The Turmoil | Page 6

fever, pheumonia, and
appendicitis--one had them, and either died or got over them and went
back to work--but when the word "nervous" appeared in a diagnosis he
became honestly suspicious: he had the feeling that there was
something contemptible about it, that there was a nigger in the
wood-pile somewhere.
"Look at me," he said. "Look at what I did at his age! Why, when I was
twenty years old, wasn't I up every morning at four o'clock choppin'
wood--yes! and out in the dark and the snow--to build a fire in a
country grocery store? And here Bibbs has to go and have a DOCTOR
because he can't--Pho! it makes me tired! If he'd gone at it like a man
he wouldn't be sick."
He paced the bedroom--the usual setting for such parental discussions
--in his nightgown, shaking his big, grizzled head and gesticulating to
his bedded spouse. "My Lord!" he said. "If a little, teeny bit o' work
like this is too much for him, why, he ain't fit for anything! It's
nine-tenths imagination, and the rest of it--well, I won't say it's
deliberate, but I WOULD like to know just how much of it's put on!"
"Bibbs didn't want the doctor," said Mrs. Sheridan. "It was when he
was here to dinner that night, and noticed how he couldn't eat anything.

Honey, you better come to bed."
"Eat!" he snorted. "Eat! It's work that makes men eat! And it's
imagination that keeps people from eatin'. Busy men don't get time for
that kind of imagination; and there's another thing you'll notice about
good health, if you'll take the trouble to look around you Mrs. Sheridan:
busy men haven't got time to be sick and they don't GET sick. You just
think it over and you'll find that ninety-nine per cent. of the sick people
you know are either women or loafers. Yes, ma'am!"
"Honey," she said again, drowsily, "you better come to bed."
"Look at the other boys," her husband bade her. "Look at Jim and
Roscoe. Look at how THEY work! There isn't a shiftless bone in their
bodies. Work never made Jim or Roscoe sick. Jim takes half the load
off my shoulders already. Right now there isn't a harder-workin',
brighter business man in this city than Jim. I've pushed him, but he give
me something to push AGAINST. You can't push 'nervous dyspepsia'!
And look at Roscoe; just LOOK at what that boy's done for himself,
and barely twenty-seven years old--married, got a fine wife, and ready
to build for himself with his own money, when I put up the New House
for you and Edie."
"Papa, you'll catch cold in your bare feet," she murmured. "You better
come to bed."
"And I'm just as proud of Edie, for a girl," he continued, emphatically,
"as I am of Jim and Roscoe for boys. She'll make some man a mighty
good wife when the time comes. She's the prettiest and talentedest girl
in the United States! Look at that poem she wrote when she was in
school and took the prize with; it's the best poem I ever read in my life,
and she'd never even tried to write one before. It's the finest thing I ever
read, and R. T. Bloss said so, too; and I guess he's a good enough
literary judge for me-- turns out more advertisin' liter'cher than any man
in the city. I tell you she's smart! Look at the way she worked me to get
me to promise the New House--and I guess you had your finger in that,
too, mamma! This old shack's good enough for me, but you and little
Edie 'll have to have your way. I'll get behind her and push her the same

as I will Jim and Roscoe. I tell you I'm mighty proud o' them three
chuldern! But Bibbs--" He paused, shaking his head. "Honest, mamma,
when I talk to men that got ALL their boys doin' well and worth their
salt, why, I have to keep my mind on Jim and Roscoe and forget about
Bibbs."
Mrs. Sheridan tossed her head fretfully upon the pillow. "You did the
best you could, papa," she said, impatiently, "so come to bed and quit
reproachin' yourself for it."
He glared at her indignantly. "Reproachin' myself!" he snorted. "I ain't
doin' anything of the kind! What in the name o' goodness would I want
to reproach myself for? And it wasn't the 'best I could,' either. It was
the best ANYBODY could! I was givin' him a chance to show what
was in him and make a man of himself--and here he goes and gets
'nervous dyspepsia' on me!"
He went to the old-fashioned gas-fixture, turned out the light, and
muttered his way morosely into bed.
"What?"