"Sam Wright's Sam has come back," the doctor said, "the young man
arrived on the noon stage. I wonder what monkey-shines he'll be up to
next!"
"Oh!" she said, and he saw her hands clasp in her lap; "I wonder if
his grandfather knows?"
The color was hot in her face, and William said to himself that the
cub ought to be thrashed! "Maybe he's got some sense by this journey
in search of a publisher," he announced comfortingly.
In her consciousness of old Mr. Wright's dismay, she hardly heard what
the doctor said; but she asked vaguely if Sam had found a publisher.
"Perhaps; I don't know. There are fools in every profession--except
medicine, of course! But I believe he has not imparted any information
on that point. His father merely told me he had come back." In spite
of himself, William's face fell into its own kind lines. "His father
is hard on him," he said; and then he began to tell her stories of the
three generations of Wrights; ending with the statement that, in a
dumb sort of fashion, Samuel loved his son like the apple of his eye.
"But he has always taken hold of him the wrong way," William said.
Certainly the doctor's opinion was borne out by the way in which Sam
senior took hold of his son on his return. Reproaches were perhaps to
be expected, but, alas, the poor, sore-hearted father tried sneers as
well. A sneer is like a flame; it may occasionally be curative because
it cauterizes, but it leaves a bitter scar. Of his dreadful anxiety in
these seven or eight weeks of absence, of his sleepless nights, of his
self-accusings, of his anguished affection, the senior warden could
find nothing to say; but for anger and disappointment and contempt he
had fluent and searing words. Such words were only the recoil from
anxiety; but Sam could not know that; he only knew that he was a
disgrace to his family. The information left him apparently unmoved.
He did not betray--very likely he really did not recognize in
himself--the moral let-down that is almost always the result of such
upbraiding. He was silent under his father's reproaches, and patient
under his mother's embraces. He vouchsafed no information beyond, "I
had to come back," which was really no information at all. Mr. Wright
sneered at it, but Mrs. Wright was moved, she said, her mild eyes
swimming in tears, "Of course, Sammy, dear. Mother understands. I knew
you couldn't stay away from us."