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The Old Man’s Christmas
by
Poor old Anson English! He was nearing his sixtieth year now, and he looked and seemed much older. Ben was his only earthly tie, and the hope and stay of his old age. And he was but a reed–a reed. His father saw that at last. Ben would never develop into a practical business man. He was unstable, lazy, and selfish. And this new wife seemed to encourage him in every extravagant folly, instead of restraining him as the old man had hoped. And someway Ben had never been the same since Edith went away. He had been none too good or kind to his father before that; but since then–well, when she went, it seemed to Anson that she took with her whatever of gentleness or kindness lurked in Ben’s nature, and left only its brutality and selfishness.
And strive as he would to banish the feeling, the old man missed the child.
Ah, no! he was not happy in this new state of affairs, which he had so rejoiced over at the first. He grew very old during the next two years. Like all men who worry the lives of women in the domestic circle, he was cowardly at heart. And Ben’s new wife frightened him into silent submission by her masculine assumption of authority and her loud voice and well-defined muscle.
He spoke little at home now, but he still paid frequent visits to his neighbors, and he remained firm in the Adam-like idea that Elizabeth had been the root of all evil in his life.
“Yes, Ben’s letting the place run down pretty bad,” he confessed to a neighbor who had broached the subject. “Ben’s early trainin’ wasn’t right. ‘Liz’beth, she let him do ’bout as he pleased. Liz’beth never had no notions of how a boy should be trained. He’d a’ come out all right if I’d a’ managed him from the start.”
Strange to say, he never was known to speak one disparaging word of Abby, Ben’s second wife. Her harshness and neglect were matters of common discussion in the neighborhood, but the old man, who had been so bitter and unjust toward his own wife and Edith, seemed to feel a curious respect for this Amazon who had subjugated him. Or, perhaps, he remembered how eager he had been for the marriage, and his pride kept him silent. Certain it is that he bore her neglect, and later her abuse, with no word of complaint, and even spoke of her sometimes with praise.
“She’s a brave one, Abby is,” he would say. “She ain’t afraid of nothin’ or nobody. Ef she’d a’ been a man, she’d a’ made a noise in the world.”
Ben drank more and more, and Abby dressed and drove in like ratio. The farm ran down, and debts accumulated–debts which Abby refused to pay with her money, and the old man saw the savings of a long life of labor squandered in folly and vice.
People said it was turning his brain, for he talked constantly of his poverty, often walking the streets in animated converse with himself. And at length he fell ill again, and was wildly delirious for weeks. It was a high fever; and when it left him, he was totally blind, and quite helpless.
He needed constant care and attention. He could not be left alone even for an hour; Ben was seldom at home, and Abby rebelled at the confinement and restraint it imposed upon her. Hired help refused to take the burden of the care of the troublesome old man without increased wages, and Ben could not and Abby would not incur this added expense. Servants gave warning; Ben drank more deeply and prolonged his absences from home, and Abby finally carried out a resolve which had at first caused even her hard heart some twinges.
She made an application to the keeper of the County Poor to admit her husband’s father to the department of the incurably insane, which was adjacent to the Poor House.