The soldier looked at him with disbelief. «Say», he remarked, «where are you going with the general's stuff, sonny?»
Benjamin, veteran of the Spanish-American War, moved upon him with fire in his eye, but with, alas, a breaking boy's voice.
«Stand to attention!» he commanded loudly; he paused to take breath then suddenly he saw that the soldier stood straight and brought his rifle to the present . Benjamin hid a smile of satisfaction, but when he glanced around his smile faded. He saw an impressive colonel who was approaching on horseback.
«Colonel!» called Benjamin sharply.
The colonel came up and looked down at him. «Whose little boy are you?» he demanded kindly.
«I'll soon show you whose little boy I am!» protested Benjamin in an angry voice. «Get down off that horse!»
The colonel burst into laughter.
«You want my horse, eh, general?»
«Here!» cried Benjamin in despair. «Read this». And he gave his official letter to the colonel. The colonel read it, he was astonished.
«Where did you get this?» he demanded, putting the document into his own pocket.
«I got it from the Government, as you'll soon find out!»
«You come along with me», said the colonel with a strange look. «We'll go up to headquarters commander and talk this over. Come along».
The colonel turned and began moving in the direction of headquarters. There was nothing for Benjamin to do but follow him he tried to keep as much dignity as possible and promised himself to take revenge. But this revenge did not materialize. Two days later, however, his son Roscoe materialized from Baltimore, irritated and angry at a quick trip, and escorted the general in tears, without uniform, back to his home.
Chapter 11
was the new baby's own grandfather.
No one disliked the little boy whose fresh, cheerful face seemed a little bit sad, but to Roscoe Button his presence was unpleasant and made him suffer. His generation did not consider such a state of things «rational». It seemed to him that his father, in refusing to look sixty, did not behave like a true man of business or a «red-blooded he-man» these were Roscoe's usual words. Roscoe believed that a man of business should look young, but his father's desire to keep to it in such a curious and wrong manner was irrational. Roscoe was sure of it.
Five years later Roscoe's little boy grew old enough to play childish games with little Benjamin under the control of the same nurse. Roscoe took them both to kindergarten on the same day, and Benjamin found that playing with colored paper and making colored beautiful maps was the most fascinating game in the world. Once when he behaved badly and had to stand in the corner, he burst into tears but for the most part these were happy hours in the cheerful room, when the sunlight was coming in the windows and he enjoyed feeling his teacher's kind hand on his head.
Roscoe's son went to school after a year, but Benjamin stayed on in the kindergarten. He was very happy. Sometimes when other children talked about what they would do when they grew up, a sad expression appeared on his little face as if he understood that those things would never happen to him.
The days passed on in a usual way. He went back a third year to the kindergarten, but he was too little now to understand what the bright colored papers were for. He cried because the other boys were bigger than he, and he was afraid of them. The teacher talked to him, but though he tried to understand he could not understand at all.
He was taken from the kindergarten. His nurse, Nana became the centre of his small world. On bright days they walked in the park; Nana pointed at a large gray monster and said «elephant», and Benjamin repeated it after her, and when he was going to bed that night he repeated it over and over again to her: «Elyphant, elyphant, elyphant». Sometimes Nana let him jump on the bed, and that was fun, because he enjoyed jumping.
He loved to take a big cane and go around the house, hitting chairs and tables with it and saying: «Fight, fight, fight». When there were people in the house the old ladies tried to speak childish language with him, which interested him, and the young ladies tried to kiss him, which he accepted with calm boredom. And when the long day was over at five o'clock Nana took him upstairs and gave him his evening foods with a spoon.
There were no old memories in his childish sleep; he didn't remember his brave days at college or the bright years when he broke the hearts of many girls. There were only the white, safe walls of his crib and Nana and a man who came to see him sometimes, and a great big orange ball that Nana pointed at and called «sun». When the sun went his eyes were sleepy there were no dreams, no dreams to worry him.