After a little while he said, “Ames will need his rest. Old fellows can’t tolerate these late nights. I hope he will realize that.” And then they heard footsteps and Jack came up the walk and up the steps.
“Nice evening,” he said. His voice was soft and calm. Glory knew that her father noticed, too.
“Yes,” the old man said. “Yes, it is. A fine evening.”
Jack said, “They were very kind. The boy likes me. And Mrs. Ames seems to think I’m all right.”
“I suppose you talked a little politics, Jack?”
“Yes, sir. He says, ‘Stevenson is a very fine man, no doubt.’”
His father laughed. “There’s no persuading him. He’ll agree with anything you say. But when the chips are down, it’s Eisenhower. Yes, I know what it’s like, trying to reason with him where politics are concerned. He hasn’t been around so much lately. Maybe I’ve been trying too hard.”
Jack said, “He talked a little bit about his grandfather.”
“Yes, he likes to tell the old stories. The Boughtons weren’t here for most of that. We left Scotland in the fall of 1870, so we missed out on the war and the rest of it. There was a lot of what you might call fanaticism around here in the early days. Even among Presbyterians. That old fellow was right in the middle of it, from what I’ve heard. And then in his old age he was about as crazy as it’s possible to be and still be walking the streets. I would never have named you after that John Ames. We were used to him, of course. We felt sorry for him. But he was crazy when I knew him, and before that, too, I believe.”
Jack was quiet for a while. Then he said, “Ames seems to have a lot of respect for him.”
His father said, “The old settlers, you know, the old families, they used to tell stories they thought were just wonderful, and then I think they began to realize that the world had changed and maybe they should reconsider a few things. It’s taken them awhile. Ames was pretty embarrassed about the old fellow while he lived. Always talking with Jesus. I suppose he didn’t tell you about that.”
“He told me. He told me the story about his grandfather leaving Maine for Kansas because he had a dream that Jesus came to him as a slave and showed him how the chains rankled his flesh. I’d heard the story before, of course. I always thought it sounded enviable. I mean, to have that kind of certainty. It’s hard to imagine. Hard for me to imagine.”
“Certainty can be dangerous,” the old man said.
“Yes, sir. I know. But if Jesus is — Jesus, it seems as though he might have shown someone his chains. I mean, in that situation.”
“You might be right, Jack. I’m sure Ames would agree. But when you see where we are now, still trying to settle these things with violence, I don’t know. Live by the sword and die by the sword.”
Jack cleared his throat. “The protests in Montgomery are nonviolent.”
The old man said, “But they provoke violence. It’s all provocation.”
There was a long silence. Then Jack said, “This week I will go to church. I will definitely go to church.”
“That’s wonderful, Jack. Yes.”
He helped his father to bed, and then he came into the kitchen. “You were right,” he said. “It was fine. I said the grace. I’d practiced this time. I was polite, I believe, and I didn’t talk enough to get myself in trouble. I don’t think I did. I’m not saying anything changed, but it wasn’t a disaster. Macaroni and cheese. I cleaned my plate.” He laughed.
THEN JACK TOOK THE AMESES SOME EARLY APPLES, AND some plums he said could be ripened on a windowsill, and he played a little catch with the boy, and he even helped Lila move the Reverend’s desk and some of his books down to the parlor so that he would not have to deal with the stairs. “Very neighborly,” he said. “Friend-like.”
Glory had no reason for concern about all this, except that Jack was intent on it. He seemed to have invested so much calculation in it that it bordered on hope, now that the Reverend and his family had warmed to him a little. Dear God, she thought. They are the kindest people on earth. Why should I worry? She had talked him into trusting them, which would have been entirely reasonable in any other circumstance. But his reservations were the fruit of his experience, and his experience was the fruit of his being Jack, always Jack, despite these sporadic and intense attempts at escape, at being otherwise. Dear God in heaven, no one could know as well as he did that for him caution was always necessary.
Sunday came and Jack rose early, loitered in the kitchen drinking coffee, refused breakfast, brushed his suit and his hat. He came downstairs at a quarter to ten looking as respectable as he ever did, tipped his hat, and walked out the door. She got her father up and brought him into the kitchen, where he lingered over his eggs and toast, then over the newspaper, then over a Christian Century he had read weeks before, then over the Bible. Finally he fell into that sleep or prayer that was his refuge in times of high emotion. At two o’clock Jack still had not come home, so she told her sleeping father that she was going out to
