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 AND THEN CAME THE STORM 
 
 BY 
 HENRY H. HARPER
 
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 AND THEN CAME THE STORM 
 BY H. H. HARPER 
 
 I had written a few books and biographical 
 essays, not because I needed the meager finan- 
 cial return they brought me, for I had a com- 
 fortable income from investments. Having 
 received a long delayed inheritance from my 
 mother's estate in Virginia, I retired from ac- 
 tive business early in life and lived comfortably 
 even luxuriously on a large country es- 
 tate stocked with cattle, horses, chickens and a 
 large orchard. Eventually I had discovered that 
 after an active life, "Ipafing" is not the happy- 
 go-lucky state that it is cracked up to be; so I 
 took up writing and farming as an occupational 
 pastime. 
 
 A book collector in a large mid-western city 
 who had read one of my books, wrote asking if 
 I would inscribe the volume for him, which I 
 was glad to do, without realizing what an im- 
 portant link this proved to be in the chain of 
 future events. He took great pride in owning 
 nearly a hundred thousand volumes the
 
 largest collection of inscribed books in this 
 country. We corresponded for some time and I 
 was the means of procuring for him a number 
 of scarce items he prized very highly. One day 
 I received a letter from him saying that his 
 daughter was on her way to Boston to visit the 
 family of an old college-mate of his, and asked 
 if I would kindly look her up and show her 
 some of the "interesting sights of the cultural 
 metropolis." I thought to myself, this is prob- 
 ably some bespectacled, bookish dame, but see- 
 ing it was about Christmas-time, when she 
 would be away from the holiday festivities at 
 home, I didn't want to be accused of being a 
 cold-footed, inhospitable Bostonian, so I de- 
 cided to phone, ask her to lunch with me and 
 give her the "once-over." When she answered 
 the call I told her of her father's letter and in- 
 vited her to meet me in the library at the Hotel 
 Touraine. 
 
 "Just a moment, please," she said, then after 
 a pause of a minute or so, she answered, "Yes, 
 thank you, I shall be happy to meet you." 
 
 "Thank you," I said, "if you are as charm- 
 ing as your cheery musical voice, our happiness 
 will be mutual." 
 
 When I knew her better she told me that, 
 suspecting me to be some bald-headed, be- 
 whiskered bookworm that her daddy had struck
 
 up an epistolary acquaintance with, before giv- 
 ing her answer she consulted her hostess, who 
 advised her there could be no great risk in tak- 
 ing a chance to "look him over." 
 
 When she met me at the hotel I was grati- 
 fied to find that she was young, beautiful and 
 vivacious. In the library, before going in to 
 lunch, I learned from her that after graduating 
 from one of New York's finishing schools she 
 had recently returned from a trip around the 
 world with her parents. Soon after we were 
 seated at the table she cupped her chin in her 
 palms and looked across at me appraisingly. 
 "Now tell me all about yourself," she began. 
 
 "Well," I said, "If you happen to have read 
 the book I inscribed for your father, there isn't 
 much else to tell." 
 
 She dropped her hands and stared at me, 
 wide-eyed. "Don't tell me that poor little moth- 
 erless Bob Hardwick was anything but a fig- 
 ment of your imagination!" 
 
 "It's the gospel truth," I said. "But if I re- 
 member correctly there was a little episode I 
 forgot to mention in the book. One day, when I 
 was seven years old, my father lashed me fur- 
 iously with a blacksnake whip for some mis- 
 demeanor of which I was not guilty. The in- 
 justice of it made me so mad that I tried to 
 figure out how to get even with him. I had 
 
 t 3 ]
 
 heard him repeat the proverb, 'An eye for an 
 eye and a tooth for a tooth,' and on that basis 
 I figured that he deserved to lose something 
 very dear to him. So I hit upon the idea of do- 
 ing away with his brand new Sunday hat. Ac- 
 cordingly, one day when he was away I got the 
 hat out, put a brick in it and dropped it into 
 the well. I had the satisfaction of knowing that 
 to his dying day he worried about what became 
 of that hat." 
 
 She laughed and shook her head. "All I can 
 say is, to have survived those childhood ordeals 
 you must have been under the guardian care of 
 your mother's spirit." 
 
 "Yes, I believe that. And after all, now that 
 it's all over I'm not sorry it happened that way. 
 Those childhood experiences help me now to 
 appreciate the better things. If it be true, as 
 some sage has declared, that life usually pro- 
 vides a balanced ration of happiness and mis- 
 ery, I'm glad Dame Fortune exhausted her 
 spleen on me before I grew up." 
 
 During the next two weeks it was too cold 
 to do much sight-seeing, but we spent many 
 pleasant hours together, theatre-going, dining, 
 and other indoor diversions. Then one day I 
 learned, to my dismay, that she and her hostess 
 were soon to leave for New York to visit some 
 of her erstwhile classmates and take in the 
 
 [4]
 
 theatres. It was a gloomy day for me when I 
 saw them off at the train, after which I re- 
 turned to my apartment where I usually spent 
 the winter months. Although no words of love 
 had passed between us we had many tastes in 
 common, such as dancing, theatre-going, card- 
 playing (she was an expert at auction bridge), 
 backgammon, music and other diversionary 
 pursuits. In fact, I made up my mind that of 
 all the women I knew she was the one who 
 measured up nearest to my ideal. Cheerful, 
 attractive, accomplished, companionable and al- 
 together appealing. In short, she was the girl 
 I had been waiting for, and I would follow her 
 to New York. I wrote her several letters to the 
 hotel where she and her chaperon-hostess were 
 staying, and while her letters were cordial 
 enough, they were brief and lacked the warmth 
 and affectionate tenor of my more lengthy let- 
 ters to her. Just as I was about to entrain for 
 New York to see how matters stood between us, 
 her hostess (who had returned home) called 
 me on the phone and in great distress an- 
 nounced that our Marguerite had become ten- 
 tatively engaged to marry the forty-year-old 
 uncle of one of her old classmates. "I am just 
 shocked half to death," she screeched. "He's al- 
 most old enough to be her father ; and a man of 
 his age who has never married must have some- 
 
 [ 5 ]
 
 thing the matter with himl Isn't there some- 
 thing you can do about it?" 
 
 "You say they're only tentatively engaged ?" 
 
 "Yes, before accepting his ring she made it 
 a condition that he visit her family. Marguer- 
 ite is simply crazy to live in New York, and 
 that must be her reason for wanting to marry 
 a New York man. But think of it that beau- 
 tiful young girl throwing herself away on an 
 old man!" 
 
 And so all my fond hopes went glimmering. 
 I finished by saying she was of age, and if her 
 folks approved of her choice there was nothing 
 we could do about it. Being almost forty years 
 old myself I doubted if my informant would 
 consider me a more desirable suitor than the 
 one Marguerite had chosen. Therefore I had 
 no preventive action to suggest. 
 
 Time dragged lazily on for some weeks dur- 
 ing which I blamed myself for being such a stu- 
 pid slow worker in love matters. My forty- 
 year-old competitor in New York had outdis- 
 tanced me and snatched the prize I had allowed 
 to slip away from me. I had done all I could to 
 ingratiate myself, but after all, a man of forty 
 is not supposed to be hasty in declaring his love 
 for a young girl, who might reasonably con- 
 sider him presumptuous. During our short ac- 
 quaintance in Boston I had told the young lady 
 
 [6]
 
 of a ranch I owned in southeastern Mexico in 
 the immediate vicinity of productive oil wells, 
 and already I had leased a thousand acres on a 
 royalty basis to a syndicate who intended to 
 exploit the land. And after some weeks follow- 
 ing Marguerite's return home, when I had 
 about reconciled myself to the existing state of 
 affairs, I was astonished one morning to re- 
 ceive a wee note from her, asking if I didn't 
 think there was a likelihood of discovering oil 
 in the vicinity where she lived. There were no 
 oil wells within a thousand miles of her home 
 town, and I was a bit puzzled to know what she 
 meant. Was it a hint for me to visit her ? I an- 
 swered that I was quite content to leave the job 
 of boring oil wells to others and concluded by 
 wishing her much happiness in her marital life. 
 Her prompt reply was that she was not con- 
 templating any marital entaglements ; that the 
 man she had met in New York had visited her 
 family and shortly thereafter he packed up and 
 went home. She went on to say that he was an 
 executive in a big industrial plant. "He was a 
 sort of Jekyl and Hyde character. When I first 
 met him he showed only his best and most en- 
 gaging side, but when he came to visit us his 
 idea was to impress my family with his great 
 importance to show them what a wonderful 
 match their daughter could make. Indeed this
 
 transition made him seem almost an utter 
 stranger to me." 
 
 Questioned by her father, the man grudg- 
 ingly admitted that he had been married and 
 divorced. "A fact that he forgot to tell me," 
 she added. After a couple of days the mother 
 turned thumbs down on him. She decided that 
 he was "too dictatorial, too cocksure, too pos- 
 sessive and far too old." The mention of this 
 latter defect gave me quite a shock. After ex- 
 changing a few letters Marguerite persuaded 
 her mother to write, asking me to visit them. 
 For some time I pondered whether it was 
 worth-while taking the chance of undergoing 
 the mother's inspection and perhaps sharing 
 the fate of my predecessor; but finally I de- 
 cided there was nothing to lose, and possibly 
 much to gain. The girl seemed to have a mind 
 of her own, and even if the family disapproved 
 there was still a chance. 
 
 When I arrived the mother received me gra- 
 ciously, and being thus momentarily reassured 
 I proceeded to press my suit. 
 
 Marguerite's father was a hard-headed, cal- 
 culating businessman. In conversation with 
 him I learned that his daughter had had three 
 or four proposals from local boys, none of 
 whom could support her in the way she had 
 been accustomed to live. He had warned her 
 
 [8]
 
 that if she married without his consent she 
 would be entirely on her own, and needn't ex- 
 pect any support from the family. After spend- 
 ing thousands of dollars on her education and 
 travels he thought she ought to have sense 
 enough to marry someone who could provide 
 for her. He was a czar in his own home. When 
 he entered the house everyone stood at atten- 
 tion and toadied to him as if he were the su- 
 preme ruler of a realm. He had a dual per- 
 sonality. In many respects he was generous, 
 humane and chicken-hearted. Usually he was 
 hard, cynical and tyrannical. After a few days 
 when we got better acquainted I kidded and 
 bantered him jovially, and he loved it. I wasn't 
 any more afraid of him than I was of Mar- 
 guerite, who always humored him for the sake 
 of family harmony. When he came home in the 
 evening and planted himself in his big easy 
 chair she'd say, "Papa darling, are you quite 
 comfortable?" Then she would scurry about 
 getting a sofa pillow for his back and a foot- 
 stool for his feet. 
 
 Shortly after my arrival, one evening when 
 the father and I were alone he looked at me 
 cynically through his keen, penetrating blue 
 eyes and asked what business I was in, "aside 
 from dabbling in literature." 
 
 [9]
 
 I didn't like that word "dabbling," so I shot 
 back at him, "I'm a farmer." 
 
 His eyes widened. "A farmer !" he exploded. 
 "Good Lord! What do you raise?" 
 
 "Most every thing that grows on a farm 
 cows, horses, chickens, pigs, turkeys, and a 
 large orchard." 
 
 "Do you find it profitable?" 
 
 "No. I lose from four to five thousand dol- 
 lars a year." 
 
 "Then why do you keep it up?" 
 
 "Because I like it. And besides, I have an ef- 
 ficient English butler and a housekeeper, to 
 both of whom I'm greatly attached." 
 
 "Huh ! An altruist, eh ?" he grunted. At this 
 juncture Marguerite joined us. 
 
 "Have you ever traveled?" her father asked. 
 
 "Not extensively, but I should like to travel 
 throughout the world if I could find a congenial 
 traveling-mate . ' ' 
 
 At that I looked at Marguerite, whose face 
 lit up like a sunrise. Incidentally, I knew she 
 had the "travel-itch" in its most virulent form. 
 She had been all over Europe and spoke French 
 fluently, after spending two years traveling and 
 studying music in Paris. 
 
 Presently the father got up. "All right, Baby 
 (he always called her Baby), I'll leave you with 
 
 [ 10]
 
 your farmer friend to teach you all about how 
 to raise chickens." 
 
 Marguerite's mother was a beautiful woman, 
 with an independent fortune of her own. Indeed 
 if she had been a widow and I had met her be- 
 fore meeting the daughter, I should have fallen 
 in love with her at first sight. I took special 
 pains to play up to her as if she were the one I 
 adored instead of her daughter. If she had any 
 misgivings about my age she kept them to her- 
 self. The daughter was as clever and tactful 
 as the mother. She looked after my laundry, 
 laid out my shirts with ties to match, and cuff- 
 links inserted (I had two sets), attended to 
 having my shoes shined, and a dozen other little 
 attentions so new to me, and so dear to a man's 
 heart. When we played cards, if the heat went 
 down in the room, knowing that I was sensi- 
 tive to cold she would get her fur coat and wrap 
 it about my legs and feet. She could have found 
 a blanket instead of her mink coat, which most 
 people would consider too precious to be used 
 in keeping a man's legs warm. There is a com- 
 mon saying that the way to a man's heart is 
 through his stomach. But the shorter and surer 
 way to a man's heart if he has any heart 
 is the treatment Marguerite practiced on me. 
 
 "Men are just grown-up children," she said. 
 "They want to be loved and coddled and made
 
 to think they are master in the home ; but in a 
 well-managed household they really have no 
 more authority than a caged rabbit." I don't 
 know how she ever got that idea in the home of 
 a domineering parent, but as long as she felt 
 that way I didn't raise the point. In fact, if she 
 proved to be as sweet and considerate in the 
 capacity of wife as she was as sweetheart I was 
 quite willing to submit to her household au- 
 thority. Her motto was, that it's easier to man- 
 age a man with love and diplomacy than it is to 
 drive him by command. I had for so long been 
 sole commander in my home that I felt it would 
 be a novelty to let a diplomatic spouse take over 
 the reins. 
 
 Marguerite was coquettish, and as playful as 
 a kitten. Her mother said she had had a number 
 of proposals, and for fear of hurting the swain's 
 feelings she never actually refused any of them. 
 She would simply laugh and change to another 
 subject, or possibly invite them to her home to 
 dine and talk with the family. The mother also 
 told me that Marguerite was never even ten- 
 tatively engaged to the New York man that 
 she liked him and wanted to find out what her 
 parents thought of him. 
 
 I sometimes heard Marguerite kidding and 
 flirting playfully with boys over the telephone; 
 but always she refused their invitations, ex- 
 
 [ 12]
 
 cusing herself with one pretense or another 
 perhaps because she was too busy attending to 
 me. 
 
 After we became engaged I asked her if she 
 didn't think she was taking a long chance in 
 marrying a man much older than herself. 
 
 "Not at all," she said. "You have at least 
 thirty good years ahead of you, and that's as 
 long as I care to live, anyway." 
 
 Then after our engagement was announced, 
 I said to her, "Darling, you have a very jeal- 
 ous man on your hands (which was not wholly 
 true), and I'm afraid that with your coquettish 
 nature you'll cause me a lot of headaches." 
 
 She put her arms over my shoulders. "Now 
 listen, my husband-to-be, if ever I do or say 
 anything that makes you unhappy just tell me 
 and I'll never repeat it again. And what's more, 
 if I'm ever guilty of any great wrong I want 
 to take my beating on the spot and have it over 
 with." 
 
 She was honest, candid, open-hearted and 
 unspoiled. She never approached you holding 
 one hand behind her. She was a lively conversa- 
 tionalist, a good listener and always laughed 
 at my jokes, no matter if she'd already heard 
 them. She had no patience with women who 
 think it's smart to speak derisively of their hus- 
 bands in company. And jealousy was entirely 
 
 [ 13 ]
 
 foreign to her nature. Once, at a rollicking 
 party, long after we were married, when a girl 
 flopped herself down onto my lap, Marguerite 
 called to her, "Go to it, sister. If the girls like 
 my husband it makes him all the more attrac- 
 tive to me." 
 
 Our courtship days would be considered 
 rather static by those story-book lovers who 
 squabble and deceive one another in order to 
 conceal their innermost feelings. "I hate you, 
 I despise you ! Get out of my house and never 
 show your face again !" the girl screeches melo- 
 dramatically ; yet all the while she is dying to 
 have him take her in his arms and smother her 
 with kisses. I never cared much for that kind 
 of courtship. It takes too long for the combat- 
 ants to get together. Lovers who are deceitful, 
 secretive and quarrelsome before marriage are 
 almost sure to be deceitful and quarrelsome 
 after marriage. And the old saying that quar- 
 reling is compensated by the joy of making up 
 afterwards is pure bunkum. 
 
 I didn't ask Marguerite if she would marry 
 me. I merely asked if she didn't think it would 
 be fun to get married. In answer she hugged 
 and kissed me, which was all the answer I 
 needed. It seems a safe way to propose, al- 
 though in my case I felt reasonably sure the re- 
 sponse would be favorable. But where there 
 
 [ HI
 
 is any doubt, if the girl is cool to the suggestion 
 or asks for time to think it over, you have an 
 easy way out by laughing it off as a crazy idea 
 a mere joke. A man who pleads and begs a 
 girl to marry him is a mere novice in the fine 
 art of lovemaking, and is usually rejected. Mar- 
 riage being the natural outgrowth of mutual 
 love, when two sensible people are in love with 
 each other, if the man is at all bright he knows 
 when and how to propose. 
 
 When I approached Marguerite's father to 
 ask his permission, I scarcely knew how to be- 
 gin. I felt somewhat like a bashful country 
 schoolboy asking a peevish teacher for permis- 
 sion to "go out." Finally I managed to say, "I 
 hope you are in a receptive mood." 
 
 He looked at me wonderingly. "What do 
 you mean, receptive mood ?" 
 
 "I mean that I have an important request to 
 make." 
 
 "Well, spit it out. What is it?" 
 
 "I have come to ask the hand of your charm- 
 ing daughter." 
 
 "Oh that's how it is. Is that all?" 
 
 "That's all I can think of just now." 
 
 For a moment he was silent. "You must 
 know you ask a great deal in robbing me of my 
 only child." 
 
 "Yes, I realize that, but you must remember 
 
 [ is ]
 
 you have enjoyed her devotion for twenty-four 
 years, and you'd still have the companionship of 
 your charming, devoted wife. As much as your 
 daughter would regret leaving you, she feels 
 she must look to the future, the same as you 
 did in getting married; and I'm sure you 
 wouldn't deny her the opportunity of marry- 
 ing the man she honestly professes to love." 
 
 He got up and rested his hand on my shoul- 
 der. "Well, since you put it that way, I suppose 
 it's my duty to consent. But with the proviso 
 that you'll love and care for her as I have." 
 
 "Thank you," I said, "I cheerfully accept 
 that condition." 
 
 We were married the following fall, and the 
 father certainly played the role of a real prince 
 in making the affair a grand success. At the 
 reception following the wedding there were 
 nearly a hundred guests and almost everyone, 
 including myself, got gloriously high on cham- 
 pagne. One guest after another insisted that I 
 drink "bottoms up to Marguerite." The "bot- 
 toms up" were my undoing. Later in the eve- 
 ning I stumbled over a hassock and landed bot- 
 tom up on the floor. I remember being carried 
 upstairs by the butler and two slightly inebri- 
 ated guests who threw me sprawling onto the 
 bed. I remember, too, that my bride (cold so- 
 
 [ 16]
 
 her) stood over me giggling, while she applied 
 cold compresses to my head. 
 
 "What's so funny?" I asked. 
 
 "You, darling. You look as though you had 
 been the chief mourner at an Irish wake." 
 
 "Hah! My charming wife was at her best 
 last night no, it must have been tonight. I 
 saw a whole regiment of your old sweethearts 
 lined up waiting to kiss the bride." 
 
 "No, dearest, you were seeing double. There 
 were only ten." 
 
 "Is the party over? Has everybody gone 
 home?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes, I think so at least all who are able 
 to travel." She leaned over and kissed me ten- 
 derly. 
 
 "Thank you, darling. Since you deign to soil 
 your sweet lips on this drunken spouse, it's a 
 sure test of your love." 
 
 "Now close your eyes, darling. I'll sit right 
 here while you get some much needed sleep." 
 
 The next night we left for Chicago where we 
 planned to spend a day or two before going to 
 Virginia Hot Springs, and the following morn- 
 ing I went into the Blackstone flower shop to 
 get a bouquet for Marguerite. There was a 
 huge display of orchids, some with three blos- 
 soms to the stalk, others with two, and some 
 with only one. I asked the price and the man 
 
 [ 17]
 
 said, "Three dollars." I took one stalk with 
 three, and not wishing to be piggish I selected 
 one with two blossoms, and one with only one 
 figuring it would be nine dollars for the 
 three. Then I had him make them up into a 
 bouquet with a few lilies-of-the-valley. I handed 
 him a twenty dollar bill and stood waiting for 
 my change. He put the bill in the cash drawer 
 and turned to me, rubbing his palms. "Thank 
 you," he said, "call again." 
 
 I said, "Was that the correct amount ?" 
 "Yes, three dollars per blossom and two dol- 
 lars for the lilies-of-the-valley. Those lilies 
 come pretty high nowadays." I thought so too. 
 We went to Virginia Hot Springs for two 
 weeks, then to the Hotel Gotham in New York, 
 where we stayed until after Christmas, doing 
 all the theatres and one or two night clubs. 
 Marguerite was always happy in New York. 
 She actually purred the moment she got a whiff 
 of the city's intoxicating atmosphere. She was 
 also a zealous devotee of Paris and Monte 
 Carlo. "New York, Paris and Monte Carlo," 
 she said, "are the three places on earth that I 
 love best except the farm," she added as an 
 afterthought merely to please me. She loved the 
 very atmosphere inside of a New York theatre 
 and always found some redeeming feature in a 
 play even if it were an insipid "flop." In after 
 
 [ 18]
 
 years she once remarked that she liked a sad 
 play, because it gave her the only chance she 
 ever had to feel sorry. 
 
 From New York we went to Palm Beach 
 where I had engaged a housekeeping apart- 
 ment for the winter. I joined a couple of clubs 
 and we met several people of our acquaintance. 
 We changed cooks twice and finally got one 
 worse than the other two. A few days after in- 
 stalling our third dusky maid Marguerite de- 
 cided to give a swell home dinner for four of 
 our fashionable friends who had entertained us. 
 We rented some elegant china and flat silver 
 and Marguerite helped the girl get the porter- 
 house steak and all the fixings into apple-pie- 
 order. She's an excellent cook that is, my 
 wife, not the new maid. The dinner was a tri- 
 umphant success. But when it came to the des- 
 sert something awful happened. The maid 
 served the ice cream in finger bowls ! 
 
 We arrived at the farm in May during apple- 
 blossom time, the most glorious season of the 
 year for me. The orchard in full bloom sur- 
 rounding the house on all sides was a picture of 
 splendid almost unearthly beauty. We 
 spent a busy summer, during which Marguer- 
 ite rearranged all the furniture and added a 
 dozen or so new pieces. She made new window 
 draperies, sofa cushions, lampshades, hem- 
 
 [ 19]
 
 stitched sheets, napkins and pillowcases, and 
 never once complained of loneliness. When I 
 asked if she were happy at the farm she said, 
 "You love the place, darling, and little as I care 
 for the country, I'll gladly spend the summers 
 here with you if you'll take me gallivanting in 
 the winter. In other words, I'll live with you 
 in summer and you'll live with me in winter." 
 
 I had promised to make her happy, and I 
 meant to keep my promise, no matter what the 
 cost I used to say to hen "Happy?" and she'd 
 answer, "M-m-m-m-mm so happy!" 
 
 Marguerite went over the house, upstairs 
 and down, with pencil and memorandum book 
 making notes of contemplated changes and im- 
 provements. I watched her with curious inter- 
 est, wondering if she planned on tearing down 
 the partitions and revamping the entire house. 
 First, all my deer-heads, stuffed birds and other 
 precious relics were snatched from their places, 
 consigned to the attic, and forgotten by her, 
 at least. But I figured that the dislodgement of 
 these silent trophies was trivial compared to 
 what I gained by her sweet, cheerful compan- 
 ionship. I recalled her remark, that a man has 
 no more authority in his own home than a caged 
 rabbit. (At least she had forewarned me). But 
 I didn't mind it as long as it made her happy. 
 She was as busy as a bee in a buckwheat field. 
 
 [20]
 
 Eventually she had painters, plasterers, paper- 
 hangers, carpenters, stone-masons and plumb- 
 ers swarming all over the place. The breakfast 
 room was all done over in pink and grey, with 
 a huge bay window built in at the southeast 
 corner to let in the morning sun. Downstairs 
 partitions were torn out and three small rooms 
 were converted into a forty-foot living room 
 with beamed ceiling, and a six-foot fieldstone 
 fireplace at each end. One of the smaller bed- 
 rooms was converted into a bathroom with 
 sunken tub. She had a lavendar bathroom, I 
 had a pink bathroom and the guest bathroom 
 was in pale blue. Six bedrooms were being re- 
 papered, the ceilings calcimined and all the 
 floors were scraped and waxed. The Oriental 
 rugs slipped about on them as if they were on 
 skids. I nearly broke my neck one night as I 
 was hurrying to answer the telephone. A small 
 rug slid out under my feet and I went sprawl- 
 ing across the room, striking my head against 
 the base of a big marble pedestal. 
 
 "Aren't we having fun !" Marguerite chuck- 
 led one day while the uproar was going on. 
 
 "Yes," I said, "the old joint has come to life 
 with a bang. When you finish with the house if 
 there are any changes you would like to make 
 in the barn, let me know." 
 
 I meant it for a jovial remark, but she didn't 
 
 [21 ]
 
 take it that way. She looked suddenly hurt and 
 her eyes grew misty. "I don't believe you half 
 appreciate what I'm doing. And I'm doing it 
 all for you, because I love you so," she whim- 
 pered. 
 
 I took her in my arms and kissed her tears 
 away. "Please forgive me for that nasty remark, 
 which sounded much worse than I intended. 
 You precious darling, you're doing a wonder- 
 ful, wonderful job and I'm so crazy about you 
 that I wouldn't care a damn if you tore the 
 whole house to pieces, just so you leave a roof 
 over our heads." Then she smiled and kissed 
 me. 
 
 With that season's expenses I could have 
 bought and stocked a farm, with money to 
 spare, but as she said, it was fun for her. Al- 
 beit, I considered the money well spent. Once, 
 in the midst of the remodelling turmoil, I said 
 to her, "Darling, don't you ever get tired of 
 having an idle man about your neck and under 
 your feet day and night?" 
 
 "Don't bother me with such nonsense when 
 I'm busy." And off she went to give orders in 
 some other part of the house. About the only 
 times she ever scolded me was when I crushed 
 and stirred my ice cream to soften it. She liked 
 hers frozen hard. 
 
 At the end of the season Marguerite said, 
 
 [22]
 
 "Darling, you do like the changes I have made, 
 don't you?" 
 
 "Yes, sweetheart, I'm simply nuts about ev- 
 erything you've done; but please don't change 
 my comfortable bed for some newfangled sleep- 
 ing device." 
 
 Early in October we took an apartment in 
 New York where we had a round of theatre- 
 going, bridge parties, concerts and Grand Op- 
 era. The latter often bored me, though Mar- 
 guerite loved it, so I endured it. Among the 
 pleasant people who came to our parties, there 
 was the scintillating "Bill" Haskell, an old- 
 time sweetheart who used to take Marguerite 
 sled-riding in their childhood days. The only 
 sign of jealousy that Marguerite ever showed 
 was one day while we were window-shopping 
 along Fifth Avenue. I very injudiciously called 
 her attention to a pair of shapely feminine 
 calves just ahead of us. 
 
 "You should worry about women's legs," she 
 snapped. Then she looked up with a smile, as 
 much as to say, "I didn't really mean that," and 
 squeezed my arm. 
 
 In January we went to Paris for six whirli- 
 gig weeks, then to Monte Carlo, where we were 
 joined by Marguerite's father and mother. We 
 often dined at the casino across from the Hotel 
 de Paris. The gigolos would ask me ( they never 
 
 [ 23 ]
 
 ask the girl first, always her escort) if they 
 might dance with "Mademoiselle," who was 
 supposed to give them ten francs or so for each 
 dance. (Francs were ten cents at that time). 
 Marguerite danced several times with them. 
 After I had danced a few times with her she 
 insisted that I dance with some of the profes- 
 sional dancing girls. 
 
 "Nothing doing," I said. "They can't talk 
 English and I can't talk French." 
 
 "There," she said, pointing to a beautiful 
 young girl on the floor, wearing a fluffy white 
 wig and tripping about as light as a feather in 
 the wind, "when she finishes this dance go up 
 and say to her, Pardon moi, Mademoiselle 
 mais voulez dance avec moi?" 
 
 I wasn't sure of the meaning of all this, but 
 doubtless it meant that I wanted to dance with 
 the girl ; so I rehearsed the speech several times, 
 then a little later when the young lady was 
 seated at a nearby table I edged cautiously up 
 to her, but not a word of that darned speech 
 could I remember. So I said, "Excuse me I 
 don't suppose you speak English?" 
 
 She looked up and smiled. "Oh yes, I speak 
 English very well. I am an English girl." 
 
 I invited her to our table and introduced her 
 to the family. My father-in-law furbished up 
 his vocabulary and took quite a shine to the 
 
 [24]
 
 beautiful dancer. And Marguerite was so 
 charmed with her that she asked her to dine 
 with us. We spent a pleasant evening together, 
 during which the girl declined many invitations 
 to dance with others. I danced with her a few 
 times and she refused to accept a fee. When I 
 insisted she uttered a positive "No \ This is for 
 good old England. God bless America!" 
 
 Early in April we sailed for Bermuda for a 
 three weeks stay. At this time Marguerite was 
 three months along with her first baby and by 
 the middle of May we all four were at the farm, 
 where "Daddy and Mama" spent six happy 
 weeks with us. And contrary to the average 
 run of feminine in-laws, my mother-in-law was 
 the most lovable friend I ever had. Marguerite 
 having kept me in such a dizzy whirl from one 
 place to another, I was glad to get back home 
 where I could settle down, collect my senses, 
 sleep in my own bed, and get some good home- 
 cooked food. It was a quiet summer during 
 which Marguerite enjoyed the best of health 
 and high spirits, wondering the while what sort 
 of offspring she would produce. She wanted a 
 boy, and eventually that's what she got. 
 
 Marguerite decided to place herself under 
 the care of a doctor in New York who had at- 
 tended her in her student days. She spent many 
 hours with a seamstress preparing a huge bas- 
 
 [ 25 ]
 
 sinet, with tiny lavender pillow, lavender rib- 
 bons streaming from the handle and on all sides, 
 lavender linings, lavender blanket, lavender all 
 over. (Lavender was her favorite color.) It 
 was carefully done up in frail tissue wrappings, 
 secured by safety pins. On October first, a short 
 time before the "great event," we entrained for 
 New York and, entering the Pullman car, filled 
 with passengers, Marguerite marched down 
 the aisle followed by me carrying the bassinet. 
 Then a terrible thing happened. The tissue 
 wrapping caught on something, tearing it all 
 off and I marched along behind with the laven- 
 der ribbons fluttering in all directions. The pas- 
 sengers tittered gleefully, and as if this were 
 not embarrassing enough, some unregenerate 
 wag behind me chirped, "I hope she don't drop 
 it on the train !" 
 
 At the maternity hospital Marguerite was 
 assigned to a young nurse who cheerfully an- 
 nounced that two of her last three patients had 
 died in childbirth. A couple of months later 
 when we returned to Boston with our eight- 
 pound baby and an English nurse we found at 
 the hospital, our winter apartment was under- 
 going repairs, so we moved into a little nearby 
 sparsely furnished dump for a few days. One 
 day I received an urgent telephone call at my 
 
 [ 26]
 
 club, and Marguerite was on the wire in great 
 alarm. 
 
 "Oh, darling, come quick! I'm afraid our 
 baby is dying!" 
 
 I said, "Call Dr. Smith, the famous baby 
 specialist, and I'll be right up." 
 
 When I arrived the nurse and maid were 
 both out for a few hours and Marguerite was 
 alone with the baby, who was goo-gooing and 
 kicking up his toes gleefully. Presently the doc- 
 tor arrived and after examining the baby thor- 
 oughly he turned to the % anxiously waiting 
 mother and said, "Well, madam, I've seldom 
 seen a healthier baby." 
 
 "But doctor, he threw up a lot of curdly 
 stuff and stared up at the ceiling as if he were 
 looking for God." 
 
 The doctor laughed heartily. "That happens 
 to all healthy babies when they're overfed." 
 
 After glancing about the shabby apartment 
 the doctor picked up his bag and left. 
 
 "Well, darling," I said, "it's worth the fifty 
 dollar fee (that, I had heard, was his custom- 
 ary charge for a call and examination) to quiet 
 your fears." 
 
 "It certainly is. I wouldn't care if he charges 
 a hundred." 
 
 The first of next month I received the doc- 
 
 1 27]
 
 tor's bill for five dollar s\ Marguerite laughed. 
 "I guess he thought that was all we had." 
 
 A few weeks later the baby developed some 
 sort of rash and Marguerite had the chauffeur 
 drive them, accompanied by the nurse, down to 
 the doctor's office for inspection; and when we 
 got his bill for that office visit it was for thirty- 
 five dollars. 
 
 When our boy was six years old we took him 
 to Europe and visited many historic places. Up 
 to that time the boy had never been punished 
 but once, when he was two years old. He had 
 been playing with a toy engine, throwing it 
 about the room. His mother said, "No, no, dar- 
 ling, you must not do that!" Whereupon he 
 picked up the toy and laughingly smashed it 
 through the window pane. She turned him over 
 and spanked him soundly with a hair brush. 
 Instead of crying or resenting it he put his 
 arms about her and kissed her. Neither of us 
 ever punished him after that. He never needed 
 it. At the age of seven we placed him in board- 
 ing school and sailed for Cherbourg. On the 
 previous visit to Paris it had rained or snowed 
 for days and days, but this time when we 
 reached Cherbourg it was a bright sunny day. 
 As we were disembarking I said, "I'll bet it will 
 be snowing in Paris." 
 
 "Oh hush! Don't be a killjoy." 
 
 [28]
 
 Arriving in Paris late at night we were tired 
 and went early to bed. Next morning Marguer- 
 ite was up at dawn, long before I got up. I 
 heard her scampering about preparing to go 
 out, anxious to enjoy the morning air in her 
 dearly beloved Paris. About eight o'clock she 
 came in while I was shaving. "Well, darling, 
 did you have a pleasant walk?" 
 
 She sniffled into her handkerchief two or 
 three times and wiped her little red nose, look- 
 ing the picture of misery. 
 
 "What's the matter, dear?" 
 
 "It's snowing ! and it's all your fault," she 
 whimpered. 
 
 It is doubtful if any man was ever more 
 abundantly blessed, with a wonderful little pal 
 for a wife and a healthy promising boy. I often 
 wondered if such happiness could last. Hap- 
 pily, however, I was not able to foresee the fu- 
 ture. 
 
 When our boy finished primary school he en- 
 tered St. Mark's at Southboro, where I had 
 registered him at birth. He had a peculiar ac- 
 cident there. A baseball struck him on the right 
 side of his nose, knocking it badly askew. Then 
 after a few days while waiting for a surgeon 
 from Boston to perform a corrective operation, 
 he was engaged in a hockey game where a fly- 
 ing puck caught his nose on the other side and 
 
 [29]
 
 knocked it back into its natural position. Grad- 
 uating from St. Mark's he entered Yale at the 
 age of seventeen. Four years later he was grad- 
 uated with honors and entered Law School. 
 While at Yale he spent many week-ends at 
 home, usually with a group of his classmates, 
 together with several students from Harvard 
 who had been his buddies at St. Mark's. Al- 
 though we had six bedrooms, Marguerite and 
 I often doubled up in one room and the boys 
 sometimes had to sleep two in a bed. Our back- 
 yard looked like a public parking lot. 
 
 During the intervening winters Marguerite 
 and I traveled everywhere to Europe several 
 times, to Bermuda, Mexico, Nassau, Havana, 
 Jerusalem, the West Indies, Palm Beach (five 
 winters), California, once to Hawaii, and the 
 Lord only knows where else. In fact we were 
 always on the go from October to May. She 
 led me a galloping pace. As time went on I be- 
 came a bit surfeited with this sort of nomadic 
 life, but I couldn't tell her that. Truth is, I 
 never could quite understand why people will 
 leave the best country in the world to gad about 
 and suffer hardships in strange lands with 
 strange languages, strange customs, strange 
 food, and oftentimes uncomfortable modes of 
 conveyance not to mention wretchedly inad- 
 equate heating facilities. In many countries we 
 
 [ 30]
 
 put up with miserable hotel accommodations 
 and all sorts of weather. In Jerusalem we slept 
 in our fur coats, and in Calcutta we nearly died 
 of the heat. We slept in stuffy rooms on musty, 
 lumpy mattresses that felt as if they were 
 stuffed with corncobs. We ate sloppy food, 
 drank dishwater coffee, without cream or sugar 
 no butter tainted meat, and so on and on 
 ad infinitum privations and discomforts un- 
 dreamed of at home. In Jerusalem, just after 
 World War I, the food was so unpalatable that 
 it beggars description. The only things we felt 
 safe in eating were their Jaffa oranges and 
 boiled eggs, not much larger than pigeons' 
 eggs; and they looked as if they'd been boiled 
 in muddy water. At breakfast one morning 
 when I suggested that they looked suspiciously 
 like buzzards' eggs, Marguerite refused to 
 touch another one ; and so, cold and hungry, we 
 got out of town and back to the excursion 
 steamer waiting in the harbor of Haifa glad 
 to escape from the motley horde of camels, don- 
 keys and slovenly specimens of humanity mill- 
 ing about and rubbing shoulders in the middle 
 of the narrow, crowded, ill-smelling passage- 
 ways called streets. 
 
 Noting the scarcity of Jewish people in the 
 city, I had remarked to the English clerk in the 
 hotel, that Jerusalem was supposed to be the 
 
 [31 ]
 
 home of the Jews. "Where do they keep them- 
 selves?" I asked. 
 
 He grinned. "Can you blame 'em for not 
 wanting to be pushed about in this town's het- 
 erogeneous rabble?" 
 
 We arrived at Saville, Spain, in the midst 
 of a grand three day fiesta, and had difficulty in 
 finding hotel accommodations. After much 
 scouting about we engaged quarters in a sup- 
 posedly first class hotel and leaving our lug- 
 gage to be sent to the room we went out for 
 dinner and the theatre. On returning late we 
 discovered they had assigned us to a spacious 
 unheated barnlike room in the annex, with 
 stone floor, and smudgy walls and ceiling. It 
 looked like an old converted store room, facing 
 on a cobblestone street where the rumbling traf- 
 fic outside, even at that late hour, was so deaf- 
 ening it would have been impossible to sleep. 
 When we turned back the thin bed covers the 
 sheets felt damp, cold and clammy. And so, 
 without unpacking our bags we paid for the 
 night's lodging and went out looking for a taxi, 
 which we had the good fortune to find, and I 
 asked the driver to take us to the best hotel in 
 town. He shook his head and looked at us dub- 
 iously. However, the price of a fare intrigued 
 him and off we went. In the lobby of the big 
 hotel where he landed us there were no less 
 
 [ 32 ]
 
 w 
 
 than forty persons, men, women and children, 
 sleeping on settees, chairs and other makeshift 
 devices. When I approached the clerk and in 
 my broken Spanish asked for a room he 
 shrugged and shook his head. "No huy lugar !" 
 (meaning there was none to be had). I insisted 
 that my wife's condition was such that she 
 couldn't sleep out on the sidewalk in the rain, 
 and with that I slipped an American ten dollar 
 bill into his hand. The effect was magical. He 
 asked us to wait, then disappeared for a few 
 minutes. At length he returned, and with a 
 broad smile he motioned us to follow him. He 
 led us up one flight into a luxurious steam- 
 heated apartment furnished with draperies, 
 tapestries, paintings and all modern equipment. 
 In expressing my delight, I said, "Muchos gra- 
 cios, muchos gracios, Senor" As he turned to 
 go I remarked in my stumbling Spanish, "You 
 are a model of blue-blooded Spanish hospital- 
 ity." 
 
 He laughed. Then, in perfectly good Ameri- 
 can English, he said, "Thank you, but, like 
 yourself, I happen to be a red-blooded Ameri- 
 can. The owner of this suite is out of the city 
 for the night." 
 
 In most foreign countries American tourists 
 are looked on as "easy picking," and the natives 
 
 [ 33 ]
 
 fleece you as if they expected never to see you 
 again. 
 
 However, since Marguerite's yen for migra- 
 tion was innate, habitual and insatiable, in 
 keeping my promise to make her happy I trailed 
 along and pretended to like it. I don't mean by 
 this to make any claim to martyrdom, for Mar- 
 guerite's loving comradeship outweighed all 
 the discomforts of travel. A peculiar quirk in 
 her nature was, that while she was always tick- 
 led to get back home, early in the fall her old 
 wanderlust would creep over her again. On the 
 long ocean voyages her happiness was at its 
 zenith. She used to say that her greatest am- 
 bition was to own a big transoceanic steamer 
 and spend her winters sailing back and forth 
 across the water. One of the outstanding traits 
 of her wonderful nature was her disposition 
 always to share her joys with others. She ab- 
 sorbed happiness easily, she gave it out gener- 
 ously, and it came back to her like the prover- 
 bial bread cast upon the waters. If her winters 
 were given to pleasure-seeking her summers 
 were more fruitfully spent. She devoted herself 
 to Red Cross work, and particularly to poor 
 children. At her suggestion I built a large bun- 
 galow on our farm to accommodate twenty 
 children. She furnished it with all the neces- 
 sary equipment and arranged with five chari- 
 
 [ 34 ]
 
 table organizations, each to send out groups of 
 fifteen to twenty children for a two weeks sum- 
 mer outing, as our guests. She attended to sup- 
 plying them with all their provisions vege- 
 tables, milk, butter, eggs, cereals, bread, meat 
 (three times a week), and fish on Fridays. She 
 looked after their comforts, joined in their 
 games, sang songs with them and gladdened 
 their hungry hearts as if they were her own 
 home brood. 
 
 Each group had its interesting characters. 
 Several little boys used to hover around my 
 farmer at milking time, staring wide-eyed at 
 the cows. Many of them had never seen such a 
 critter before. Prior to going to the charity 
 home, few of them had ever slept between 
 sheets. One little fellow, almost blind, was the 
 most cheerful, talkative one in his group. He 
 was so happy to be allowed with the other chil- 
 dren, instead of being sent to an institution for 
 the blind. One was badly crippled as a result of 
 a harsh beating at the hands of a brutal, 
 drunken father. A little bright-eyed youngster 
 who had lost both legs, managed to propel him- 
 self by his arms and scamper about as lively 
 as anyone on the place. I was pathetically inter- 
 ested one day in hearing some little crippled 
 girls in the group from the New England Pea- 
 body Home, all laughing and chattering hope- 
 
 [35 ]
 
 fully about the good times in store for them 
 when they grew up and could have their fill of 
 ice cream sodas and go out with sweethearts to 
 dancing parties, movies and other amusements. 
 Never a word of complaint. 
 
 At the end of each two weeks session, Mar- 
 guerite invited the group over to our house and 
 treated them to a farewell cake and ice cream 
 supper. They were a cheerful, grateful lot, al- 
 ways playing games and singing songs, some 
 of which they composed in our honor. Mar- 
 guerite even gave piano lessons to some of the 
 little girls who showed a bent for music. Year 
 after year these performances were repeated, 
 and thus her summers passed quickly, happily 
 and usefully. 
 
 And withal, Marguerite never slackened her 
 complete devotion and attentiveness to every 
 little detail contributing to my welfare. She was 
 a fond mother, and took great joy and pride in 
 our handsome boy. She declared that in all her 
 girlhood dreams she had never hoped to enjoy 
 such a full and happy life. She loved life. She 
 also loved to be loved. So did I, for that matter. 
 We never got bored with each other, summer 
 or winter. In fact we never had much time for 
 boredom. Our winters were a perennial honey- 
 moon, and our summers were periods of re- 
 cuperation. I doubt if two people were ever 
 
 [ 36 ]
 
 more happily mated. We settled all our differ- 
 ences by compromise and peaceful solution. If 
 she wanted to go to Paris, and I wanted to go 
 to Palm Beach, we compromised by going to 
 Paris. 
 
 But as all good things, including life itself, 
 must eventually come to an end, our happy 
 honeymoon was no exception to that unalter- 
 able rule. This holiday life was but a prelude to 
 a heartrending finale which lurked not far in 
 the offing. 
 
 When our country entered World War II 
 our boy quit Law School and entered the Air 
 Corps. He was offered a desk job in Washing- 
 ton, but he preferred to get into action where 
 he could better serve our cause. He began his 
 primary training in Douglas, Georgia, and 
 later won his wings as a lieutenant in another 
 training camp in the South. From there he was 
 transferred to Fort Myers, Florida, as an in- 
 structor-pilot. Marguerite and I took a house 
 in Fort Myers and spent the winter with him. 
 He was later sent to Savannah as a test pilot, 
 and from there to Kellogg Field to train for 
 overseas service. Meanwhile, he had been pro- 
 moted to a captaincy and flew a B-26 Bomber 
 to England where he spent several weeks train- 
 ing and waiting for D-Day. When that time 
 finally arrived the first day he made three bomb- 
 
 [ 37]
 
 ing missions across the Channel to the French 
 coast, and returned uninjured, though his plane 
 was shot full of holes and three of his crew 
 were killed. It seemed as if he were blessed with 
 a charmed life. While in England he fell in 
 love with a beautiful girl and engaged to marry 
 her when he had completed the required num- 
 ber of sorties entitling him to an extended fur- 
 lough. Later he was transferred to France and 
 made forty-odd missions, bombing many parts 
 of Germany. Then on November 2ist, 1944, 
 while leading a formation of thirty-six bombers 
 (his very last mission before receiving his fur- 
 lough) he was shot down and killed over a 
 town in Germany. With one exception (the 
 tail-gunner) the entire crew perished. By a sin- 
 gular decree of fate, out of the thirty-six 
 planes, his leading ship was the only one that 
 suffered any casualties. 
 
 And then in quick succession came another 
 and more terrible heart-breaker. We were 
 seated at the fireside in a New York apartment 
 one stormy night early in December, while the 
 wind-driven rain and sleet pelted noisily 
 against the window panes. Three days after 
 receiving the War Department's delayed tele- 
 gram, as we sat trying vainly to reconcile our- 
 selves to this awful tragedy, my darling Mar- 
 
 [ 38 ]
 
 guerite reeled from her chair and dropped 
 dead I 
 
 For a few moments it seemed as if the light 
 of my life had suddenly gone out, leaving me 
 blinded and stupefied. I had been so long ac- 
 customed to seeing only the gaieties of life that 
 I was totally unprepared for this double- 
 tragedy, which deprived me of my family and 
 left me to face life alone. 
 
 After the funeral, bereft of my normal 
 senses, I wandered aimlessly about like a vic- 
 tim of amnesia, neither knowing nor caring 
 where fate led me. Finally I discovered myself 
 in Palm Beach, but I found no surcease of sor- 
 row there. In looking about over the throng of 
 merrymakers at the Everglades Club, all din- 
 ing, laughing and dancing with carefree aban- 
 don, I felt like a discordant note in a gay or- 
 chestral ensemble. And so, in the early spring 
 I returned to Boston. One of the most difficult 
 problems that confronted me was in trying to 
 decide whether I could endure going to the 
 farm and face the things that Marguerite's in- 
 dustry had created. 
 
 It's all very well for friends to say, "Have 
 courage, be brave, keep your chin up"; but 
 when your underpinning is knocked completely 
 from under you and the world seems to have 
 caved in from all sides it's easier for well-mean- 
 
 [ 39 ]
 
 ing friends to advise than it is to rise and re- 
 adjust yourself. 
 
 Early in May following Marguerite's death 
 I made up my mind (what little of it there was 
 left) that I might as well face the inevitable 
 and go out to the farm. After some thought I 
 cozened myself into the belief that it might be 
 comforting to be near the things Marguerite 
 had loved. But on entering the house I became 
 aware that I had deceived myself into a false 
 conclusion. The loneliness, the desolation of our 
 once cheerful home, but now destitute of every 
 livable feature ! It would have been much easier 
 for me if the house with all its furnishings had 
 burned to the ground. 
 
 Nobody likes a gloom-bird. Most people have 
 enough troubles and sorrows of their own, 
 without listening to the wails of others. And 
 yet there are many, including myself, who like 
 to hear how others feel and act under great 
 pressure. Therefore in writing a true life his- 
 tory as in the present case both sides of 
 the picture ought to be shown, revealing the 
 alternate comedy and tragedy of life, and the 
 resultant emotions. It would be a monotonous, 
 undramatic life that has no contrasting emo- 
 tions all joy and no sadness. In tragedy and 
 grief lies the drama of real life, of which we 
 find ample proof in the works of the old Greek 
 
 [40]
 
 dramatists. Also in Grand Opera. After all its 
 tender love scenes and inspiring music it has 
 to end in tragedy. And thus, because it pictures 
 the realities of life it will always enchant wher- 
 ever normal life exists. One of the most pa- 
 thetic, yet appealing scenes in all Grand Opera 
 is the mad scene in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lam- 
 mermoor." It gives me an aching heart every 
 time I hear that agonizing, grief-revealing 
 aria ; and yet it's my favorite operatic scene. In 
 a recent performance where Miss Munsell ren- 
 dered this difficult aria more feelingly than I 
 had ever heard it, it affected me so visibly that 
 I felt ashamed of my weakness. But my em- 
 barrassment was somewhat mitigated in ob- 
 serving that the woman sitting next was no less 
 affected. She turned to me with sympathizing 
 eyes and tearful sniffles. At the conclusion of 
 the aria she took out her compact, and while 
 she was powdering her nose she remarked to 
 her escort, "That song always gets my goat!" 
 
 Tragedy and sorrow may lie dormant for a 
 while, but sooner or later they will crop up in 
 one form or another to torment most of us. 
 Contact with one or the other, or both, is al- 
 most unescapable. In other words, there's no 
 such thing as escaping reality, or running away 
 from a grief-stricken heart. 
 
 A famous philosopher once said that a writer 
 
 [4' ]
 
 who descants on sorrowful topics makes a sorry 
 appeal to his readers. He may have enjoyed a 
 singular life, but he might have added, per con- 
 tra, that happiness, smugness and a devil-may- 
 care attitude, with no attendant sorrow, frus- 
 tration or mesalliance make unsavory story- 
 book reading, since these elements are as com- 
 mon in life, and as essential to one's enjoyment 
 of a true story, as seasoning is needful in food. 
 Therefore, in realistic narrative it is important 
 to show the usual human reactions to sorrow 
 and let the reader discover for himself whether 
 or not he's getting a palatable ration ; or if per- 
 chance there is anything reminiscent of his own 
 experience. There is nothing that brings you 
 more closely in sympathy with an author than 
 to find him (or her) voicing your own senti- 
 ments and describing memorable episodes and 
 yearnings in your own life. We frequently read 
 passages that almost provoke a suspicion that 
 the other fellow is plagiarizing our own private 
 ideas; but after all, most every idea and hap- 
 penstance in life has been surmised, experienced 
 or written about by someone or other. This is 
 especially true of tragedy, sorrow and pain. 
 
 The first part of my story was easy and 
 pleasant to write; but the climax is a painful 
 task. I hope it will be less painful to read than 
 it is to write. It's almost impossible to unbosom 
 
 [42 ]
 
 one's personal sorrows to strangers without be- 
 ing accused of lacking in mental stamina; or 
 even worse, indulging in self-pity. Therefore 
 I shall refrain from trying to describe my feel- 
 ings on entering the home that seemed more 
 like an empty mausoleum than a refuge for the 
 living. Perhaps my reactions can better be im- 
 agined than described. At least those who have 
 suffered a similar fate will need no detailed re- 
 hearsal. 
 
 I am not writing this story to parade my for- 
 mer happiness or my present grief. I am writ- 
 ing it as a loving tribute to one of the dearest 
 mates with which God ever blessed mortal man. 
 In doing so I regret the necessity of mingling 
 sadness with gladness. 
 
 And reverting to our boy I quote the follow- 
 ing excerpt from a letter I received from Major 
 General Edward F. Witsell : "I have the honor 
 to inform you that, by direction of the Presi- 
 dent, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air 
 Medal, one Silver and three Bronze Oak-leaf 
 Clusters, representing eight additional awards 
 of the Air Medal, have been posthumously 
 awarded to your son. The citations are as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 DISTINGUISHED FLYING CROSS 
 
 For extraordinary achievement while partici- 
 pating in aerial flight on 13 June, 1944. As lead 
 
 [43 ]
 
 pilot of a formation of B-26 type aircraft, your 
 son demonstrated outstanding courage and 
 ability when he led his formation on successive 
 bomb runs while attacking a heavily defended 
 enemy installation. When his bombardier was 
 unable to pick out the assigned target because 
 of the intense and accurate anti-aircraft fire 
 encountered on the first run, your son, display- 
 ing great courage and fortitude, continued on 
 to make a second bombing run enabling the 
 bombardier to locate the target and bomb it 
 with telling effect. Executing violent evasive 
 action he then led the formation out of the dan- 
 ger area and safely back to base." 
 
 I also received half a dozen medals and cita- 
 tions, including a glowing tribute signed by 
 the President. All of which was gratifying in a 
 way, but it didn't bring back my boy, and it 
 didn't bring back my lovely Marguerite who 
 died from the shock of losing him. Her joking 
 remark, at the time of our engagement, that 
 thirty years was as long as she cared to live 
 was strangely prophetic. She lived only thirty 
 years from the date of that remark. 
 
 I spent the summer at the farm, because I 
 knew of no other place where I could have the 
 bodily comforts to which I had been accus- 
 tomed. I never liked being anywhere alone ; and 
 the idea of traveling alone was unthinkable. 
 
 [44]
 
 Where could I go ? What could I do ? I couldn't 
 bear to eat alone in the big dining room with 
 Marguerite's empty place before me, so I had 
 my meals served in the kitchen, where at least 
 there was some companionship. 
 
 No one who has not been pampered, humored 
 and spoiled, as I had been for nearly thirty 
 years, can be expected to imagine what the sud- 
 den loss of an adorable helpmate and a promis- 
 ing son means to one well advanced in years. In 
 losing Marguerite I learned there is apt to be 
 a disadvantage in having a ministering angel 
 attend to all your little needs and desires. It 
 promotes a sort of childlike dependence. (I 
 know a married man who, perhaps for this 
 reason, prefers to wait on himself. ) Then when 
 the good angel is gone and you are thrown back 
 on your own resources you encounter many 
 duties and objects reminiscent of your beloved. 
 Preceding services, pastimes and acts of devo- 
 tion loom up in their absence as daily reminders 
 of your loss. For example, I never insert the 
 cuff-links in my sleeves, or select a shirt or a 
 tie to put on, or pack a bag to go anywhere, 
 without missing the one who always performed 
 these services for me. I never look at the card 
 table or the backgammon board without being 
 reminded of the one with whom I spent happy 
 hours playing contract bridge, gin rummy and 
 
 [45 ]
 
 backgammon. Also I recall that whenever I had 
 to get dressed for some special occasion, Mar- 
 guerite would always lay out my complete at- 
 tire. Once she said to me, "I'm proud of my hus- 
 band and want him always to be well groomed." 
 All such things are hard to forget. I wonder 
 how many others feel the same way. 
 
 In daytime I could busy myself about the 
 place, working in the garden and the orchard, 
 but at night it was gloomy enough, alone with 
 my servants in that big eighteen room house 
 with all its memories where everything be- 
 spoke better days. The living room walls 
 seemed to close me in like the bars of a lonely 
 prison cell. There was more sadness than cheer 
 in such mementos as window draperies, lamp- 
 shades, sofa cushions, knicknacks and other ac- 
 cessories, all conceived and arranged by my 
 darling's industry and devotion. There is no 
 pain more distressing than a lonely bereaved 
 heart. Her image, in thought, was everywhere 
 about the house among the objects she created 
 and loved. In the music room her rosewood 
 Steinway Grand piano was shrouded and si- 
 lent. It looked as lonesome as I felt, in the ab- 
 sence of its loving performer. I lifted the cover 
 and struck a few chords just to assure it that 
 it was not entirely alone. If I entered her dress- 
 ing room, or her bedchamber, or wherever I 
 
 [46 1
 
 went, a ghostly voice seemed to whisper, "Mar- 
 guerite is not here! Marguerite has gone 
 away!" It was weird, fantastic, unbelievable. 
 
 One rainy night, in a sort of bewildering 
 daze I tiptoed into her bedchamber, hoping it 
 had all been a ghastly dream, and I'd find her 
 cuddled up, asleep. It was dark. For a moment 
 I stood at the bedside, listening. It seemed as if 
 I could hear her breathing ; then I reached over 
 and touched the covers to see if she were really 
 there. But alas! the bed was empty! My ears 
 had deceived me. She had gone gone for- 
 ever! I went out and quietly closed the door. 
 After that I never opened it. 
 
 Although it's a sad mistake to immure one- 
 self, I was in no fit condition to entertain any 
 of my friends. Whenever they called it opened 
 up memories of the dinner parties and many 
 other happy events of bygone days. It was like 
 ripping open a wound that refused to heal. At 
 night if I tried to read, my mind was elsewhere 
 and nothing interested me. If I tried to write, 
 my brain refused to function. If I turned on 
 the radio, like as not I'd be greeted by a dole- 
 ful songster bellowing some mournful dirge, 
 such as "All Alonel" And one night they tor- 
 tured me with John McCormack's famous song, 
 "I Hear You Calling Me, And On Your Grave 
 The Mossy Grass Is Green." These words, 
 
 [ 47 ]
 
 which I had always thought beautifully tender 
 and sentimental, now gave me an acute mem- 
 ory pang like a stab in the heart. Then some 
 zealous commentator would rave on and on ex- 
 tolling the super-duper virtues of some soap 
 powder, toothpaste, cigarette, hand lotion, hair 
 tonic, or what not a dozen or more wares in 
 which I hadn't the slightest interest. After a 
 boring hour or so I'd turn off the darn thing 
 and wander up to my lonely bed. 
 
 It isn't a cheerful experience to contemplate ; 
 it isn't a happy theme to write about, but it's 
 life hard, gruesome, realistic life the aft- 
 ermath of a devastating war in which thou- 
 sands upon thousands have lost their loved 
 ones, their homes, their fortunes, and even the 
 courage to live. 
 
 One night I went in to Boston to see a play 
 (advertised as a comedy), hoping to get some 
 temporary release from my thoughts. In the 
 very first act the character after whom the play 
 was named died suddenly of heart failure, and 
 was carried off stage into an adjoining room. 
 I stayed on, wondering if he had only fainted 
 and would soon recover so they could go on 
 with the play, but he never did recover and 
 during the ensuing performance I almost en- 
 vied him. As the play continued, the grief- 
 stricken actors went about, mopping their eyes 
 
 [48 ]
 
 and telling one another what a swell guy he had 
 been. One of them shouted, "What are we all 
 blubbering about? Ain't he a lot happier than 
 we are?" It struck me there was some logic in 
 that. It looked as if the play had fallen to pieces, 
 owing to the death of the leading man, and 
 each player felt free to abandon the script and 
 babble whatever he (or she) thought might 
 keep the audience in their seats. Several visit- 
 ing friends and relatives came in, and bowing 
 their heads reverently they wiped their tearful 
 eyes as they passed into the adjoining room to 
 mourn over the corpse. . . . And the play was 
 ment to be funny!! My flickering sense of hu- 
 mor compelled me to agree with the author. 
 
 I tried playing golf, but I was not up to my 
 old time form, and the game had lost its zest. 
 I tried to console myself with the thought that 
 after all, a man who has enjoyed so many years 
 of uninterrupted happiness with a God-given 
 mate has but little cause to complain against 
 fate; but that didn't help much, either. 
 
 I sold the farm and auctioned off the furnish- 
 ings, all except Marguerite's beautiful Stein- 
 way Grand piano. I couldn't permit that to go 
 into the hands of strangers. Finally, I pen- 
 sioned two servants who had served me faith- 
 fully all through my married life. A friend 
 suggested that I buy a smaller place with fur- 
 
 [49]
 
 nishings that didn't revive sad memories. "No," 
 I said, "I'm all through with such life. A 
 drowning man who has been dragged out of 
 the river would be foolish to plunge back in 
 again." 
 
 Incidentally, anyone who imagines that the 
 fates have treated him too harshly should visit 
 the New England Peabody Home for Crippled 
 Children, Newton, Mass., and see the seventy 
 or so little unfortunates, many of them ban- 
 daged and strapped on cushioned frames, hope- 
 lessly maimed for life ; and yet the most cheer- 
 ful, the most beautiful, smiling, bright-eyed 
 group of youngsters I have ever seen anywhere 
 in the world. There is such a helpful, cheery 
 atmosphere in this wonderful institution that 
 the visitor feels inspired rather than depressed. 
 If you smile and touch the cheek of one of these 
 bandaged and bestrapped darlings it will in- 
 stantly return your smile and eagerly clutch 
 your hand. It makes one ashamed to complain. 
 It also reminds one that there is a great and 
 useful mission in life, even for those who have 
 lost their homes and their loved ones. 
 
 Again, if anyone thinks he is the victim of 
 Lady Fortune's frowning disfavor he should 
 read Anne Morrow Lindbergh's tremendously 
 interesting article on Edward Sheldon in the 
 January, 1947, issue of the Reader's Digest, 
 
 [ So]
 
 entitled "The Most Unforgettable Character 
 I've Met." Also the most extraordinary exam- 
 ple of great genius, great suffering and great 
 fortitude that / have ever known. This re- 
 minded me that my wife, a few years younger 
 than Edward Sheldon, was his dinner partner 
 at a banquet given in his honor after the Broad- 
 way success of his play written while he was a 
 student at Harvard. Many years later when 
 Marguerite learned that he was stricken and 
 helplessly bedridden with arthritis and total 
 blindness she called on him, giving only her 
 married name. She said, "I don't suppose you 
 remember me, Mr. Sheldon." 
 
 He put out his hand, which she took and held 
 for a moment, while he seemed to meditate. "In- 
 deed I do," he said, calling her by her maiden 
 name. 
 
 Bereavement is sometimes a reminder of neg- 
 lected duty. It occasionally happens that a great 
 sorrow will cause one to realize that he has 
 been somewhat remiss in discharging certain 
 duties incumbent on those with ample means. 
 And so it happened to me. After nursing my 
 grief for a while it occurred to me that for 
 nearly thirty years I had lived a more or less 
 selfish life in which my chief concern was the 
 comfort and happiness of myself and my little 
 family. Since God had blessed me abundantly 
 
 [ Si ]
 
 He may have intended I sould impart to others 
 who were less fortunate a more generous share 
 of the blessings He had bestowed on me ; so per- 
 haps He took this means of reminding me that 
 I had been a bit derelict in my duties. And from 
 this thought I gained courage to carry on and 
 try to make up for my delinquency in former 
 years. I feel sure that Marguerite's heavenly 
 spirit will support me in this endeavor, and I 
 look forward, hopefully, to a happy union with 
 her in a less troubled sphere. Meantime, I offer 
 her spirit this greeting : 
 
 My Marguerite, I love your name. 
 
 I miss you, dear, wherever I am; 
 
 But since you're free from grief and pain 
 
 I would not call you back again.
 
 1 I ' Jl7 i I U(7