Growing Up (Vorse)/Chapter 25
ENOUGH of this!" cried Alice. "Give that face cloth to me. If you are not old enough to wash your face I shall wash it for you!"
His face was set. He tried to wriggle out of her grasp. She held him firmly; firmly she washed his face—one might almost have said violently. Certainly she did a thorough piece of work. When she got through he was crying bitterly. He wrenched himself away from her and ran up-stairs to the sheltering darkness. Alice could hear him sobbing, and she was so blind,—so angry at Robert, that she didn't know why he was crying.
The real matter was his manly dignity had been wounded. Robert had not been allowed to wash his own face. He had been washed like a baby. His dignity was outraged and, worse and worse, he couldn't keep from crying. Manly dignity is a terrible burden at Robert's age.
Alice knew she shouldn't have done it. She knew she had wounded him in some vulnerable spot, for he rarely cried. She couldn't dismiss it lightly when Robert's father asked her what the matter was with Robert by saying,
"Oh, he's just been a naughty little boy!" That's the advantage that children have over you. Alice felt naughty and Robert didn't. The Distressing Doubt was back again. She tried in vain to placate her conscience and her self-reproaches with the specious consolation:
"Well, he should have washed his face quicker." And conscience only demanded of her "Why?" So this was the reason that she was so lenient to the loud dispute that was heard the next morning. What it was all about one couldn't gather; one only knew that it was between Laurie and Robert. When Alice appeared upon the scene of action they spoke at once. Laurie said:
"He won't put his necktie on, ma'am."
"She chokes me," grumbled Robert.
"I don't, then," replied Laurie.
"I can do it myself," said Robert.
"You cannot, then," promptly contradicted Laurie. "And he threw himself down on the floor, ma'am, like Jamie for all the world, in a tantrum."
Next day he appeared at breakfast with a necktie whose knot was about at the middle of his stomach.
"What ails your tie, son?" Tom asked.
"He tied it himself," said Sara.
"Go and fix your tie," suggested Tom. Robert returned without any.
"Is that what you call fixing your tie?" Tom asked him.
"Yes," replied Robert, brazenly.
"What's the matter with you?" Tom inquired. There was an edge of curiosity in his tone as he looked at Robert. He saw vaguely that it wasn't just naughtiness. Then Robert broke through the inarticulateness of childhood.
"I won't be tweaked and pinched and pulled!" said irritable manly pride, speaking for itself. With a "this won't do" look, Robert was told to fetch his necktie. His father tied it tight; he tied it with emphasis. Tom left the house a little after his son and in a moment Tom returned. In his hand was a noose of blue silk; it was the necktie. He had found it on the door-step.
"Can you beat it?" was his comment.