Alice Adams

e meant his own transgression and his own way; for Walter's stubborn
refusal appeared to Adams just then as one of the inexplicable but
righteous besettings he must encounter in following that way. “Oh,
Lordy, Lord!” he groaned, and then, as resentment moved him--“That dang
boy! Dang idiot!” Yet he knew himself for a greater idiot because he had
not been able to tell Walter the truth. He could not bring himself to do
it, nor even to state his case in its best terms; and that was because
he felt that even in its best terms the case was a bad one.

Of all his regrets the greatest was that in a moment of vanity and
tenderness, twenty-five years ago, he had told his young wife a business
secret. He had wanted to show how important her husband was becoming,
and how much the head of the universe, J. A. Lamb, trusted to his
integrity and ability. The great man had an idea: he thought of
“branching out a little,” he told Adams confidentially, and there were
possibilities of profit in glue.

What he wanted was a liquid glue to be put into little bottles and sold
cheaply. “The kind of thing that sells itself,” he said; “the kind of
thing that pays its own small way as it goes along, until it has profits
enough to begin advertising it right. Everybody has to use glue, and if
I make mine convenient and cheap, everybody'll buy mine. But it's got
to be glue that'll STICK; it's got to be the best; and if we find how
to make it we've got to keep it a big secret, of course, or anybody can
steal it from us. There was a man here last month; he knew a formula
he wanted to sell me, 'sight unseen'; but he was in such a hurry I got
suspicious, and I found he'd managed to steal it, working for the big
packers in their glue-works. We've got to find a better glue than that,
anyhow. I'm going to set you and Campbell at it. You're a practical,
wide-awake young feller, and Campbell's a mighty good chemist; I guess
you two boys ought to make something happen.”

His guess was shrewd enough. Working in a shed a little way outside the
town, where their cheery employer visited them sometimes to study their
malodorous stews, the two young men found what Lamb had set them to
find. But Campbell was thoughtful over the discovery. “Look here,” he
said. “Why ain't this just about yours and mine? After all, it may be
Lamb's money that's paid for the stuff we've used, but it hasn't cost
much.”

“But he pays US,” Adams remonstrated, horrified by his companion's idea.
“He paid us to do it. It belongs absolutely to him.”

“Oh, I know he THINKS it does,” Campbell admitted, plaintively. “I
suppose we've got to let him take it. It's not patentable, and he'll
have to do pretty well by us when he starts his factory, because he's
got to depend on us to run the making of the stuff so that the workmen
can't get onto the process. You better ask him the same salary I do, and
mine's going to be high.”

But the high salary, thus pleasantly imagined, was never paid. Campbell
died of typhoid fever, that summer, leaving Adams and his employer the
only possessors of the formula, an unwritten one; and Adams, pleased to
think himself more important to the great man than ever, told his wife
that there could be little doubt of his being put in sole charge of
the prospective glue-works. Unfortunately, the enterprise remained
prospective.

Its projector had already become “inveigled into another side-line,”
as he told Adams. One of his sons had persuaded him to take up a
“cough-lozenge,” to be called the “Jalamb Balm Trochee”; and the lozenge
did well enough to amuse Mr. Lamb and occupy his spare time, which was
really about all he had asked of the glue project. He had “all the MONEY
anybody ought to want,” he said, when Adams urged him; and he could
“start up this little glue side-line” at any time; the formula was safe
in their two heads.

At intervals Adams would seek opportunity to speak of “the little glue
side-line” to his patron, and to suggest that the years were passing;
but Lamb, petting other hobbies, had lost interest. “Oh, I'll start it
up some day, maybe. If I don't, I may turn it over to my heirs: it's
always an asset, worth something or other, of course. We'll probably
take it up some day, though, you and I.”

The sun persistently declined to rise on that day, and, as time went
on, Adams saw that his rather timid urgings bored his employer, and he
ceased to bring up the subject. Lamb apparently forgot all about glue,
but Adams discovered that unfortunately there was someone else who
remembered it.

“It's really YOURS,” she argued, that painful day when for the first
time she suggested his using his knowledge for the benefit of himself
and his family. “Mr. Campbell might have had a right to part of it, but
he died and didn't leave any kin, so it belongs to you.”

“Suppose J. A. Lamb hired me to saw some wood,” Adams said. “Would the
sticks belong to me?”

“He hasn't got any right to take your invention and bury it,” she
protested. “What good is it doing him if he doesn't DO anything with it?
What good is it doing ANYBODY? None in the world! And what harm would
it do him if you went ahead and did this for yourself and for your
children? None in the world! And what could he do to you if he WAS old
pig enough to get angry with you for doing it? He couldn't do a single
thing, and you've admitted he couldn't, yourself. So what's your reason
for depriving your children and your wife of the benefits you know you
could give 'em?”

“Nothing but decency,” he answered; and she had her reply ready for
that. It seemed to him that, strive as he would, he could not reach her
mind with even the plainest language; while everything that she said to
him, with such vehemence, sounded like so much obstinate gibberish.
Over and over he pressed her with the same illustration, on the point of
ownership, though he thought he was varying it.

“Suppose he hired me to build him a house: would that be MY house?”

“He didn't hire you to build him a house. You and Campbell invented----”

“Look here: suppose you give a cook a soup-bone and some vegetables, and
pay her to make you a soup: has she got a right to take and sell it? You
know better!”

“I know ONE thing: if that old man tried to keep your own invention from
you he's no better than a robber!”

They never found any point of contact in all their passionate
discussions of this ethical question; and the question was no more
settled between them, now that Adams had succumbed, than it had ever
been. But at least the wrangling about it was over: they were grave
together, almost silent, and an uneasiness prevailed with her as much as
with him.

He had already been out of the house, to walk about the small green
yard; and on Monday afternoon he sent for a taxicab and went down-town,
but kept a long way from the “wholesale section,” where stood the
formidable old oblong pile of Lamb and Company. He arranged for the
sale of the bonds he had laid away, and for placing a mortgage upon his
house; and on his way home, after five o'clock, he went to see an old
friend, a man whose term of service with Lamb and Company was even a
little longer than his own.

This veteran, returned from the day's work, was sitting in front of the
apartment house where he lived, but when the cab stopped at the curb he
rose and came forward, offering a jocular greeting. “Well, well, Virgil
Adams! I always thought you had a sporty streak in you. Travel in
your own hired private automobile nowadays, do you? Pamperin' yourself
because you're still layin' off sick, I expect.”

“Oh, I'm well enough again, Charley Lohr,” Adams said, as he got out and
shook hands. Then, telling the driver to wait, he took his friend's arm,
walked to the bench with him, and sat down. “I been practically well for
some time,” he said. “I'm fixin' to get into harness again.”

“Bein' sick has certainly produced a change of heart in you,” his
friend laughed. “You're the last man I ever expected to see blowin'
yourself--or anybody else to a taxicab! For that matter, I never heard
of you bein' in ANY kind of a cab, 'less'n it might be when you been
pall-bearer for somebody. What's come over you?”

“Well, I got to turn over a new leaf, and that's a fact,” Adams said. “I
got a lot to do, and the only way to accomplish it, it's got to be done
soon, or I won't have anything to live on while I'm doing it.”

“What you talkin' about? What you got to do except to get strong enough
to come back to the old place?”

“Well----” Adams paused, then coughed, and said slowly, “Fact is,
Charley Lohr, I been thinking likely I wouldn't come back.”

“What! What you talkin' about?”

“No,” said Adams. “I been thinking I might likely kind of branch out on
my own account.”

“Well, I'll be doggoned!” Old Charley Lohr was amazed; he ruffled up
his gray moustache with thumb and forefinger, leaving his mouth open
beneath, like a dark cave under a tangled wintry thicket. “Why, that's
the doggonedest thing I ever heard!” he said. “I already am the oldest
inhabitant down there, but if you go, there won't be anybody else of the
old generation at all. What on earth you thinkin' of goin' into?”

“Well,” said Adams, “I rather you didn't mention it till I get started
of course anybody'll know what it is by then--but I HAVE been kind of
planning to put a liquid glue on the market.”

His friend, still ruffling the gray moustache upward, stared at him in
frowning perplexity. “Glue?” he said. “GLUE!”

“Yes. I been sort of milling over the idea of taking up something like
that.”

“Handlin' it for some firm, you mean?”

“No. Making it. Sort of a glue-works likely.”

Lohr continued to frown. “Let me think,” he said. “Didn't the ole man
have some such idea once, himself?”

Adams leaned forward, rubbing his knees; and he coughed again before he
spoke. “Well, yes. Fact is, he did. That is to say, a mighty long while
ago he did.”

“I remember,” said Lohr. “He never said anything about it that I know
of; but seems to me I recollect we had sort of a rumour around the place
how you and that man--le's see, wasn't his name Campbell, that died of
typhoid fever? Yes, that was it, Campbell. Didn't the ole man have you
and Campbell workin' sort of private on some glue proposition or other?”

“Yes, he did.” Adams nodded. “I found out a good deal about glue then,
too.”

“Been workin' on it since, I suppose?”

“Yes. Kept it in my mind and studied out new things about it.”

Lohr looked serious. “Well, but see here,” he said. “I hope it ain't
anything the ole man'll think might infringe on whatever he had you
doin' for HIM. You know how he is: broad-minded, liberal, free-handed
man as walks this earth, and if he thought he owed you a cent he'd sell
his right hand for a pork-chop to pay it, if that was the only way; but
if he got the idea anybody was tryin' to get the better of him, he'd
sell BOTH his hands, if he had to, to keep 'em from doin' it. Yes, at
eighty, he would! Not that I mean I think you might be tryin' to get the
better of him, Virg. You're a mighty close ole codger, but such a thing
ain't in you. What I mean: I hope there ain't any chance for the ole man
to THINK you might be----”

“Oh, no,” Adams interrupted. “As a matter of fact, I don't believe he'll
ever think about it at all, and if he did he wouldn't have any real
right to feel offended at me: the process I'm going to use is one I
expect to change and improve a lot different from the one Campbell and I
worked on for him.”

“Well, that's good,” said Lohr. “Of course you know what you're up to:
you're old enough, God knows!” He laughed ruefully. “My, but it will
seem funny to me--down there with you gone! I expect you and I both
been gettin' to be pretty much dead-wood in the place, the way the young
fellows look at it, and the only one that'd miss either of us would be
the other one! Have you told the ole man yet?”

“Well----” Adams spoke laboriously. “No. No, I haven't. I thought--well,
that's what I wanted to see you about.”

“What can I do?”

“I thought I'd write him a letter and get you to hand it to him for me.”

“My soul!” his friend exclaimed. “Why on earth don't you just go down
there and tell him?”

Adams became pitiably embarrassed. He stammered, coughed, stammered
again, wrinkling his face so deeply he seemed about to weep; but finally
he contrived to utter an apologetic laugh. “I ought to do that, of
course; but in some way or other I just don't seem to be able to--to
manage it.”

“Why in the world not?” the mystified Lohr inquired.

“I could hardly tell you--'less'n it is to say that when you been with
one boss all your life it's so--so kind of embarrassing--to quit him, I
just can't make up my mind to go and speak to him about it. No; I got it
in my head a letter's the only satisfactory way to do it, and I thought
I'd ask you to hand it to him.”

“Well, of course I don't mind doin' that for you,” Lohr said, mildly.
“But why in the world don't you just mail it to him?”

“Well, I'll tell you,” Adams returned. “You know, like that, it'd have
to go through a clerk and that secretary of his, and I don't know who
all. There's a couple of kind of delicate points I want to put in it:
for instance, I want to explain to him how much improvement and so on
I'm going to introduce on the old process I helped to work out with
Campbell when we were working for him, so't he'll understand it's a
different article and no infringement at all. Then there's another
thing: you see all during while I was sick he had my salary paid to
me it amounts to considerable, I was on my back so long. Under the
circumstances, because I'm quitting, I don't feel as if I ought to
accept it, and so I'll have a check for him in the letter to cover it,
and I want to be sure he knows it, and gets it personally. If it had to
go through a lot of other people, the way it would if I put it in the
mail, why, you can't tell. So what I thought: if you'd hand it to him
for me, and maybe if he happened to read it right then, or anything,
it might be you'd notice whatever he'd happen to say about it--and you
could tell me afterward.”

“All right,” Lohr said. “Certainly if you'd rather do it that way, I'll
hand it to him and tell you what he says; that is, if he says anything
and I hear him. Got it written?”

“No; I'll send it around to you last of the week.” Adams moved
toward his taxicab. “Don't say anything to anybody about it, Charley,
especially till after that.”

“All right.”

“And, Charley, I'll be mighty obliged to you,” Adams said, and came back
to shake hands in farewell. “There's one thing more you might do--if
you'd ever happen to feel like it.” He kept his eyes rather vaguely
fixed on a point above his friend's head as he spoke, and his voice was
not well controlled. “I been--I been down there a good many years and
I may not 'a' been so much use lately as I was at first, but I always
tried to do my best for the old firm. If anything turned out so's they
DID kind of take offense with me, down there, why, just say a good word
for me--if you'd happen to feel like it, maybe.”

Old Charley Lohr assured him that he would speak a good word if
opportunity became available; then, after the cab had driven away,
he went up to his small apartment on the third floor and muttered
ruminatively until his wife inquired what he was talking to himself
about.

“Ole Virg Adams,” he told her. “He's out again after his long spell of
sickness, and the way it looks to me he'd better stayed in bed.”

“You mean he still looks too bad to be out?”

“Oh, I expect he's gettin' his HEALTH back,” Lohr said, frowning.

“Then what's the matter with him? You mean he's lost his mind?”

“My goodness, but women do jump at conclusions!” he exclaimed.

“Well,” said Mrs. Lohr, “what other conclusion did you leave me to jump
at?”

Her husband explained with a little heat: “People can have a sickness
that AFFECTS their mind, can't they? Their mind can get some affected
without bein' LOST, can't it?”

“Then you mean the poor man's mind does seem affected?”

“Why, no; I'd scarcely go as far as that,” Lohr said, inconsistently,
and declined to be more definite.

Adams devoted the latter part of that evening to the composition of his
letter--a disquieting task not completed when, at eleven o'clock, he
heard his daughter coming up the stairs. She was singing to herself in a
low, sweet voice, and Adams paused to listen incredulously, with his
pen lifted and his mouth open, as if he heard the strangest sound in the
world. Then he set down the pen upon a blotter, went to his door, and
opened it, looking out at her as she came.

“Well, dearie, you seem to be feeling pretty good,” he said. “What you
been doing?”

“Just sitting out on the front steps, papa.”

“All alone, I suppose.”

“No. Mr. Russell called.”

“Oh, he did?” Adams pretended to be surprised. “What all could you and
he find to talk about till this hour o' the night?”

She laughed gaily. “You don't know me, papa!”

“How's that?”

“You've never found out that I always do all the talking.”

“Didn't you let him get a word in all evening?”

“Oh, yes; every now and then.”

Adams took her hand and petted it. “Well, what did he say?”

Alice gave him a radiant look and kissed him. “Not what you think!” she
laughed; then slapped his cheek with saucy affection, pirouetted across
the narrow hall and into her own room, and curtsied to him as she closed
her door.

Adams went back to his writing with a lighter heart; for since Alice
was born she had been to him the apple of his eye, his own phrase in
thinking of her; and what he was doing now was for her.

He smiled as he picked up his pen to begin a new draft of the painful
letter; but presently he looked puzzled. After all, she could be happy
just as things were, it seemed. Then why had he taken what his wife
called “this new step,” which he had so long resisted?

He could only sigh and wonder. “Life works out pretty peculiarly,” he
thought; for he couldn't go back now, though the reason he couldn't was
not clearly apparent. He had to go ahead.