National Avenue by Booth Tarkington (book recommendations website .txt) 📕

old generation, and the only use he is, it’s to plan for the new one. From then on, that’s what his whole life ought to be⁠—just buildin’ up the world for his son. Now you take this boy o’ mine⁠—”

“Excuse me,” his cousin interrupted earnestly. “You’re referring now to the one who was born late this afternoon?”

“I mean my boy!” Dan replied; and his face glowed with the triumphant word. “I have a son! Didn’t you know it?”

“It’s been mentioned, I believe, during the evening,” Frederic answered. “Excuse me, pray.”

“When he grows up,” Dan went on radiantly, “he’s got to find everything better because of the work the old generation’s got to do to make it that way. That’s what we’re put in the world for! I never knew what I was for until today. I knew I was meant for something; I knew I ought to be makin’ plans and tryin’ to build up; but I didn’t see just what for. I thought I did, but I didn’t. That’s what I wanted to explain to Martha, because she’s the only one that could understand. It’s the reason for the universe.”

“You surprise me,” Frederic remarked; and he replaced his cup with careful accuracy upon its saucer on the arm of his chair. “Correct me if I fail to follow you, but are you fair to your son? If he’s the reason for the universe he ought to be able to grasp a few simple truths. You say Martha is the only person who could understand, but have you even tried to make him understand?”

Dan laughed happily, in high good humour. “That boy’ll understand soon enough!” he cried. “You wait till he’s old enough for me to drive him out to Ornaby and let him look it over and see where his father fought, bled, and died to build it for him! You wait till he learns to drive an automobile from his father’s and his uncle’s own factory!”

“His uncle’s?” Frederic repeated, turning to Harlan. “Forgive me if I trespass upon private ground, but I haven’t heard⁠—”

“I have nothing to do with it,” Harlan said, frowning with an annoyance that had been increasing since his entrance into the room. “He means his wife’s brother.” He leaned toward Martha, who sat looking quietly at the radiant Dan. “Did you ever hear wilder nonsense?” he said in a low voice. “I really suspect he’s a little mad. Do tell us to go home.”

“No, no,” she whispered, and returned her attention instantly to Dan, who was explaining to his cousin.

“My brother-in-law in New York, George McMillan, wrote me he’d got hold of an engineer who’d made designs for a wonderful improvement in automobile engines. McMillan wants to come out here, and he and I think of goin’ into it together. We want to build a factory over on the west edge of Ornaby, where it won’t interfere with the residential section.”

“The residential section?” his cousin repeated in a tone of gentle inquiry. “Do I comprehend you? It’s over where you’ve got that tool shed?”

“No, sir!” Dan exclaimed triumphantly. “We moved the tool shed this very morning because yesterday the lot it stood on was sold. Yes, sir; Ornaby Addition has begun to exist!”

At this Martha’s quiet attitude altered; she leaned forward and clapped her hands. “Dan! Is it true? Have you sold some lots?”

“The first one,” he answered proudly. “The very first lot was sold the day before my son was born!”

“How splendid!” she cried. “And they’ll build on it right away?”

“No; not right away,” he admitted. “That is, not much of a house, so to speak. It was bought by a man that wants to own a small picnic ground of his own, because he’s got a large family; and at first he’s only goin’ to have a sort of shack there. But he will build when he sees the other houses goin’ up all around him.”

“Pardon me,” said Frederic Oliphant. “Which other houses are you mentioning now?”

“The houses that will go up there,” Dan returned promptly. “The houses that’ll be there for my young son to see.”

“Your ‘young son?’ ” Fred repeated. “Your son is still young yet, then? It’s remarkable when you consider he’s the meaning of the universe. You feel that when he grows up he’ll have houses to look at?”

Dan’s chest expanded with the great breath he took; his high colour grew higher, his bright eyes brighter. “Just think what he’ll have to look at when he grows up! Why, the nurse let me hold him a few minutes, and I got to thinkin’ about how I’m goin’ to work for him, and then about how this country’s moved ahead every minute since it was begun, goin’ ahead faster and faster till now it just jumps out from under your feet if you stand still a second⁠—and it grows so big and it grows so magnificent that when I thought of what sort of a world it’s goin to be for my son, I declare I was almost afraid to look at him; it was like lookin’ at somebody that’s born to be a god!”

He spoke with such honest fervour, and with such belief in what he said, that, for the moment, even his bibulous cousin said nothing, but sat in an emotional silence, staring at him. As for Martha, an edge of tears suddenly showed along her eyelids; but Harlan was not so susceptible. “Dear me!” he said dryly. “After that burst of eloquence don’t you think we’d better be starting for home? At least it would avoid an anticlimax.”

Dan had been so rapt in his moment of vision, his exultant glimpse of a transcendent world for his son’s heritage, that his brother’s dry voice confused him;⁠—he was like a balloonist who unexpectedly finds the earth rising swiftly to meet him. “What?” he said blankly; and then, as secondary perceptions clarified Harlan’s suggestion to him, he laughed. “Why, yes; of course we ought to be goin’; we mustn’t keep