Things would drift back sooner or later. The Greek Testament was left on the doormat. The photograph appeared on Boughton’s hall table, mysteriously, and was brought back to me. That penknife with the word “Chartres” pressed into the handle, which was made from a shell casing, was left on the kitchen table, plunged through an apple. I found that disconcerting at the time.
Then he started doing the things that got his name in the newspaper, stealing liquor and joyriding, and so on. I’ve known young fellows who spent time in jail or got themselves sent off to the navy for behavior that wasn’t any worse. But his family was so well respected that he got away with it all. That is to say, he was allowed to go right on disgracing his family.
I notice I have said he seemed lonely. That was one very strange thing about him, because, as I have said also, the Boughtons really loved him. All of them did. His brothers and sisters would stand up for him no matter what. When he was little, he’d slip out, run off, and they’d come by looking for him, anxious beyond their years, all business, hoping to find him and exert their respectable influence on him before he could get into too much trouble. I remember one summer I had planted a row of sunflowers along the back fence. There must have been twenty of them: One afternoon the other little Boughtons came to the door asking for Johnny, as they called him in those days. I went out to help them look around a little, and darned if those sunflowers hadn’t been pulled back, bent over the fence so their heads were hanging down on the other side of it. Glory said, “It could have been the wind that did that.” I said, Yes, maybe it was the wind.
If I had to choose one word to describe him as he is now, it might be “lonely,” though “weary” and “angry” certainly come to mind also. Once during the time I was missing Louisa’s picture I went over to Boughton’s to borrow a book, and we sat on the porch and talked awhile, and that boy sat on the steps, fiddling with a slingshot, I remember, and listening to every word, and from time to time he would look up at me and smile, as if we were in on a joke together, some interesting conspiracy. I found that extremely irritating. He almost provoked me into mentioning the photograph then and there. I had to leave to stop myself. He said, “Goodbye, Papa!” I went home just trembling. Maybe you can see why, when the business with the young girl came up, I was chiefly struck by the meanness of it.
I don’t think I do my heart much good by remembering these things. My point is that he was always a mystery, and that’s why I worry about him, and that’s why I know I can’t judge him as I might another man. That is to say, I can’t assign a moral valuation to his behavior. He’s just mean. Well, I don’t know that that is true of him now. But I do see what he might injure. That is very clear to me. While I was standing there in the pulpit, the thought came to me that I was looking back from the grave and there he was, sitting beside you, grinning up at me. This is not doing me any good at all; I’d better pray.
I woke up this morning to the smell of pancakes, which I dearly love. My heart was a sort of clayey lump midway up my esophagus, and that after much earnest prayer. Your mother found me sleeping in my chair and slipped my shoes off and put a quilt over me. I do sometimes sleep better sitting up these days. Breathing is easier. I was careful to put this diary away before I turned the light out last night. I know I still have thinking to do on this matter of Jack Boughton.
***
It is my birthday, so there were marigolds on the table and my stack of pancakes had candles in it. There were nice little sausages besides. And you recited the Beatitudes with hardly a hitch, two times over, absolutely shining with the magnitude of the accomplishment, as well you might. Your mother gave a sausage to Soapy, who slunk off with the unctuous thing and hid it who knows where. She is beyond doubt the descendant of endless generations of vermin eaters, fat as she is, domesticated as she ought to be.
I hate to think what I would give for a thousand mornings like this. For two or three. You were wearing your red shirt and your mother was wearing her blue dress.
And your mother has found that sermon I was wondering about, that Pentecost sermon, the one I gave the first time I saw her. It was beside my plate, wrapped in tissue paper, with a ribbon on it. “Now, don’t you go revising that,” she said. “It don’t need revising.” And she kissed me on the top of the head, which, for her, was downright flamboyant. So now I am seventy-seven.
Yesterday was very fine altogether. Glory came by in her car and took us for a picnic over by the river. Tobias came along, Tobias the good. There were balloons and even firecrackers, and there was a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. The river was low but pretty, with the first yellow leaves drifting down to it. I was sorry I had not slept better the night before, that there was so much unease in the region of my heart. But the party went on cheerfully enough anyway. Glory and your mother are good friends now, and you and T. would have happily spent forever racing leaves down that river and generally puddling around in it.
Last night I slept fairly well.
It bothers me to think I might be bothered to death, if you see what I mean. Jack Boughton is home, to the delight of his father, my dear friend. For all I know, he has done no harm, and for all I know, he intends no harm. And yet the mere fact of him troubles me.
You asked if he was not coming along on the birthday jaunt. You were disappointed. Glory made some sort of excuse, and your mother said nothing. The tact was audible. I have to wonder what they know, what they have talked about. How could they not pity him? I pity him. I regret absolutely that I cannot speak with him in a way becoming a pastor, knowing as I do what an uneasy spirit he is. That is disgraceful.
It is one of the best traits of good people that they love where they pity. And this is truer of women than of men. So they get themselves drawn into situations that are harmful to them. I have seen this happen many, many times. I have always had trouble finding a way to caution against it. Since it is, in a word, Christlike.
He has not replied to the note I sent him.
I wrote another note, telling him how deeply I felt any fault lay with me, and so on, and carried it over to Boughton’s myself. I was just going to slip it in the mailbox, but Jack was out in the garden and he saw me and so I took it over to him. He actually seemed to shy from it a little. I told him it was another apology, more considered than the first one had been, and then he thanked me for it, and I am sure I saw genuine relief in his expression. I suspect he had not read the earlier note, perhaps thinking there might be some sort of rebuke in it. He did open the one I handed him and he read it over and then he thanked me again.
I said, “If you would like to talk, I would be happy to see you anytime.”
And he said, “Yes, I do want to talk with you, if you’re sure it’s all right.” So we’ll see what comes of that.
I was pleased that it all fell out so agreeably. It took a weight from my heart. I’ll admit it was one part of my motive in writing the second note that I didn’t want your mother pitying him for any hurt I had done him. Still, I felt good about it.