No, Stephen was not! Painlessly, with the hard-won magnanimity of a man who has touched bottom and expects nothing out of life for himself, not even his own admiration, Lester recognized in Stephen’s frowning, intent look on his problem a power, a heat, a will-to-conquer, which he had never had. He had never cared enough about either locomotives or eggbeaters to put his mind on them like that. Stephen got that power from his mother. From his other world of impersonality Stephen’s father saw it and thrilled in admiration as over a ringing line in a fine poem. If only Stephen could be steered in life so that that power would be a bright sword in his hand and not a poison in his heart.
The clock ticked gravely in the silence which followed. For Lester the pause was full of grave, forward-looking thoughts about Stephen. Presently the little boy come back purposefully to the basin of water. He put the beater in, and once more tried to turn the handle. The perverse thing did all that perversity could imagine, slipped sideways, stuck, started too suddenly, twice fell to the floor clattering. Each time Stephen picked it up patiently and went back to work. Lester ached with fatigue at the sight of his perseverance. Heavens! Nothing was worth such an effort as that!
“Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke?”
But Stephen did not flinch. He felt he almost had it. Once he turned the wheel three-quarters of the way around! His heart leaped up. But after this it balked continuously. Stephen fetched a long quavering sigh of discouragement and fatigue. But he did not stop trying. He could not have stopped. Something more potent than fatigue held him there. The tough fibers of his passionate will were tangled about his effort. He could not stop till he dropped. He was very near dropping. He scarcely knew what he was doing, his attention was so tired. But his hands, his brave, strong little hands kept on working. His back and legs ached. His shoulders bowed themselves. But he did not stop.
“Under the bludgeonings of chance. …”
murmured Lester to himself.
And then, all at once, it was as though Stephen had turned a corner. Something rearranged itself inside his head. Instead of toiling uphill he felt himself begin to glide down easily. Why, he could do it! That rebellious right hand of his was suddenly tamed. Whir‑r‑r! went the steel spokes flashing in the white suds. They sang like music in Stephen’s ears! Whir‑r‑r! He could hardly believe it!
Once in a while it stuck or jerked, but he had only to take thought—Stephen could feel the thinking place in his head draw together hard—and command his hand to turn regularly. How it hated to, that old hand! And how Stephen loved the feeling of bossing it around!
He turned and turned. The foamy suds frothed higher and higher! Whir‑r‑r! The kitchen was full of the sound.
Stephen threw back his head and, laughing proudly, looked up at his father. His face was ruddy and glowing with his effort, with his triumph. All his fatigue was gone. Whir‑r‑r!
His father drew a long breath. He felt like clapping his hands and shouting “Hurrah!” It had been nip and tuck there for a while. Talk about the caveman who had invented the bow and arrow! If Stephen had been a caveman he would have invented the telephone. What a stirring spectacle it had been. He felt as though he had been reading some Emerson. Only it was lots better than any Emerson!
“Well, sir,” he exclaimed to the child, “I certainly will hate to have you begin going to school!”
The rice pudding was done. He took it out and put some coal on the fire and glanced at the clock. Why, it was almost time to expect the other children in from school. How the afternoon had flown! It was hard to put your mind on anything but the absorbing spectacle of Stephen’s advance into life. He must get out the milk and cookies with which he welcomed the others in. They always burst in as soon as possible after four. Sometimes Lester wondered what they had done before, in the old days, in the interval between four and six, when he usually found them waiting for him at the door of the store. Evangeline used to say that they were “playing ’round” with their schoolmates.
He had not noticed that Stephen had stopped turning the eggbeater and was now looking up hard into his face, until the little voice asked, “What will you hate to have me going to ’chool for?”
Lester had to think for a moment before he could remember what he had said. Then, “Great Scott, Stevie, why wouldn’t I? I’ll miss you—what do you think? I’ll be lonesome without my funny, nice, little boy to keep me company.”
He wondered what made Stephen ask such a question. The child usually was quick enough to catch your meaning. He wheeled himself into the pantry and did not see that Stephen, after standing for a moment, turned away and went quietly out of the room. When he came back and found him gone, Lester thought that probably he had gone upstairs to look for another toy.
Stephen felt very queer inside, sort of shaky and trembly. He had never felt like that before. And the queerness went all over him so that he couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t making up a queer face that Father would ask him about. The first thing to do was to get away where
