say, father," he broke out suddenly, "can't I do anything? Try and think!"
"That's what I'm trying to do," answered Overholt, sitting down at last on the stool before the work-bench and staring at the wall, with his back turned to his son. "But I can't! There's something wrong with my head."
"You want to see a doctor," said the boy. "I'll go and see if I can get one of them to come out here." He rose as if to go at once.
"No! Don't!" cried Overholt, much distressed by the mere suggestion. "He could only tell me to rest, and take exercise and sleep at night and not worry!" He laughed rather wildly. "He would tell me not to worry! They always say that! A doctor would tell a man 'not to worry' if he was to be hanged the next morning!"
"Well," said Newton philosophically, "I suppose a man who's going to be hung needn't worry much, anyway. He's got the front seat at the show and nothing particular to do!"
This was sound, so far as it went, but insufficient as consolation. Overholt either did not hear, or paid no heed to the boy. He left the room a moment later without shutting the door, and threw himself down on the old black horsehair sofa in the parlour. Presently the lad rose again and covered up the City of Hope with the big brown paper case he had made to fit down over the board and keep the dust off.
"This isn't your day," he observed as he did so, and the remark was certainly addressed to the model of the town.
He went into the other room and stood beside his father, looking down at his drawn face and damp forehead.
"Say, father, really, isn't there anything I can do to help?"
Overholt answered with an effort. "No, my boy, there's nothing, thank you. You cannot find money to pay my debts, can you?"
"Have you got no money at all?" asked Newton, very gravely.
"Four or five dollars! That's all! That's all you and I have got left in the world to live on, and even that's not mine!"
His voice shook with agony, and he raised one hand to his forehead, not dramatically, as many foreigners would do, but quietly and firmly, and he pressed and kneaded the surface as if he were trying to push his brains back into the right place, so that they would work, or at least keep quiet. After that answer Newton was too sensible to ask any more questions, and perhaps he was also a little afraid to, because questions might make his father worse.
"Well," he said vaguely, "if I can't work at the City I suppose I may as well go out before it's dark and take a look at the pond. It's going to freeze hard to-night, and maybe there'll be black ice that'll bear by to-morrow."
Overholt was glad to be left alone, for he could not help being ashamed of having broken down so completely before the boy, and he felt that he could not recover his self-control unless he were left to himself.
He heard Newton go up the rickety stairs to his own room, where he seemed to be rummaging about for some time, judging from the noises overhead; then the strong shoes clattered on the staircase again, the house door was opened and shut, and the boy was off.
VI
HOW A SMALL BOY DID A BIG THING AND NAILED DOWN THE LID OF THE BOX
Newton went to the pond, because he said he was going out for that purpose, and it might be convenient to be able to swear that he had really been down to the water's edge. As if to enjoy the pleasure of anticipation, too, he had his skates with him in a green flannel bag, though it was quite out of the question that the ice should bear already, and it was not even likely that the water would be already frozen over. However, he took the skates with him, a very good pair, of a new model, which his father had given him towards the end of the previous winter, so that he had not used them more than half a dozen times. It was very cold, but of course the ice would not bear yet. The sun had not set, and as he was already half-way to the town, the boy apparently thought he might as well go on instead of returning at once to the cottage, where he would have to occupy himself with his books till supper-time, supposing that it occurred to his father to have any supper in his present condition. The prospect was not wildly gay, and besides, something must be done at once. Newton was possessed by that idea.
When Overholt had been alone for some time, he got up from the horsehair sofa and crept up the stairs, leaning on the shaky bannister like an old man. In his own room he plunged his face into icy cold water again and again, as if it were burning, and the sharp chill revived his nerves a little. There was no stove in the room, and before midnight the water would be frozen in the pitcher. He sat down and rubbed his forehead and wondered whether he was really any better, or was only imagining or even pretending that he was, because he wanted to be. Our own reflections about our own sensations are never so silly as at the greatest moments in our lives, because the tremendous strain on the higher faculties releases all the little ones, as in sleep, and they behave and reason as idiotically as they do in dreams, which is saying a good deal. Perhaps lunatics are only people who are perpetually asleep and dreaming with one part of their brains while the other parts are awake. They certainly behave as if that were the matter, and it seems a rational explanation of ordinary insanity, curable or incurable. Did you ever talk to a lunatic? On the subject on which he is insane he thinks and talks as you do when you are dreaming; but he may be quite awake and sensible about all other matters. He dreams he is rich, and he goes out and orders cartloads of things from shops. Pray, have you never dreamt that you were rich? Or he dreams that he is a poached egg, and must have a piece of toast to sit down upon. I believe that well-known story of a lunatic to be founded on fact. Have you never dreamt that you were somebody or something quite different from yourself? Have you never dreamt that you were an innocent man, persecuted, tried for a crime, and sentenced to prison, or even death? And yet, at the same time, in your dream, you were behaving with the utmost good sense about everything else. When you are dreaming, you are a perfect lunatic; why may it not be true that the waking lunatic is really dreaming all the time, with one part of his brain?
John Henry Overholt was apparently wide awake, but he had been morally stunned that day; he was dreaming that he was going crazy, and he could not, for the life of him, tell whether he really felt any better after cooling his head in the basin than before, though it seemed immensely important to find out, just then. Afterwards, when it was all over, and things were settled again, he remembered only a blank time, which had lasted from the moment when he had broken down before the little City until he found himself sitting in the parlour alone before the supper table with a bright lamp burning, and wondering why his boy did not come home. The dream was over then; his head ached a good deal and he did not feel hungry, but that was all; burning anxiety had cooled to leaden care. He knew quite well that it was all over with the Motor, that his friends at the College would find him some sort of employment, and that in due time he would succeed in working off his debt to the bank, dollar by dollar. He had got his soul back out of the claws of despair that had nearly flown away with it. There was no hope, but he could live without it because he must not only live himself, but keep his boy alive. Somehow, he would get along on credit for a week or two, till he could get work. At all events there were his tools to sell, and the Motor must go for old brass, bronze, iron, and steel. He would see about selling the stuff the next day, and with what it would bring he could at least pay cash for necessaries, and the bank must wait. There was no hope in that, but there was the plain sense of an honest man. He was not a coward; he had only been brutally stunned, and now that he had recovered from the blow he would do his duty. But an innocent man who walks steadily to endure an undeserved death is not a man that hopes for anything, and it was like death to Overholt to give up his invention.
The door opened and Newton came in quietly. His face was flushed with the cold and his eyes were bright. What was the weight of leaden care to the glorious main-spring of healthy thirteen? Overholt was proud of his boy, nevertheless, for facing the dreary prospect of no Christmas so bravely. Then he had a surprise.
"I've got a little money, father. It's not much, I know, but it's something to go on with for a day or two. There it is."
Newton