# Tom Beauling/Chapter 7

ABOUT this time it began to be noticed by his friends that Judge Tyler would give up without a struggle any question which might arise between his avowed intentions and the dictates of his heart. But this was without weakness, for his heart was no longer his own. True, it continued to beat within his dignified frame, but no longer with the tap of habit and education; it fluttered in airy flights, like the heart of a mother chicken, looked at bank accounts through glasses that magnified, and saw in all the world but one treasure, its master and its adopted son—Tomas Beauling, ætat five.
Judge Tyler rearranged portions of his house, became a student of sweets, a patron of toy-shops, and a master of Mother Goose. He bent his mind to teach, as gently as possible, a little boy how to ​read; he burned his fingers over a toy steam-engine, and learned to play marbles. He forced his fingers and point of view, and educated them backward. He shot peas out of spring-cannon, and decimated regiments of lead soldiers. When the hot weather came, he scuttled off to a seaside place of Maine, taking with him as companion and playmate a little boy who wore snow-white sailor suits, and, as nurse and protector for them both, an ancient Irish cook who had turned her seventieth year, but who laughed at steps and was by turns lenient and stem with children of sixty or of five.
In short, Judge Tyler plunged into mental everglades, and came upon the Fountain of Youth, whose waters are of three parts—enthusiasm, faith, and self-sacrifice. The deeper he drank, the greater his reward.
Tomas Beauling was in a fair way to be spoiled. It had not the slightest effect. Mischievous he was and prankish, but obedient as the day is long, never out of temper, frank and loyal. Indeed, he ​was such a good child that it was to be feared he would die young. But it would have to be by sudden dispensation of the gods, for he was the sturdiest youngster between two seas. He never wore out a suit of clothes, but outgrew as many as could be got for him; he never broke things by accident, but by design. He was as strong as a bear cub.
At fourteen he was as big as Judge Tyler, ridiculous as it may seem, for the judge was no pygmy—a lank, loose-jointed young creature, with fine, tawny coloring, challenging eyes, a straight, thick nose with wide nostrils, a strong, round head covered with short, tawny hair, and hands and feet of enormous size. It was to be hoped that he would grow up to his hands and feet. A time came when they looked somewhat small for the rest of him. As a young and vivid force that might one day develop into symmetry and management of self, he was a charm to the speculating eye. But of finished beauty he had only two features—the eyes, big, bold, and gray, and the big, ​sweet mouth. This had come to him from his mother. One end of it, cut a little higher than the other, gave him an expression, even when angry, of amused tolerance. The other end was grave. His chin came out at you a little, and had the central cleft that so often goes with generous natures. His general expression was one of great sweetness of temper. On the whole, though, he was nothing but an immense, powerful, clumsy puppy to look at. You had to be interested to pick out his good points.
At this time his voice changed suddenly from the treble of a child to a shaking bass. For a month or more it would rumble deeply, break, and go off in a high squeak. Then it settled—deep, rumbling, and voluminous. He became full of songs, and let them out so loudly that houses were shaken. Judge Tyler loved to hear him sing. A prim little old lady, with a tight curl on each side of her face, taught him his notes, and made him master of many "albums." He knew all the good old songs from the ​"Lyke Wake Dirge" to "The Girl I left Behind Me." They said in the village it was a pity Judge Tyler set so much on Tom Beauling's voice, as it would end by making the boy uppish. This was a mistake; praise was water to the duck's back. He sang only because he loved to sing. Of an evening, the judge would lay down his book and say:
"Tommy, let's have the 'High Road.' It was the judge's favorite song. Instantly the head would tip back, the big, sweet mouth open, and a sweet, tremendous roar come out:
As he grew older, Tommy learned to control his voice and give people strange emotions. He learned this all of a sudden. He came in one night, very tired, and sang "The Low-backed Car" softly, under his breath, as it were, and when he looked up Judge Tyler and the doctor ​had tears in their eyes. It was presumable that neither had ever sat with his arm around Peggy's waist as he rode in the low-backed car.
By reading, his mind was antique, and, by sympathy, adventurous. He was stocked to the brim with Bohn's translations from the heroically geniused Greeks and Romans. Old Homer chanted to him of the great human demigods; old Xenophon told him of wily commanders; Virgil, of a city founded in a strange land far from the walls of the fathers. He was crammed with Oliver and Roland and the peers of France; Roucesvalles, and the deed that was done there; the sublime deaths in the forefront of the battle; old Turpin, the life pouring from his side, giving extreme unction to the dying; Roland and Durandal and the wail of the Oliphans that reached Charlemagne and called him back. He was with Siegfried through the smoke of the burning mountain. He forged many an irresistible sword on his mental anvil. Bayard, who feared none ​and whom none could reproach, was his friend; Alexander and the horse Bucephalus. But best was that gentle robber Robin Hood, the not impossible Galahad, and the sinner Launcelot. And closer perhaps, more historical, though no more human, Drake, Hawkins, Grenville, and all the gentlemen adventurers.
"If he doesn't spend his life in an office because he gets an idea that he ought to," said Judge Tyler to the doctor, "he'll discover a continent and build a city where the first spotted cow he sees lies down, fight every one in sight, and make periodic trips to Hades to talk it over with his old friends."
There was some truth in that.
The years were good to Tom Beauling under his friend's kind roof. People spoke of them not as a man and his adopted son who had turned out well, but as Damon and Pythias. The evening years of the one and the dawning years of the other were not a separation but a bond. Of the stock in the gigantic trust Life, the one was short and the other was ​long (though, to split hairs, we are all short); but, as is proper between comrades, Beauling did not feel superior because he had been born late in the century, nor was Judge Tyler envious because he had been born earlier therein. For better dividends than are declared to most were declared to both of them. And they spent a large joint income of affection and unselfishness. They were great friends.
Judge Tyler was white and old, but he stood erect and walked firmly. He boasted a stride as long as Beauling's, prided himself on unshaken strength, pretended that he did not sleep for an hour every afternoon—and Beauling was very gentle with the old man. The doctor across the way had gone to join his less fortunate patients. And old Ann, the cook, feminine to the last, had gone to her old home in Kilkenny, forsaking ease and plenty and the associations of fifty years that she might look once more and behold through filmy eyes the days of her youth, the hovel where she was ​born, the potato field, and the grave of her father.
Soon after Beauling's coming to the village, Dorothy, with her two children and husband, did move to a more lucrative town in Illinois. And no more about them.