The Confessions of Artemas Quibble | Page 2

rough-and-tumble
games in which my school-mates indulged.
My father was a stern, black-bearded man of the ante-bellum type, such
as you may see in any old volume of daguerreotypes, and entirely
unblessed with a sense of humor. I can even now recall with a sinking
of the heart the manner in which, if I abjured my food, he would grasp
me firmly by the back of the neck and force my nose toward the plate
of Indian mush--which was the family staple at supper--with the
command, "Eat, boy!" Sometimes he was kind to a degree which, by a
yawning of the imagination, might be regarded as affectionate, but this
was only from a sense of religious duty. At such times I was prone to
distrust him even more than at others. He believed in a personal devil
with horns, a tail, and, I suspect, red tights; and up to the age of ten I
shared implicitly in this belief. The day began and ended with family
prayers of a particularly long-drawn-out and dolorous character.
My mother, on the other hand, was a pale young woman of an
undecided turn of mind with a distinct taste for the lighter pleasures
that she was never allowed to gratify. I think she secretly longed for the
freedom that had been hers under the broader roof of her father's stately
mansion on High Street. But she had, I suspect, neither the courage nor
the force of mind to raise an issue, and from sheer inertia remained
faithful to the life that she had elected.
My grandfather never had anything to do with either of them and did
not, so far as I am aware, know me by sight, which may account for the
fact that when he died he bequeathed a moderate sum in trust, "the

proceeds to be devoted to the support and maintenance of the child of
my daughter Sarah, at some suitable educational institution where he
may be removed from the influences of his father."
Thus it was that at the age of nine I was sent away from home and
began an independent career at the boarding-school kept by the
Reverend Mr. Quirk, at Methuen, Massachusetts. Here I remained for
seven years, in the course of which both my parents died, victims of
typhoid. I was cast upon the world utterly alone, save for the rather
uncompromising and saturnine regard in which I was held by old Mr.
Toddleham, my trustee. This antique gentleman inhabited a musty little
office, the only furniture in which consisted of a worn red carpet, a
large engraving of the Hon. Jeremiah Mason, and a table covered with
green baize. I recall also a little bronze horse which he used as a paper
weight. He had a shrewd wrinkled face of the color of parchment, a
thick yellow wig, and a blue cape coat. His practice consisted almost
entirely in drawing wills and executing them after the decease of their
respective testators, whom he invariably outlived, and I think he
regarded me somewhat in the light of a legal joke. He used to send for
me twice a year, for the sole purpose, I believe, of ascertaining whether
or not I was sufficiently nourished at Quirk's establishment. On these
occasions he would take me to lunch with him at the Parker House,
where he invariably ordered scallops and pumpkin pie for me and a pint
of port for himself.
On my departure he would hand me solemnly two of the pieces of
paper currency known as "shin plasters," and bid me always hold my
grandfather's memory in reverence. On one of these occasions, when he
had laid me under a similar adjuration, I asked him whether he had ever
heard of the man who made his son take off his hat whenever he met a
pig--on the ground that his father had made his money in pork. He
stared at me very hard for a moment with his little twinkling eyes and
then suddenly and without any preliminary symptoms exploded in a
cackle of laughter.
"Goddamme," he squeaked, "I wish your gran'ther could a' heard y' say
that!"

Then without further explanation he turned and made his way down
School Street and I did not see him for another six months.
My life at Quirk's was a great improvement over the life I had led at
home in Lynn. In the first place I was in the real country, and in the
second I had the companionship of good-natured, light- hearted people.
The master himself was of the happy-go-lucky sort who, with a real
taste for the finer things of literature and life, take no thought for the
morrow or indeed even for the day. He was entirely incapable of
earning a living and had been successively