“There was a practice in ancient times,” Richard continued. His voice became soft and far away as though he spoke from those ancient times. Later in life Alicia could tell by the set of his head, by the tone of his voice and by his expression when he was about to speak of ancient times. For the Ancient Times of Herodotus, of Xenophon, of Thucydides were personal things to him. In the illiterate west the stories of Herodotus were as new as though he had invented them. He read the Persian War, the Peloponnesian Wars and the Ten Thousand every year. Now he stroked Alicia’s hand a little more firmly.
“In ancient times when, through continued misfortunes, the people of a city came to believe themselves under a curse or even under disfavor of some god, they put all of their movable possessions in ships and sailed away to found a new city. They left their old city vacant and open to anyone who wanted it.”
“Will you hand me the statue, Richard?” Alicia asked. “Sometimes I like to hold it in my hand.” He jumped up and set the David in her lap.
“Listen, Alicia; There were only two children in the two generations before the house burned down. I put my possessions in a ship and sailed westward to found a new home. You must surely see that the home I lost took a hundred and thirty years to build. I couldn’t replace it. A new house on the old land would have been painful to me. When I saw this valley, I knew it was the place for the new family seat. And now the generations are forming. I am very happy, Alicia.”
She reached over to squeeze his hand in gratitude that she could make him happy. “Why,” he said suddenly, “there was even an omen, when I first came into the valley. I enquired of the gods whether this was the place, and they answered. Is that good, Alicia? Shall I tell you about the omens and my first night on the hill?”
“Tell me tomorrow night,” she said. “It will be better if I retire now.” He stood up and helped her to unfold the rug from around her knees. Alicia leaned rather heavily on his arm as he helped her up the stairs. “There’s something mystic in the house, Alicia, something marvelous. It’s the new soul, the first native of the new race.”
“He will look like the little statue,” said Alicia.
When Richard had tucked in the covers so she could not catch cold, he went back to the sitting room. He could hear children in the house. They ran with pattering feet up and down the stairs, they dabbled in the ashes of the fireplace. He heard their voices softly calling to one another on the veranda. Before he went to bed, he put the three great books on the top shelf of the bookcase.
The birth was a very severe one. When it was over, and Alicia lay pale and exhausted in her bed, Richard brought the little son and put him beside her. “Yes,” she said, complacently, “he looks like the statue. I knew he would, of course. And David will be his name, of course.”
The Monterey doctor came downstairs and sat with Richard beside the fire. He puckered his brow gloomily and rolled a Masonic ring around and around on his third finger. Richard opened a bottle of brandy and poured two little glasses.
“I’m going to name this toast to my son, Doctor.”
The doctor put his glass to his nose and sniffed like a horse. “Damn fine liquor. You better name it to your wife.”
“Of course.” They drank. “And this next one to my son.”
“Name this one to your wife, too.”
“Why?” Richard asked in surprise.
The doctor was almost dipping his nostrils in the glass. “Kind of a thank offering. You were damn near a widower.”
Richard dumped his brandy down his throat. “I didn’t know. I thought—I didn’t know. I thought first ones were always hard to bear.”
“Give me another drink,” the doctor demanded. “You aren’t going to have any more children.”
Richard stopped in the act of pouring. “What do you mean by that? Of course I’m going to have more children.”
“Not by this wife, you aren’t. She’s finished. Have another child and you won’t have any wife.”
Richard sat very still. The soft clattering of children he had heard in the house for the past month was suddenly stilled. He seemed to hear their secret feet stealing out the front door and down the steps.
The doctor laughed sourly. “Why don’t you get drunk if that’s the way you feel about it?”
“Oh! no, no. I don’t think I could get drunk.”
“Well, give me another drink before I go, anyway. It’s going to be a cold drive home.”
Richard did not tell his wife she could not have children until six months had passed. He wanted her to regain her strength before he exposed her to the shock of the revelation. When he finally did go to her, he felt the guilt of his secret. She was holding her child in her lap, and occasionally bending down to take one of his up-stretched fingers in her mouth. The child stared up with vague eyes and smiled wetly while he waggled his straight fingers for her to suck. The sun flooded in the window. From a distance they could hear one of the hired men cursing a harrow team with sing-song monotony. Alicia lifted her head and frowned slightly. “It’s time he was christened, don’t you think, Richard?”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I’ll make arrangements in Monterey.”
She struggled with a weighty consideration. “Do you think it too late to change his name?”
“No, it’s not too late. Why do you want to change it? What do you want to call him?”
“I want to have him called John. That’s a New Testament name—” She looked up for his approval—“and besides, it’s my father’s name. My father will be pleased. Besides, I haven’t felt quite right about naming him for that statue, even if it is a statue of the boy David. It isn’t as though the statue had clothes on—”
Richard did not try to follow this logic. Instead he plunged into his confession. In a second it was over. He had not realized it would take so little time. Alicia was smiling a peculiar enigmatic smile that puzzled him. No matter how well he became acquainted with her, this smile, a little quizzical, a trifle sad, and filled with secret wisdom shut him out of her thoughts. She retired behind the smile. It said, “How silly you are. I know things which would make your knowledge seem ridiculous if I chose to tell you.” The child stretched up its yearning fingers toward her face, and she flexed its fingers back and forth. “Wait a little,” she said. “Doctors don’t know everything. Just wait a little, Richard. We will have other children.” She shifted the boy and slipped her hand under his diaper.
Richard went out and sat on his front steps. The house behind him was teeming with life again, whereas a few minutes ago it had been quiet and dead. There were thousands of things to do. The box hedge which held the garden in its place had not been clipped for six months. Long ago he had laid out a square in the side yard for a grass plot, and it lay waiting for the seed. There was no place for drying linen yet. The banister of the front steps was beside him. Richard put out his hand and stroked it as though it were the arched neck of a horse.
The Whitesides became the first family of the Pastures of Heaven almost as soon as they were settled. They were educated, they had a fine farm, and, while not rich, they were not pressed for money. Most important of all, they lived in comfort, in a fine house. The house was the symbol of the family—roomy, luxurious for that day, warm, hospitable and white. Its size gave an impression of substance, but it was the white paint, often renewed and washed, that placed it over the other houses of the valley as surely as a Rhine castle is placed over its village. The families admired the white house, and also they felt more secure because it was there. It embodied authority and culture and judgment and manners. The neighbors could tell by looking at his house that Richard Whiteside was a gentleman who would do no mean nor cruel or unwise thing. They were proud of the house in the same way tenants of land in a duchy are proud o the manor house. While some of the neighbors were richer than Whiteside, they seemed to know they could not build a house like that even though they imitated it exactly. It was primarily because of his house that Richard became the valley’s arbiter of manners, and, after that, a kind of extralegal judge over small disputes. The reliance of his neighbors in turn bred in Richard a paternal feeling toward the valley. As he grew older he came to regard all the affairs of the valley as his affairs, and the people were proud to have it so.