"Poetry?" he had been heard to say, "why, there isn't a
poem that was ever written that I'd take five minutes out of my
business to read!" It seemed as if the quarrel had wrenched him from
the grooves, physical and spiritual, in which Nature had meant him to
run and started him on lines of hard common sense. He was intensely
positive; heavy and pompous and painfully literal; inclined to lay
down the law to everybody; richer than most of us in Old Chester, and
full of solemn responsibilities as burgess and senior warden and
banker. His air of aggressive integrity used to make the honestest of
us feel as if we had been picking pockets! Yes; a good man, as Old
Chester said.
Years ago Dr. Lavendar had given up trying to reconcile the two
Wrights; years ago Old Chester's speculations languished and died out.
Once in a while some one remembered the quarrel and said, "What in the
world could it have been about?" And once in a while Samuel's own
children asked awkward questions. "Mother, what was father's row with
grandfather?" And Mrs. Wright's answer was as direct as the question.
"I don't know. He never told me."
When this reply was made to young Sam he dropped the subject. He had
but faint interest in his father, and his grandfather with whom he
took tea every Sunday night was too important a person to connect with
so trivial an affair as a quarrel.
This matter of offspring is certainly very curious.
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