The Idiot at Home

John Kendrick Bangs

The Idiot at Home

I

BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION

"My dear," said the Idiot one morning, as he and his good wife and the two little ones, Mollie and Tommy, sat down at the breakfast-table, "now that we are finally settled in our new house I move we celebrate. Let's give a dinner to my old friends of Mrs. Smithers's; they were nice old people, and I should like to get them together again. I saw Dr. Pedagog in the city yesterday, and he inquired most affectionately, not to say anxiously, about the children."

"Why should he be anxious about the children?" asked Mrs. Idiot, placidly, as she sweetened her husband's coffee. "Does he suspect them of lacking completeness or variety?"

The Idiot tapped his forehead significantly.

"He didn't know whether they take after you or after me, but I relieved his mind on that score," he said. "I told him that they didn't take after anybody that either of us ever knew. They have started in on a line of Idiocy that is entirely their own. He seemed very much pleased when I said that, and observed that he was glad to hear it."

Mrs. Idiot laughed.

"It was very nice of the Doctor to ask about them, but I am a little afraid he wants to take a hand in their bringing up," she said.

"No doubt of it," said the Idiot. "Pedagog always was anxious to experiment. Many a time I have suspected him of having designs even on me."

"Mrs. Pedagog told me last year that he had devised an entirely new system of home training," observed Mrs. Idiot, "and they both regretted that they had no children of their own to try it on."

"And of course you offered to lend Tommy to them?" said the Idiot, with a sly glance at his son, who was stowing away his oatmeal at a rate that bade fair to create a famine.

"Of course," said Mrs. Idiot. "He's got to get raw material somewhere, and I thought Tommy would be just the thing."

"Well, I ain't a-goin'," said Tommy, helping himself liberally and for the third time to the oatmeal.

"My son," said the Idiot, with a mock show of sternness, "if your mother chooses to lend you to any one it is not for you to say that you 'ain't a-goin'. It may be that I shall interfere to the extent of demanding to know what security for your safe return is offered, but otherwise neither you nor I shall intervene. What your mother says is law for you as well as for me. Please understand that, Thomas."

"All right, pa," said Tommy; and then he added in an undertone, presumably to the butter, "But I ain't a-goin', just the same."

"I'll go," said Mollie, who rather liked the idea of being lent to somebody, since it involved a visit to some strange and therefore fascinating spot away from home. "Lend me to somebody, will you, mamma?"

"Yes, ma, lend Mollie to 'em," said Tommy, with, a certain dry enthusiasm, "and then maybe you can borrow a boy from somebody else for me to play with. I don't see why you don't swap her off for a boy, anyhow. I like her well enough, but what you ever wanted to buy her for in the beginning I don't know. Girls isn't any good."

"Thomas," said the Idiot, "you talk too much, and, what is more, you say vain things which some day you will regret. When you get older you will recall this dictum of yours, that 'girls isn't any good,' with a blush of shame, and remember that your mother was once a girl."

"Well, she's outgrown it," said Tommy; and then reverting to his father's choice of words, he added, "What is dictums, anyhow?"

"Pooh!" cried the little girl. "Smarty don't know what dictums is!"

"Suppose you two young persons subside for a few minutes!" interrupted the Idiot. "I wish to talk to your mother, and I haven't got all day. You'll be wanting some bread and butter to-morrow, and I must go to town and earn it."

"All right, pa," said Tommy. "I ain't got anything to say that I can't say to myself. I'd rather talk to myself, anyhow. You can be as sassy – "

"Thomas!" said the Idiot, severely.

"All right, pa," said Tommy; and with a side remark to the cream-jug, that he still thought Mollie ought to be swapped off for something, it didn't matter what as long as it wasn't another girl, the boy lapsed into a deep though merely temporary silence.

"You said you'd like to give a dinner to Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog and the others," said Mrs. Idiot. "I quite approve."

"I think it would be nice," returned the Idiot. "It has been more than six years since we were all together."

"You wouldn't prefer having them at breakfast, would you?" asked Mrs. Idiot, with a smile. "I remember hearing you say once that breakfast was your best time."

"How long is six years, pa?" asked Tommy.

"Really, Thomas," replied the Idiot, severely, "you are the most absurd creature. How long is six years!"

"I meant in inches," said Tommy, unabashed. "You always told me to ask you when I wanted to know things. Of course, if you don't know – "

"It's more'n a mile, I guess," observed Mollie, with some superiority of manner. "Ain't it, pa?"

The Idiot glanced at his wife in despair.

"I don't think, my dear, that I am as strong at breakfast as I used to be," said he. "There was a time when I could hold my own, but things seem to have changed. Make it dinner; and, Tommy, when you have deep problems to solve, like how long is six years in inches, try to work them out for yourself. It will fix the results more firmly in your mind."

"All right, pa," replied Tommy; "I thought maybe you knew. I thought you said you knew everything."

In accordance with the Idiot's suggestion the invitations were sent out. It was a most agreeable proposition as far as his wife was concerned, for the Idiot's old associates, his fellow-boarders at Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog's "High-Class Home for Single Gentlemen," had proved to be the stanchest of his friends. They had, as time passed on, gone their several ways. The Poet had made himself so famous that even his bad things got into print; the Bibliomaniac, by an unexpected stroke of fortune, had come into possession of his own again, and now possessed a library of first editions that auctioneers looked upon with envious eyes, and which aroused the hatred of many another collector. The Doctor had prospered equally, and was now one of the most successful operators for appendicitis; in fact, could now afford to refuse all other practice than that involved in that delicate and popular line of work. The genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed had not wholly reformed, but, as the Idiot put it, had developed into one who occasionally did not imbibe. Mr. Brief had become an assistant district attorney, and was prominently mentioned for a judgeship, and Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog lived placidly along together, never for an instant regretting the inspiration which led them to economize by making two into one. In short, time and fortune had dealt kindly with all, even with Mary, the housemaid, who was now general manager of the nursery in the Idiot's household.

The home life of "Mr. and Mrs. Idiot" had been all that either of the young people could have wished for, and prosperity had waited upon them in all things. The Idiot had become a partner in the business of his father-in-law, and even in bad times had managed to save something, until now, with two children, aged five and six, he found himself the possessor of his own home in a suburban city. It had been finished only a month when the proposed dinner was first mentioned, and the natural pride of its master and mistress was delightful to look upon.

"Why, do you know, my dear," said the Idiot one evening, on his return from town, "they are talking of asking me to resign from the club because they say I am offensive about this place, and Watson says my conversation has become a bore to everybody because the burden of my song yesterday was pots and pans and kettles and things like that?"

"I suppose clubmen are not interested in pots and pans and kettles and things," Mrs. Idiot observed. "Some people aren't, you know."

"Not interested?" echoed the Idiot. "What kind of people can they be not to be interested in pots and pans and kettles and things? I guess it's because of their dense ignorance."

"They never had the fun of buying them, perhaps," suggested Mrs. Idiot.

"Possibly," assented the Idiot. "And I'll tell you one thing, Pollie, dear," he added, "if they had had that fun just once, instead of squandering their savings on clothes and the theatre, and on horses, you'd find every blessed one of those chaps thronging the hardware shops all day and spending their money there. Why, do you know I even enjoyed getting the clothes-pins, and what is more, it was instructive. I never knew before what countless varieties of clothes-pins there were. There's the plain kind of commerce that look like a pair of legs with a polo-cap on. I was brought up on those, and I used to steal them when I was a small boy, to act as understudies for Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth in my Noah's ark. Then there's the patent kind with a spring to it that is guaranteed to hang onto a garment in a gale if it has to let go of the rope. Very few people realize the infinite variety of the clothes-pin, and when I try to tell these chaps at the club about it they yawn and try to change the subject to things like German opera and impressionism and international complications."

"How foolish of them!" laughed Mrs. Idiot. "The idea of preferring to talk of Wagner when one can discourse upon clothes-pins!"

"I am afraid you are sarcastic," rejoined the Idiot. "But you needn't be; if you'd only reason it out you'd see at once that my view is correct. Anybody can talk about Wagner. Any person who knows a picture from a cable-car can talk with seeming intelligence on art, and even a member of Congress can talk about international complications off-hand for hours; but how many of these people know about clothes-pins?"

"Very few," said Mrs. Idiot, meekly.

"Very few, indeed," observed the Idiot. "And the same way with egg-beaters. I'll bet you a laundry-stove that if I should write to the Recorder to-morrow morning, and ask a question about Wagner, the musical editor would give me an answer within twenty-four hours; but with reference to egg-beaters it would take 'em a week to find out. And that's just the trouble. The newspapers are filled up with stuff that everybody knows about, but they don't know a thing about other things on the subject of which the public is ignorant."

"I think," said Mrs. Idiot, reflectively, "that that is probably due to the fact that they consider Wagner more important than an egg-beater."

"Well, then, they don't know, that's all," rejoined the Idiot, rising and walking out into the kitchen and taking the fascinating object over which he was waxing so enthusiastic from the dresser drawer. "Just look at that!" he cried, turning the cog-wheel which set the three intersecting metal loops whizzing like a squirrel in its wheel-cage. "Just look at that! It's beautiful, and some people say Wagner is more important than that."

"Well, I must say, my dear," said Mrs. Idiot, "that I have a leaning that way myself. Of course, I admit the charm of the egg-beater, but – "

"Tell me one thing," demanded the Idiot. "Can you get along without Wagner?"

"Why, yes," Mrs. Idiot replied, "if I have to."

"And can you get along without an egg-beater?" he cried, triumphantly.

The evidence was overwhelming, and Mrs. Idiot, with an appreciative ebullition of mirth, acknowledged herself defeated, and so charmingly withal, that the next day when her husband returned home he brought her two tickets for the opera of Siegfried as a reward for her graceful submission.

"I could have bought ten dozen muffin-rings for the same money," said he, as he gave them to her, "but people who know when to give in, and do give in as amiably as you do, my dear, deserve to be rewarded; and, on the whole, when you use these tickets, if you'll ask me, I think I'll escort you to Siegfried myself."

II

A LITTLE DINNER TO SOME OLD FRIENDS

Ten days later all was excitement at the Idiot's new home. Tommy and Mollie were in a state bordering upon frenzy, and gave the cook a great deal of trouble, requesting a taste of this, that, and the other thing, which she was preparing for the dinner to Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog, the Bibliomaniac, and the others. Inwardly, too, they were somewhat wrathful, for they could not understand why they were not permitted to dine with their parents as usual.

"I guess maybe it's your manners that keeps you away, Tommy," said Mollie.

"Hoh!" said Tommy. "It can't be that, because pa says I ain't got any. It's because you're too young to be introdoosed into society, and I've got to stay up-stairs and look after you. If you weren't a girl!"

Here Tommy clenched his fists and looked unutterable things. Mollie shuddered and was glad she was a girl as she imagined the awful things Tommy would do to her had she been a boy.

"Neither of 'em's it, Tommy," she said, in a conciliatory manner. "It's because they ain't got enough dining-room chairs, that's why. I know, because I counted 'em, and there's only eight, and there's nine people comin'."

"I guess maybe that's it," said Tommy, pacified somewhat. "And anyhow, I don't care. I saw that piece of paper ma gave Jennie, and she wrote down all the things they're goin' to have, and it's goin' to be two hours between the soup and the ice-cream. I couldn't ever wait that long for the ice-cream. I don't see why they don't begin with ice-cream."

"I guess maybe we're better off as it is," said Mollie. "Popper and mommer ain't likely to forget us, and, besides, we can talk."

And with this comforting reflection the little ones retired to their nursery contented in mind and spirit – and they didn't suffer a bit. Their "popper and mommer" didn't forget them. The ice-cream was excellent, and they had their share of it almost before the guests began with their oysters.

At seven o'clock Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog had arrived, and at seven-ten all the invited guests were present.

"If it hadn't been for my wife," Mr. Pedagog whispered in his host's ear, "I should have been late, too."

"Don't apologize, old man," replied the Idiot, gripping the Schoolmaster's hand warmly. "I sometimes go to dinners on time myself."

In a few moments dinner was announced, and shortly after all were seated, and in memory of old times the guests naturally waited for the Idiot to begin.

"Do you know," he said, as he squeezed the juice from a luscious lemon over an unprotesting oyster, at the same time glancing affectionately over the company, "I haven't felt so much at home for years as I do now."

"Not very complimentary to your wife," said Mr. Brief.

"Oh, I know what he means," observed Mrs. Idiot.

"And I have so many other opportunities to compliment her," said the Idiot.

"But really, Mrs. Pedagog," he added, addressing the good lady who sat at his right, "I feel absolutely contented to-night. All the good things of the past and of the present seem to be concentrated about this board – except the three up-stairs, who can't very well be here."

"Three?" asked Mr. Pedagog. "I thought there were only two – "

"Certainly," said the Idiot. "Tommy and Mollie, but there is Mary, your old housemaid. We can't very well ask them to dine with us, you know."

"I don't see why Tommy and Mollie can't be invited," said Mr. Pedagog, much to the Idiot's surprise, it seemed so like a violation of his system, as it might be presumed to be.

"You believe in having children at table, then, Mr. Pedagog?" asked Mrs. Idiot.

"Most certainly," said the Schoolmaster. Mrs. Pedagog glanced smilingly at Mrs. Idiot, as much as to say, "Oh, these men!"

"I certainly do approve of having children at table on all occasions," he continued. "How else are they to learn how to conduct themselves? The discipline of the nursery is apt to be lax, and it is my belief that many of the bad table manners of the present-day child are due to the sense of freedom which eating dinner in the nursery naturally inculcates."

"There is something in what you say," said the Idiot. "Tommy, for instance, never learned to throw a French pancake across the table at his sister by watching his mother and myself here in the dining-room, yet in the freedom of the nursery I have known it done."

"Precisely," said Mr. Pedagog. "That very little incident illustrates my point exactly. And I have no doubt that in the nursery the offence seemed less heinous than it would had it occurred in the dining-room, and hence did not meet with the full measure of punishment that it deserved."

"I have forgotten exactly what was done on that occasion," said the Idiot, calmly. "It is my impression that I compelled Thomas to eat the pancake."

"I am sure I never heard of the incident before," said Mrs. Idiot, her cheeks growing very red. "He didn't really, did he, dear?"

"By jove!" cried the Idiot, snapping his forefinger against his thumb, "what a traitor I am, to be sure. I promised Thomas never to tell, and here I've given the poor little chap away; but the boy was excusable, I assure you all – that is, he was excusable in a sense. Mollie had previously hit him in the eye with a salted almond, and – "

"It is quite evident," put in Mrs. Pedagog, her womanly sympathy leading her to rush to the aid of Mrs. Idiot, who seemed somewhat mortified over the Idiot's confidences, "that you were not at home, my dear. I have myself observed that extraordinary episodes of this nature generally happen when it is the father who is left in charge of the children."

"Quite right, Mrs. Pedagog," said the Doctor, nodding his head gravely. "I have noticed the same thing in my professional practice. As long as the mother is about discipline is maintained, but once leave the father in charge and riot is the order of the day."

"That's exactly what I was going to say," said the Idiot. "Many a time when Mrs. Idiot has gone out shopping, as she did on the day in question, and I have remained at home for a rest, I have wished before evening came that I had gone shopping and let my wife have the rest. As a matter of fact, the bringing up of children should be left to the mother – "

"Oh, but the father should have something to do with it," interrupted Mrs. Idiot. "It is too great a responsibility to place on a woman's shoulders."

"You didn't let me finish, my dear," said the Idiot, amiably. "I was going to say that the mother should bring the children up, and the father should take 'em down when they get up too high."

"My views to a dot," said Mr. Pedagog, with more enthusiasm than he had ever yet shown over the Idiot's dicta. "Just as in ordinary colonial government, the home authorities should govern, and when necessary a stronger power should intervene."

"Ideal – is it not?" laughed Mrs. Idiot, addressing Mrs. Pedagog. "The mother, Spain. The children, Cuba. Papa, the great and glorious United States!"

"Ahem! Well," said Mr. Pedagog, "I didn't mean that exactly, you know – "

"But it's what you said, John," said Mrs. Pedagog, somewhat severely.

"Well, I don't see why there can't be a division of responsibility," said the Poet, who had never married, and who knew children only as a theory. "Let the mothers look after them in the daytime, and the fathers at night."

This sally was greeted with an outburst of applause, it was so practical.

"Excuse me!" said the Idiot. "I'm not selfish, but I don't want to have charge of the children at night. Why, when Tommy was cutting his teeth I suffered agonies when night came on. I was down-town all day, and so wasn't very much bothered then, but at night it was something awful. Not only Tommy's tooth, but the fear that his mother would tread on a tack."

"That was unselfish," said Mr. Pedagog, dryly. "You weren't afraid of treading on one yourself."

"How could I?" said the Idiot. "I had all I could do trying to keep my wife from knowing that I was disturbed. It is bad enough to be worried over a crying babe, without being bothered by an irritated husband, so I simply lay there pretending to be asleep and snoring away for dear life."

"You are the most considerate man I ever heard of," said Mrs. Pedagog, smiling broadly.

"You don't mean to say," said the Poet, with a frown, "that you made your wife get up and take all the trouble and bother – "

"I'd only have been in the way," said the Idiot, meekly.

"So he kept quiet and pretended to snore like the good old Idiot that he is," put in the Doctor. "And he did the right thing, too," he added. "If all fathers would obliterate themselves on occasions of that sort, and let the mothers rule, the Tommys and Dickies and Harrys would go to sleep a great deal more quickly."

"We are rambling," said Mr. Pedagog. "The question of a father's duty towards a teething son has nothing to do with the question of a child's right to dine with his parents."

"Oh, I don't know," said the Idiot. "If we are to consider this matter scientifically we must start right. Teething is a natural first step, for if a child hath no teeth, wherewithal shall he eat dinners with his parents or without them?"

"That is all very well," retorted Mr. Pedagog, "but to discuss fire-engines intelligently it is not necessary to go back to the times of Elisha to begin it."

Mr. Whitechoker – now the Rev. Theophilus Whitechoker, D.D., for he, too, had prospered – smiled deprecatingly. There is no man in the world who more thoroughly appreciates a biblical joke than the prosperous clergyman.

"Well," said the Idiot, reflectively, "I quite agree with your proposition that children should dine in the dining-room with their parents and not up-stairs in the nursery, with a lot of tin soldiers and golliwogs. The manners of parents are no better than those of tin soldiers and golliwogs, but their conversation is apt to prove more instructive; and as for the stern father who says his children must dine in the kitchen until they learn better manners, I never had much confidence in him or in his manners, either."

"I don't see," said the genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibed, "how you can discipline children in the nursery. If they misbehave in the dining-room you can send them up-stairs to the nursery, but if they misbehave in the nursery, where the deuce can you send them?"

"To bed," said Mr. Brief.

"Never!" cried the Idiot. "Children, Mr. Brief, as I understand them – and I have known three very well; myself as a boy, and Tommy and Mollie – children, as I understand them, are never naughty for the mere fun of being so. Their wickedness grows out of their wonderful stores of unexpended and unexpendable energy. Take my son Thomas on last Saturday afternoon, for instance. It was a rainy Saturday, and Tommy, instead of being out-of-doors all morning and afternoon getting rid of his superfluous vitality, had been cooped up in the house all day doing nothing. Shortly before dinner we had a difference of opinion which lasted for more time than I like to think about. I was tired and irritable. Tommy wasn't tired, but he was irritable, and, from his point of view, was as right as I was. He had the best of me to the extent that I was tired and he wasn't. I had the best of him to the extent that I had authority and he hadn't – "

"And who came out ahead?" asked Mr. Pedagog.

"I did," said the Idiot, "because I was bigger than he was; but what I was going to say was this: Mr. Brief would have sent him to bed, thereby adding to the boy's stock of energy, already too great for his little mind to control."

"And what did you do?" asked Mr. Brief.

"Nothin'," said a small but unmistakably masculine voice from behind the portieres.

"Thomas!" said the Idiot, severely, as all turned to see who had spoken.

A little figure clad in white, ably supported by a still smaller figure, also clad in white, but with an additional ruffle about the neck, both of them barefooted, appeared in the doorway.

"Why, Mollie!" said Mrs. Idiot.

"We comed down to thee how you wath gettin' along," said the little girl.

"Yes, we did," said the boy. "But he didn't do a thing to me that day," he added, climbing on his father's knee and snuggling down against his vest-pocket with a sweet little sigh of satisfaction. "Did you, pa?"