says let them cry!--it is that, deep in me, Tappan, a
heathenish idea persists that what they need more than hygienics and
scientific discipline is some of that old-fashioned love--love which
rocks them when it is not good for them--love which overfeeds them
sometimes so that they yell with old-fashioned colic--love which
ventures a bacilli-laden kiss. Friend, friend--I am very unfit! It will be
well for them when I move on. Only try to love them, Tappan. And if
you ever doubt, kill them with indulgence, rather than with hygiene!"

He died of pneumonia a few weeks later. He had no chance. Remsen
Tappan picked up the torch from the fallen hand and, blowing it into a
brisk blaze, shuffled forward to light a path through life for the highly
sterilised twins.
So the Half Moon Trust became father and mother to the Seagrave
children; and Mr. Tappan as dry nurse prescribed the