THE CHILD IS THE MEANING
257
and tried to get him to behave himself. Soon after Sarah's marriage
Samuel quit high school and took a job with a neighborhood store–
keeper. But since this job required that he get up early in the morn–
ing, it was not long before the storekeeper decided that Samuel was,
as he explained to one of the girls, "too unreliable." Samuel went
from job to job and sooner or later his passion to be with the boys
and to gamble made him lose the job. In fact, to the extreme shru;ne
of his family, Samuel gambled with the money he had collected for
a newsdealer who delivered newspapen;, and it was necessary for
Rebecca to take money from her own salary and hush up the whole
affair. Sarah remarked that Rebecca was permitting herself to be
used when Samuel gambled with the funds of his employer a second
time, and Rebecca defended herself by saying: "I suppose you want
me to let him get sent to reform school. How would Mamma fed
then?"
"He ought to be taught a lesson," said Sarah. But the only re–
sult of Sarah's criticism was a feeling of dislike on the part of Re–
becca, her mother, and Samuel, who were united whenever the pride
of the family was involved.
Two years after the death of the father occurred the most
shocking event ever to affect the family circle: Leonard died sud–
denly, just after he had graduated from medical school. His mother
was inconsolable and some thought that she might die too, so extra–
ordinary was her grief. She had taken the death of her husband with
the equanimity of a strong, courageous, and instinctive being, and
she had resisted the efforts to persuade her to marry again. But the
death of her son left her in a state of impenetrable silence and apathy.
"It's as if she had turned into a statue," Sarah reported to her
husband six months after the death of Leonard. "She sits by herself
in her room, looks at Leonard's picture, and sometimes tears roll
down her face, but she never makes a sbund."
By this time Sarah had had her first child and friends of the
family suggested that Ruth's first grandchild might console her.
Hence, Sarah made a habit of bringing the infant in his baby car–
riage to her mother's house. The little boy, who had been named
after his grandfather, was rocked, fed, and diapered in front of his
grandmother, who paid no attention to him, although his birth had
pleased· and excited her six months before Leonard's death. Sarah
told her mother of the advice of friends of the family, for she was
always one to suppose that explanation was the proper means of
attaining any end.
