The Courage of the Commonplace | Page 6

into a whimsical grin-- "so I offered you a
motor. And you wouldn't take it. I knew, though you didn't explain, that
you feared it would interfere with your studies. I was right?" Johnny
nodded. "Yes. And your last year at college was--was all I could wish. I
see now that you needed a blow in the face to wake you up--and you
got it. And you waked." The great engineer smiled with clean pleasure.
"I have had"--he hesitated--"I have had always a feeling of
responsibility to your mother for you--more than for the others. You
were so young when she died that you seem more her child. I was

afraid I had not treated you well--that it was my fault if you failed."
The boy made a gesture--he could not very well speak. His father went
on: "So when you refused the motor, when you went into engineer's
camp that first summer instead of going abroad, I was pleased. Your
course here has been a satisfaction, without a drawback--keener,
certainly, because I am an engineer, and could appreciate, step by step,
how well you were doing, how much you were giving up to do it, how
much power you were gaining by that long sacrifice. I've respected you
through these years of commonplace, and I've known how much more
courage it meant in a pleasure-loving lad such as you than it would
have meant in a serious person such as I am--such as Ted and Harry are,
to an extent, also." The older man, proud and strong and reserved,
turned on his son such a shining face as the boy had never seen. "That
boyish failure isn't wiped out, Johnny, for I shall remember it as the
corner-stone of your career, already built over with an honorable record.
You've made good. I congratulate you and I honor you."
The boy never knew how he got home. He knocked his shins badly on
a quite visible railing and it was out of the question to say a single word.
But if he staggered it was with an overload of happiness, and if he was
speechless and blind the stricken faculties were paralyzed with joy. His
father walked beside him and they understood each other. He reeled up
the streets contented.
That night there was a family dinner, and with the coffee his father
turned and ordered fresh champagne opened.
"We must have a new explosion to drink to the new superintendent of
the Oriel mine," he said. Johnny looked at him surprised, and then at
the others, and the faces were bright with the same look of something
which they knew and he did not.
"What's up?" asked Johnny. "Who's the superintendent of the Oriel
mine? Why do we drink to him? What are you all grinning about,
anyway?" The cork flew up to the ceiling, and the butler poured gold
bubbles into the glasses, all but his own.
"Can't I drink to the beggar, too, whoever he is?" asked Johnny, and
moved his glass and glanced up at Mullins. But his father was beaming
at Mullins in a most unusual way and Johnny got no wine. With that
Ted, the oldest brother, pushed back his chair and stood and lifted his
glass.

"We'll drink," he said, and bowed formally to Johnny, "to the
gentleman who is covering us all with glory, to the new superintendent
of the Oriel mine, Mr. John Archer McLean," and they stood and drank
the toast. Johnny, more or less dizzy, more or less scarlet, crammed his
hands in his pockets and started and turned redder, and brought out
interrogations in the nervous English which is acquired at our great
institutions of learning.
"Gosh! are you all gone dotty?" he asked. And "Is this a merry jape?"
And "Why, for cat's sake, can't you tell a fellow what's up your
sleeve?" While the family sipped champagne and regarded him.
"Now, if I've squirmed for you enough, I wish you'd explain-- father,
tell me!" the boy begged.
And the tale was told by the family, in chorus, without politeness,
interrupting freely. It seemed that the president of the big mine needed
a superintendent, and wishing young blood and the latest ideas had
written to the head of the Mining Department in the School of
Technology to ask if he would give him the name of the ablest man in
the graduating class--a man to be relied on for character as much as
brains, he specified, for the rough army of miners needed a general at
their head almost more than a scientist. Was there such a combination
to be found, he asked, in a youngster of twenty-three or twenty-four,
such as would be graduating from the "Tech"? If possible, he wanted a
very young man--he wanted the enthusiasm,