The Harbor
BOOK IV
CHAPTER II
That evening I learned that my father was worse, and I spent the next
day by his bedside. He had had a stroke in the morning and was not
expected to live through the night.
I found him mumbling fast to himself and making slight, restless efforts
to move. At last he grew quiet, and presently his half-open gnarled
right hand came groping out over the covers. I took it in mine, and at
once I felt it close on mine with a quick, convulsive strength. His hand
was moist, his eyes saw nothing. I sat there thus for a long time. Then
suddenly,
"Good boy," he muttered thickly. "Good boy—good—always good to your
mother!" He kept repeating this over and over, with pauses between, then
again with an effort, fiercely, as though from a distance his mind were
set on getting this message over to me, over from an age that was dying
into an age that was coming to life, a last good-by to hold me back.
Soon he was only mumbling figures, names of ships and distant ports,
freight consignments. Now and then his finger would go to his lips, as
he turned phantom pages in feverish haste. Again, in gasping whispers,
he would break out into arguments for the protection of Yankee sails.
"Protection!" he would whisper. "Damn fools not to see it!
Discriminating tariffs! Subsidies! A Navy!... Don't forget the Navy!
Remember War of 1812!... Nothing without fighting!"
"Nothing without fighting." He had been learning this all his life—and
after he had said it now, he stopped[Pg 363] speaking and grew still. Little by
little his movements grew weaker. Finally he lay like a log, and the
doctor said he would be so until dead.
I went up to my old bedroom and sat down by the open window. It was a
beautiful night. From the garden below, where long ago I had felt such
shivers over the ocean and heathen lands, a graceful poplar rose. Behind
it from the river the huge, dim funnel of a steamer rose over the roof
of the warehouse. Overhead to the right swept the Great Bridge of my
childhood. But behind it were other bridges now, and off across the
river the buildings of Manhattan loomed in loftier masses to their apex
in the tower of lights. How changed it all was since I was a boy. And
yet how like. On the harbor still the hurrying lights, yellow, blue and
green and red. The same deep, restless hum of labor. And from the
waterfront below the same puffs and coughs of engines, the same sharp
toots and treble pantings, the same raucous whine of wheels.
There came a rough salt breeze from the sea, and it made me think of
billowy sails and the days of my father's boundless youth, and of the
harbor of long ago that had so gripped and molded him—as I felt mine
now molding me. And for what? I asked. To what were we both
adventuring—out of these little harbors of ours?
Toward dawn a tramp came down the river. Dimly as she passed below I
could see how old she was, how worn and battered by the waves. A
desolate and lonely craft, the smoke draggled out of her funnel. I
watched her steam into the Upper Bay and pass around Governor's Island.
I watched till in the first raw light of day I could see only her smoke
through the Narrows. Then even this became but a blur, which crept away
in that strange dawn light out into the wide ocean.
A few hours later my father died.
One by one, from different parts of the port, the queerest old men came
into our house on the day of my father's[Pg 364] funeral—men who still
believed in American ships, still thrilled to the dream of the Stars and
Stripes wherever there is an ocean breeze; men who still believed in
ships that had sails and moved along with the force of the winds; who
still believed that cabin boys could rise by the sheer force of their
wills to be powers in the ocean world; men who had for the common crowd
only the iron discipline, the old brute tyranny of the sea. These
strange old men stood with their white heads bowed, a little group,
looking down into my father's grave.
"He was a magnificent fighter," I heard one of them say as we left. "He
wrecked his own business for what he believed in. How many of us would
go that far?"
From the grave Sue came to our apartment. Eleanore had packed her trunk.
"Sue must keep out of that dreary old house," she told me. "Luckily she
has a friend out of town whom she's going to visit. When she comes back
we must have the house closed, and I hope she'll live with us for a
while."
We talked of this that evening, for Sue seemed to want to talk. We
stayed up until late and planned and planned. Many different kinds of
work for Sue were taken up and discussed by us all. She surprised me by
the brave effort she made.
"I've got to want something—that's sure," she said. "I can't just yet.
I've wanted so many things so hard, one after the other for nearly eight
years, that now I feel as though I'd used up all the wanting that I've
got. But of course I haven't. If I have I'm a back number—and I'd a
great deal rather be dead. So don't you people worry. Depend upon it, in
less than a year I'll be all wrapped up in something new. I'll be
tremendously enthused," she ended, smiling wearily.
She agreed with me that the house be sold, and after she had left us I
made every effort to sell it at once. I found it was heavily mortgaged
now, but when at last I[Pg 365] made a sale there was enough to clear off all
debts and leave about two thousand dollars for Sue. She would have at
least something to start on.
As we set about to dismantle the house, various things thickly covered
with dust came out of closets, drawers and shelves. And these objects
brought near again to me my mother's life and that hunger of hers for
the things that were "fine," that hospitable door which had waited for
friends from the handsome old homes all around us. These homes all along
the street had now lost their quiet dignity. Some were empty and marked
for sale, others that had already been sold were cheerless boarding
houses. The most handsome home of all, with its ample yard where I used
to play, was gone, and in its place rose an apartment building which
made the old houses all seem dwarfs.
Her world and his were both slipping away. Her life and his, her creed
and his, were little now but memories—memories which in Sue and in me
must take their chance with the warm, new feelings, the cravings, hopes,
loves, doubts and dreams of this absorbing world of our own. For the
harbor was still molding lives.
How anxious Eleanore seemed to be through, I thought a little
bitterly.[Pg 366]