The Undertow

The Undertow* The Improvement Era Prize Story, June Contest BY RUTH MOENCH BELL "Yes, but what's it worth to him? I knew Cameron when a dollar didn't look as big as a mill-wheel. And what's he gained? "One son's a surgeon. Some say the best in the state. You ought to hear him boast of his $10,000 practice. That's all very well. But Cameron used to hope for better things from his boy. He used to hope that some day Harry would be so big and skilful and sympathetic that he wouldn't measure his success in terms of dollars and cents." Outside the curtained booth of the cafe, Mrs. Cameron, an unwilling listener to her family foibles, hesitated. She had dropped in for a shopping rest, and a cup of tea. The voice, in suppressed earnestness, reached her easily. Before she could decide whether to leave, with her tea untouched, the voice reached her again : "There's his wife. Jean used to be the sweetest little soulful creature a man might hope to find. She gave an eight hundred dollar banquet and ball last week. The biggest social event of the season. What's the result? Some other woman will have to outclass her. And then some man will land in the penitentiary or asylum trying to pay the bill." Mrs. Cameron tried to move, but her limbs lacked the power. And the man's voice went on : "Look at his youngest boy, Will, Jr. His father took him m as a business partner, last year, meaning some day to turn th- whole works over to him. What's he doing? He's at Kav's every afternoon, dancing. A grown man, in this day and age of the world, when, turn any direction you may, there's a man's work to be done — dancing in the afternoon ! "And Cameron himself looks haggard and worn, as if he couldn't take time to eat or sleep." There was a sound of shuffling chairs as if the occupants of the curtained booth were getting ready to leave the cafe. The sound broke the spell that was over her. Mrs. Cameron hastily caught up her check and began fumbling for change. With a nightmare weight in her limbs that had held her unwittingly at *This story won the $25 prize for June, in the Improvement Era six months' contest, ended in June, 1915.

the table a listener to her husband's disparager — with a feeling that the men must surely emerge from the booth before she could pay her bill, Mrs. Cameron finally reached the street. Still under the spell of the nightmare that encompassed her. Mrs. Cameron hastened home. Too dazed to think or feel, she went through the episode of dinner. She wanted to go to her rooms and think it out. She dared not go to her home and face it. Unconsciously she studied her husband's face for the worn, hag- gard look another had found there. It was true, cruelly true, the look was there settled, intensified. Why had another been first to note it? "Oh, mother, listen to this new record." Will, Jr., burst into the reverie. He always set the victrola in motion a few times be- fore disappearing for the night. "It's one of Dufaure's latest suc- cesses. It's an old thing but its a dream when Dufaure sings it." The first bars of the prelude brought Mrs. Cameron sharob- back to the present — then plunged her remorselessly into the oast. She caught her breath. She almost sobbed as the full, rich tone« of the famous baritone thrilled into her heart. It was the sono- of their courting days. She had not yet got over the wonder that Will Cameron had chosen her as his "Maggie." She hadn't heard the song for years. When was it they ceased singing it? "And now we are growing old, Maggie, And the trials of life nearly done." She dared not look at her husband's greying temples. She longed to draw his tired head to her bosom and weep. That was to have been their closing chapter. Hand to hand, heart to heart, they were to have closed their days — one in every thought and feeling — nearer and nearer to each other as they drew nearer their heavenly home. Heavenly home ! How long since heaven had seemed a real- ity? How had thev strayed so wide of their earlv path? They must find their way back. She glanced at her husband. Was he also stirred and torn by the dear memories ? Cameron's brows were knitted in irritation. "I wish you'd shut off that wretched noise, William," he jerked out. "What you people find in music beats me. I'd as soon sit through a two- hour sermon." When was it that music suddenly became a bore, and a ser- mon something to be endured? Will, Jr., shut off" the victrola and started to swing himself out of ear-shot of the "grouch" that his trained senses told him was coming. "I saw Lyle Emery todav," Mr. Cameron went on. "I be- lieve she still cares for our self-sufficient young prig."

Will, Jr., dropped into a chair. "Harry's the leading surgeon in this state," she defended, proudly. "I'd rather my son were a man," Cameron responded curtly. He reached for his cane and started wearily out. "You're not going back to the office, tonight, surely," Mrs. Cameron protested. Anxiety deepened her misgivings. "I'm tired, Jean; I'm so tired I can't rest out of the office. I'm going back to look over some papers." Mrs. Cameron laid a hand on his shoulder, tenderly. "I left a check for you on your dressing table," was his weary response. Mrs. Cameron winced as though a lash had been laid to fresh bruises. So that, in his thought, was all he meant to her ! He had not been aware of the new yearning that was creeping over her. Mrs. Cameron sank into a chair. The headlines on the paper her husband had dropped stared up at her. "Caught in the Undertow." "That is it," she thought to herself. "That is it !" 'Caught in the undertow.' We were swimming out into the current of wealth, and the undertow, self-seeking, has caught us, and is dragging our souls down." How long she sat pondering, she did not realize, but pres- ently there were suppressed voices on the pavement, the shuffling of many feet, a ring of the bell, the sound of the maid openin door, then a scream from the girl, and Mrs. Cameron was staring at her husband's inert form. "He isn't dead," one of the men assured her. "He got out of his car while it was still in motion. He was flung violently onto his head." "Phone for Harry," Will, Jr. commanded as he put his ear to his father's heart. "He's operating on an emergency case at the hospital," the man explained from the telephone. "Get Dr. Canton right over, then," Will urged, impatiently. How small he looked, and pale, lying there. And how white his hair was growing. Something smote at the boy's heart as he realized for the first time that his father was getting along in years — nearing the inevitable silence. "I think he'll pull through all right," Dr. Canton observed some time later. "He's in bad condition all over. I was telling Harry so yesterday. He's been working too steadily." It was toward midnight that Cameron opened his eyes, and apparently rational, though with his mind far in the past, he ex- claimed. "How quiet and restful it is here when it storms !" Harry was at his side in an instant.

"Only one room and yet how peaceful," the sick man contin- ued. "He is delirious," Harry explained to his mother. "No, it isn't delirium," she sobbed. "Listen." "You're a wonderful mother, Jean," the voice went on, "your boys will be splendid men, reared so close to their mother's heart. You'll keep alive the finer things in them." Cameron groped for his wife's hand among the covers. W1""~ ' he found it he went on. "I love to watch Harry's face as you read him those tales of chivalry — of King Arthur and his knights. And is it big Will or little Will who enjoys most your songs with the guitar. Up here in the wilds, with nothing to interfere, you seem to find time to make the three of us happy. A boy never forgets such a mother. What was that you read from Tennyson last night? " 'And though he slip and fall he shall not blind his soul with clay' — with clay — with clay," the voice trailed off into silence. Will shifted uneasily as his father's eyes closed. "He's thinking about those years up in the mountains," he exclaimed in an awed whisper. Mrs. Cameron did not reply. Something gripped her throat so that she could not speak. "You won't always be out here in the wilds, little woman, among the pines and the quaking asps — the quaking asps," he re- peated, forgetfully. "There is timber enough on our claim, and water power. I'll have a lumber mill. You shall have every lux- ury, little woman — every luxury." Again there was a silence which no one could break. After a while the sick man wandered on — his mind still in the past. "We'll make a physician of Harry. The day he graduates I'll give him Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush. It will be worth while to give the world a physician like old Doctor MacLure. We'll be proud of our boy, Jean." Suddenly the old man, his face white and drawn, started up in bed exclaiming vehemently : "You can't afford to marry? You can't climb up in your profession and keep a wife and family? Then stay down — down among the humble." "Father, father," Harry soothed, "you mustn't excite your- self." "Can't you give him something?" Will begged. "I don't dare," Harry exclaimed. "Two hundred dollars," Cameron muttered, contemptuously, "two hundred dollars. Did you look at his shabby overcoat? Two hundred dollars for his wife's life. An operation that will take an hour and a half of your valuable time. You'll make a few five-minute visits and the fee ? One-third of all that man can earn in a year, if good luck awaits him. What does it cost, Harry?

What does it cost to look a man in the face and with unflinching" conscience tell him your fee? 'Dignity of the profession!' T won- der how much old Doctor MacLure wondered about 'upholding the dignity of the profession' — Doctor MacLure and Old Jess !" Harry's face was tense with emotion. "Get mother out of here," he whispered, under his breath to Will, "and send for Canton. I'm afraid it's worse than we thought." "It looks as if we'll have to operate," Harry remarked to Canton, some time later. "There seems to be some pressure on the brain that keeps his mind in the past." "I don't agree," Canton replied, after the examination. "Sometimes in these cases of nervous exhaustion a patient mum- bles in his delirium, the things that have made the deepest fur- rows in his brain, the thoughts and feelings that have bit in the deepest." For weeks the sick man lay in exhaustion — too weary to speak or move — too weary to notice. ***** "I found this on father's desk at the office. Will, Jr. hesi- tated, then handed the book to his mother. "It was open and one line was marked," he added, with a choking remembrance of that line "I didn't know father read Browning." With a sob Mrs. Cameron caught up the volume and fled to her room. She dropped on her knees by the couch. It had been long since she had prayed, and no words came now. But a voiceless petition, throbbed in her heart: "Give us one more chance, O God, one more chance." "Browning!" the thoughts wandered on in her brain. "We used to read Browning together in those long winter evenings alone in the mountains with the pines and the quaking asps There was much that we didn't understand," she admitted to herself, "but once in a while something warmed our hearts and braced our souls and kept us striving. Over and over he used to repeat that stanza: "One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, TvJpvpr Hnnbted clouds would break, , Never dreamed'though right were worsted, wrong would triumph. Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake." "Give us the chance, Father, to fight better. Let this sleep not be the sleep that awakens only beyond His soul was alive her thoughts plunged on, "or he would not have gone back to Brown in- It was my soul that was sleeping, swathed in luxuries. He was trying and I did not know. The music hurt-by contrast

with the past. Sermons do not bore the man who seeks them alone in his office." She pressed the volume in anguish — her fingers still between the leaves his eyes had last looked upon. "I can't read it," she moaned to herself, "not if it is the last — not until I know whether it is to be the last." Will, Jr. knocked softly on the door. "There was something else I wanted to talk with you about, mother. I found these plans among father's papers. I talked them over with the directors last night. They say they're feasible, only it will cut down our income considerably. You know, Dad appears to be worrying considerably about things whenever he grows delirious, and Harry says if we can fix up everything that's tormenting him, and let him know the first minute he becomes rational, we may be able to — to pull him through." Will choked on the words, but braced himself again and went on. "He's a big man, father is, the men said so last night. I suppose all this talk about wealth and monopoly has worried him, and he's worked out a plan to put the mills on the profit-sharing basis. " 'I want every man in my employ to have a little leisure to think and read, and a little means to travel and have music and books in his home.' "That's part of the address he'd written to read to the board." "We'll cut expenses down as far as is necessary, Will," Mrs. Cameron said at once. "Your father's plans must go through. Why didn't he tell me?" "I suppose he thought your heart was set on these luxuries. I know I've spent a lot for nonsense, and worse than nonsense. Then I'll tell them to go ahead at once!" It was two weeks later in the quiet room that Cameron opened his eyes with the clear light of reason in them. What he saw must have warmed his heart, for he exclaimed almost jov- fully : "Harry." Two figures turned from the window and drew near him. "We want your blessing, father," the great surgeon said, simply. "And Lyle has a plan I think you'll like, a sort of grad- uated scale of fees, dependent upon a man's income. We'll charge the rich fellows enough to 'uphold the dignity of the profession.'" The old man smiled happily, and laid his hand on the girl's head as they knelt beside him. "Will, Jr. is down at the mills working like a young cyclone," Harry continued quietly, as if nothing of great moment were im- plied by his remarks. "He says that profit-sharing plan of yours is working out like a charm. Now I think you better rest for a few minutes. Lyle

and I shall go and find mother. She's as enthusiastic over this new plan as Will is." Mr. Cameron closed his eyes to keep back the tears. And his son and the daughter-to-be left the room. Mrs. Cameron came in with her fingers between the leaves of the book her husband had been reading the night of his acci- dent. She kissed him quietly, then sank down at his side. "I've been tracing my way back to the old days, and the old ways, dear," she breathed happily. "I found the key in this beau- tiful volume." She held up the exquisitely-made volume of Browning's Saul. "It is the line you marked, 'Ere. error had bent the broad brow from the daily communion.' That was it, dear, 'the daily communion' with God. When we missed that, we let go the hand that guides— the hand that would have kept us.. up, despite the undertow." LOGAN, UTAH A Good Record in Baptisms Boyd C. Lindsay and E. Ray Miller, Owingsville, Kentucky, August 9: "Some time ago, we made a trip through two of the blue grass counties, meeting with excellent success. Recently, President Lindsay, in company with Elder George H. Bowler, re-visited the same commu- nities. In forty-two "days we held sixty- six meetings, baptized twenty-two peo- ple. We traveled without purse and scrip and were very hospitably received. Twenty-two baptisms with an average of eleven meetings a week, for six weeks, is a good record, and we returned to headquarters with gratitude in our hearts for these blessings."

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