William Jordan, Junior — Edition Insights

sound in the little room except the ticking of the clock, and an occasional creak from the fire. Now and again the man would pause in his scrutiny of the old yellow page. Uplifting the finger which pursued every word of the faded and almost illegible writing, he would seem to consider it with secret thoughts shaping themselves upon his lips. Then he would smile a little and sigh faintly and turn to it again.

Presently his gaze sought the boy. Within it was a look of indescribable solitude, for as the boy crouched over the old volume printed in black letter which he held upon his knees, great tears dripped softly from his eyes. The white-haired man addressed him in a low voice that was like a caress.

“Ah, my brave one! thou dost not fear the drama.”

The boy looked up with a startled face. He gave a little shiver.

“What is that, my father,” he asked, “that you speak of as the drama?”

“What is that, beloved one,” asked his father, “that afflicts you with dismay?”

The boy pressed his palms against his thin temples.

“I think--I think it is the words, my father,” he said, “the something in the sound of the words.”

“Truly,” said his father, “the something in the sound of the words. That which is given is taken away--the something in the sound of the words.”

“Did you not say, my father,” said the boy, “that the drama was--was what you call a ‘play’?”

“Yes, a play,” said his father, “a bewildering and curious play--a haunting and strange play. It is almost terrible, and yet it is beautiful also.”

“I don’t understand,” said the boy, his eyes growing dark with perplexity.

His father was quick to read his distress, and a mournful compassion came into his face. The boy left his book and came to his father’s side. The man folded the frail and excitable form to his bosom.

“Patience, patience, agile spirit!” he exclaimed as he pressed his lips upon the gaunt cheek upon which lay the wound.

“I must understand all things, my father,” said the boy, who was composed a little by his father’s arms. “I--I must know something more about the drama, for I--I must understand it all.”

“It is that which we feel,” said his father. “It is sometimes in the air. If we listen we can hear it. I hear it now.”

The boy lifted his face with all his senses strung.

“I can only hear the ticking of the clock, my father, and the creaking of the fire.”

“There is something else.”

The boy walked to the shutters of the little room, pressed his ear against them, and listened with great intensity.

“There is only the gurgle of water,” he said, “and the little voice of the wind.”

“And,” said the man with faint eyes.

“And--and! And the mighty roar of the streets of the great city.”

“That is the drama, beloved one.”

The boy sprang away from the shutters with a little cry.

“Yes, now I know,” he said excitedly. “Now I know what it is. And it _was_ the something in the sound of the words. That which is given is taken away. It is what I am always dreaming about this little room of ours. I am always dreaming, my father, that it has been taken from us, that we have been cast out of it, that we have it no more. I have even dreamt that we wandered all day and all night in the cold and dreadful streets of the great city, among all those fierce and cruel street-persons, and that they looked upon us continually with their rude eyes. Then it is that I shiver so much in my fear that I awaken; and I could shout with joy when I find it is ours still, and that it has all been a dream.”

The look of compassion deepened in the man’s face.

“Dost thou never grow weary of this little room?” he said.

“Never, never, my father,” said the boy. “I can never grow weary of this little room. I almost wish sometimes we did not venture to leave it, lest one day we should lose our path in the great city, and not find our way back. I sometimes think I would like to stay in it every moment of my earth-life, so that I might read every one of those authors in the shop. How I wish, my father, that I understood all the hard words and all the strange tongues like you do. But at least I understand one more very difficult word now that I know what is the meaning of the drama.”