Justin Stone and the Iris of the Madonna
Nov. 3rd, 2008 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joegodaOkay. It's a bit long winded in the beginning. IN fact, it's so long winded, it's behind a cut. I promise it'll get into a real story soon.
It wasn't the first snow of the 1884, but it was the largest and most serious. The wind, thankfully, was light, so the tiny clumps of white fell nearly straight down. Children in the park were dancing with warmly bundled delight, trying to catch the pristine flakes on their tongues. Snow ball wars had already erupted, even though the ground was barely covered. Patches of browns and greens showed through the blanketing cover making the park appear quilted and stuck between the winter, which was trundling implacably forward, and the fall, which was fast departing.
Across from the park stood a tall building called, by those who didn't work there, the Ivory Tower. Those who worked in it called it by its rightful name, The Stone Foundation. It was an imposing structure, rising eight stories, taller than any other building in the city, and took up an entire block.
Built in 1882 by the Stone Foundation, the buildings original white marble walls would reflect the sun and on sunny days would briefly blind the horses pulling goods and passengers as they moved through the streets. Enough of a complaint was raised that the owner of the Foundation, Justin Stone, pulled down the white marble facade and replaced it with more expensive black marble.
When asked about the expense, the hundreds of thousand of dollars spent on the renovation, especially with a world depression going on, Mr. Stone shrugged his shoulders and said "It's what the people needed to have done. So I did it."
It was an enormous black cube of a building, and it gained something of a tourist reputation, as people from the outlying areas would come and sit in the park and marvel at it, sitting there, on the bank of Boston Harbor, looking for all the world like a giant domino, lying on its side.
There was a waiting list of six months or longer just to work in the Ivory Tower, and it didn't matter if you were a common trade laborer or a well educated expert of the newly discovered science of particle physics. The Stone Foundation was dedicated to the Common Good, finding ways to rid the world of it's social ills and improve the life of the common worker.
Laboratories were set up in the building, on every floor, working to discover cures to the various plagues that were rampant in the world. Smallpox had virtually been wiped out due to the work the Foundation had done. A number of household appliances, from the common toaster to the Tesla Tube had been refined and patents filed. There were rumors that the Foundation was going to release an electric automobile that ran on the magnetic field of the very earth itself.
Every day, at precisely noon, a steam whistle would blow from the top of the Ivory Tower, and it would echo out across the city. The whistle would call to all the working men and their families, all the children and their parents. It would signal that it was lunch time, and it would signal them to come to Stone Park, to bring their families and sit and eat a good hot meal, all provided by the Stone Foundation. The fact that there were vitamins and curatives included in the meal was never mentioned. The Foundation had made the decision not to muddy the waters.
When asked how the Foundation could afford such expense, every day, Justin Stone would smile beamingly at the questioner and say "It's what the people need. The world is in the middle of a depression and all of my money means nothing if there are hungry children near me and I ignore their grumbling stomachs."
Justin Stone, the man himself, was a bit of a tourist interest as well. Tall, slightly over six feet, with immaculate blonde hair and flashing blue eyes and smile, was an immediate lighthouse for anyone near him. Children, pets, and people of all talents and abilities would gather around him, wherever he went. He was quick with a joke, an easy listener and was the life of any party he attended or gave. His easy style, quite the opposite of most stuffy billionaires of the time, made him a man of the people, and the people rewarded him with adoration.
On this day, November sixteenth, of 1884, Justin stood just outside the glass doors of his apartment on the top of the building. He looked down at the park from nearly a hundred feet up and smiled gently. His long and lean body wrapped against the chill in the air by a long black woolen frock coat, and on his head he wore a black felt top hat. His starched linen shirt gleamed white from under his bright red vest and black puff tie. His long fingered hands were covered in soft gray doeskin gloves and held gently in his right hand was his favorite lion headed walking stick.
"It's a good day, Jonathan," he said softly. His voice, baritone and gentle, could reach a five octave range when he wished to. He could whisper and be heard by the ear he wished to address from across a crowded concert hall, simply by the amount of control he had.
Jonathan Quincy Ratzenmueller was Justin Stone's oldest and dearest friend. An odd and unlikely pair they made, too. Jonathan stood, in bare feet, at five foot four inches. His hair, a shocking copper color, was an unruly mass that defined any comb or brush. It was only by the judicious use of scissors that his birds nest was kept under control, and even at its shortest length, gave the impression that it would not stand to have any sort of hat placed upon it, lest said hat be eaten by the very hair it was attempting to protect. His entire body, with the exception of a few places that were never seen in polite company, was curly copper which shone in a summer sun like hot metal.
His bushy brows were generally found frowning over his pastel blue eyes, frowning over some twisted piece of metal that should be doing something useful or an enigmatic mathematical equation which was stubbornly refusing to give up it's solution.
Jonathan had a wide mouth surrounded by moustache and beard and he had a quick smile and a fast temper. He was known in the local pubs and a number of the non-local ones as well, as a fair gambler, a decent pool player and a friendly ear to all who needed one. He was also know in the city streets, where he grew up, as a fierce fighter, with heavy hammer like fists and a head that would break through most masonry.
To the streets, he was known as Rat, for his stubborn survivability and solid loyalty. To Justin, he was known simply as John or Jonathan, depending on the occasion. The staff that worked with him and under him, he was known as JR or sometimes, Mister Ratzenmueller. The later was only used in the first meeting, as the name was quickly done away with by Jonathan himself. "Too many syllables," he would say. "Call me JR or Jon or Rat, but don't call me Mister Ratzenmueller."
Justin Stone had been born into money, raised up by a shipping family that suffered none of the ill financial effects of the various wars and political traumas of the world. Everyone needed to ship goods and supplies, and Stone Shipping was world known for their fairness and honesty. If they ever refused to ship for an individual, well, it was assumed it was for a good reason. Stone Shipping had a reputation that could make or break any other reputation, and so, it was in the very best interest of all parties involved that the Stones were treated with the honor due to royalty. Riff-Raff was not allowed, and would have to find some other way to move their goods and people across the waters and rails.
Jonathan had been born on the streets, to a father who wasn't there and a mother who died shortly after giving birth. He spent the first few years of his life in an orphanage, which had long since burned down under mysterious and unexplained circumstances. It was not an easy childhood, and Jonathan did not like to talk about it, and in fact, would stoutly refuse to speak of anything that happened before his eleventh birthday.
His eleventh birthday was the day that he was found rummaging in the garbage behind one of the Stone's buildings, near the harbor. He was discovered by a maid of Heracles Stone, current owner of Stone Shipping, and the maid, rather than shoo the boy off, offered him a hot meal and a bath.
Once fed and bathed, the maid, whose name was Maggie, presented the freshly washed boy to the elder Stone, explaining the situation in which she found him. Heracles took one look at the young Jonathan and harrumphed for a bit. He asked the boy a few questions about his life, which Jonathan answered boldly, if not a bit harshly, making the point quite clear that he, Jonathan had no family, needed no family, didn't want no family and that was quite all right thankyouverymuch.
Heracles was privately amused by the boy's lack of fear and straight forward answers. Finally he grumbled to Maggie, but not unkindly, "Well, your charity brought him in, he's yours now."
This, coincidentally, was exactly what Maggie Ratzenmueller had hoped her employer would say. She had lost her husband when he accidentally slipped of one of the Stone's docks in the winter of 1881 and never resurfaced and his body was never recovered. Maggie swore she would never have another husband after his death. She would not go into details, but there was some evidence that her husband had been an abusive man, prone to drink heavily and take out his frustrations of life upon his wife with great vigor. There was also some evidence that his accident occurred shortly on the heels of one of his frustrative exercises, but oddly, nobody pursued that line very far, especially after Maggie was given a position in the Stone's household.
After that, she was above reproach, and in many areas of the city where women were abused or abandoned, Maggie could be seen coming and going, sometimes carrying food, sometimes books, sometimes necessities that babies might need. The women that Maggie ministered to claimed that they had been visited by a saint, who wanted no recognition. The women that Maggie ministered to also found themselves the recipient of a Stone Foundation Grant. It wasn't much, and it wasn't a handout. But the grant gave the women a way to move forward, to pull themselves up and out.
The only requirement of the grant was that each woman must work twenty hours a week doing charity, be it a hospital, an orphanage, a poorhouse or simply helping out in a soup kitchen. Those women who did not hold up their end of the bargain would find the stipend from the grant disappear and they were welcome to go back to the lives they once lived. There was no second chance.
Even after forswearing that she would never marry again, and in truth, she never went on another date for the remainder of her life, Maggie had wanted a child. The sight of young Jonathan, digging in the garbage like the rat he looked like, broke her heart. With tenderness and great care, she brought the young man up as if he was her own.
Oh, it wasn't all light and sugar, to be sure. Jonathan was a handful of spit and vinegar. It took weeks before he was able to trust that the offer was real and genuine. He was always looking over his shoulder for when the other shoe would drop and he would find himself back on the streets, scrounging for a living.
He was free to come and go as he pleased, and he could still be found hanging around the city's pubs and bars and diners, looking for a handout. On a few occasions, items not very valuable would be found missing. It was obvious to Maggie what had happened, and that Jonathan had been responsible, taking what he took to wherever he could find a price for it. He never took anything very large, and he never took any thing very expensive.
When Maggie finally confronted him, the boy would respond that the Stones had so much, it wasn't likely they would miss what he had taken.
That was the day that Jonathan found out that love can take the form of a hickory switch, and it was the day that Maggie found out that children can break your heart harder than any abusive husband.
Later that very same night, Jonathon heard Maggie crying in her bedroom, which was just to the side of his. He didn't disturb her, but he understood why she was crying. He was not an ignorant boy, but he was surprised when he felt wetness on his own cheeks as well. From that moment on, not another thing from the house disappeared under his hand.
He did continue his treks out into the city, visiting his old haunts, keeping his old contacts alive. Maggie had started to give him a small allowance, thinking that a boy of eleven should gain some idea of financial responsibility. She had underestimated Jonathan's life. He had already gained a keen sense of when to hold your cards close to your chest and when to lay them down. He understood the difference between a penny and a dollar and was already very adept at bringing a price of a dollar much closer to being the price of a penny.
There were some sweet shops where he was called 'That hagglin' rat!' after a few very successful bargaining matches, and his chums on the streets were the better for it. He gained a large following of young urchins and even some older boys who recognized a leader when they saw one.
Often he would come home days later, as dirty and disheveled as when Maggie first found him.
Maggie would force the boy into a hot tub, and when he was presentable, she would fill his grumbling belly and talk to him. She spent hours explaining, gently and lovingly that this was his home, that he had no need to go back to his old life, that he had found a family that would take him in and love him.
Jonathan would always nod at her words, promise that he would do better, promise to stop his wanderin' ways. He never did completely stop his sojourns out into the wilds of the city, but made them less and less frequently.
The second month after Jonathan had entered the Stone's household that he and Maggie were called before Heracles in the large drawing room toward the front of Stone's mansion.
The marbled floors echoed as Maggie and Jonathan walked to the drawing room. He was nervous and so was she. The large portraits on the heavily paneled walls seemed to stare down at him, accusingly.
"Do you think he's going to kick me out?" Jonathan asked, looking sideways at Maggie as they moved across the great marble entryway. "I mean, I haven't been the best, you know. It's not like I'm his son or anything."
Heracles Stone did, indeed, have a son. A young boy named Justin, who was away at boarding school and not due back until spring holiday next March. Heracles’ wife and Justin's mother, whose name was Elizabeth was abroad in England. England would always be home to her and she found it convenient to travel when Justin was away at school. Heracles found it convenient as well, as he had always believed that, as much as he loved his wife, and make no mistake about it, he did indeed love his wife, he could conduct business much more efficiently when she wasn't around.
"Oh, I don't think so," Maggie said in a hushed tone. She suspected she knew what the discussion was about. Jonathan, though being polite enough, was simply too rough around the edges, so to speak. As hard as she tried, there was a wildness in him that simply could not be tamed.
Many was the time she would catch the disapproval in her employer's eyes when, for instance, Jonathan was caught sliding down the solid oak banister from the second floor to the first. Or his breaking of some rather expensive china when he was practicing his juggling. Or when one of Elizabeth's cats turned up painted blue.
Oddly, the only thing her employer would say at times like this would be "I suppose the boy has to learn some self discipline" and his eyes would make no mistake about who it was that would be teaching the boy those rudimentaries of behavior.
So, in truth, it was with a sinking heart that Maggie pushed open the large oak double doors leading to the drawing room. They slid back into their frames with a slight hiss, oiled rollers doing their job against groove carved in the marble floor.
The drawing room was very large, with an enormous fireplace set against the back wall. There was a cheery fire burning in it, and it's wide oak mantle was decorated in holly. It was just past the holiday season, and it was the Stone's believe that the holidays should be kept alive as long as possible. Above the fireplace was an oil portrait of the Stone family. Heracles on the left with Elizabeth on the right. Young Justin stood between them, looking bored and slightly amused at something.
Heracles' face was squarish and solid looking, as if out of granite. This was not to say he did not have a kind face, because he did. But it was a face of severity, of leadership. It was the face of a man who would look at the world and say "I can do this", whatever this might be. His coal black eyes radiated confidence and honesty and, perhaps, a glint of humor as well.
Elizabeth, by contrast, had a slender face, bespeaking of her French and English ancestors. Her eyes were the bright blue of robin's eggs and her long blonde hair was artistically set upon her head. There was a tiara adorning the gold, and it was an easy guess that the red, blue and clear jewels in the tiara were not just there for show.
Justin had his mother's face, eyes and hair. What he got from his father did not show in this portrait, but those who knew the boy knew that he was razor sharp with an eye that did not miss the slightest detail. One of the reasons why he was at boarding school was that he would often argue with his father's business associates on a small detail and argue it for hours, in spite of his being right or wrong. Even at the tender age of ten, Justin was a bit much for his parents to handle, regardless of their policy that children should be heard as well as seen.
Justin was the youngest student at his school, and had already proven to the older classmates that he was well adept in the art of fisticuffs and swordsmanship. The monthly reports sent back to his parents indicated that the boy was beyond precociousness, incredibly bright and was quickly making many friends among not only the other students but the faculty as well. Despite his outspokenness, that is.
To say that his parents would nod sagely to each other and agree that they had made the right choice in sending Justin to a private school would be a slight understatement. The party they had in honor of their freedom was still talked about in some social circles, much to Justin's chagrin.
To the left of the entrance doors, there were three large windows, easily four foot wide, running from about a foot above the floor to a foot below the ceiling. As these windows faced south, there was always light pouring in during the day, so that even on over cast days, the room was well lit.
On either side of the fireplace sat two large, green, over stuffed wingback chairs. Next to each chair was a small table, and on each table there was an oil reading lamp with a shade made popular by a man named Tiffany. There was also a small bowl on each table, containing sweet candies. On the left hand table, there was hard sugars, round and multi-colored bought from a vendor in town. On the right hand table, there were caramels, from a company in Richmond, Virginia.
The left hand chair was Heracles', as he liked the feel of the hard candies, and was a firm believer that buying local was good for local business. The right hand chair was for Elizabeth, and though she rarely sat there, preferred the softer milky taste of the caramels and would comment that those particular candies always reminded her of home. Why that was, she never explained.
The center of the room was taken up by a long maple table, lovingly polished to a high dark gloss. The table carried a number of books stacked around the centerpiece of a large, illuminated globe of the earth. There were inkwells and nibs and pens and stacks of writing paper, as well as envelopes. The table was long enough that there were four large oil lamps sitting on it, and there was plenty of room for everything else, too.
Jonathan was well familiar with the inkwells, as it was part of his chore to make sure that an inkwell never ran dry. It was something that he found amusing, as it seemed that nobody in the house ever used this room for writing, and very rarely did an inkwell get used and if it did run dry, it was more than likely from evaporation.
The walls of the drawing room were all white plaster. It was the family belief that knowledge should never be kept in a dark place, and so it was in this room. If it had not been the for the fact that floor to ceiling bookcases filled practically every inch that had not been taken up by a portrait of a president or of some piece of sculpture perched on a pedestal, the room would have gleamed in the dark.
Heracles Stone was sitting in his chair, to the left of the fireplace.
"It is time for the boy to go back to school," the patriarch said.
"I don't see why, sir," Jonathan said as politely as he could. "I've never been to school a day in my life. What good would it do now?"
Maggie gasped. "Never? Never been?" She held her hand up to her blue and white calico throat. "Oh, sir!" a cry to her employer. "I didn't know."
"It's all right, Maggie." Heracles went to one of his bookshelves and took down a thick volume, bound in brown leather. "There are a lot of young boys that have never been to school." He came back to where the two stood and handed the book to Jonathan. "Can you read this?" he asked of the young man.
Jonathan turned the book over in his hands, feeling the fine grain of the leather and looking at the gold leaf lettering. He raised it to his nose and sniffed it.
"It's pretty old, isn't it?" the boy asked, looking up into the face above him.
"Not so old as you might think, Jonathan." Heracles waved the boy over to the wooden table, followed him there and took his seat on one of the four legged stools next to the boy. "The age of a book does not mean that the book has lost its use. In that respect, it's quite a bit like a man. Still, the question sits. Can you read it?"
Jonathan dropped the book on to the hard surface and turned it so that he could see the words upright. "The cover says," he read "'Elements of Electricity, Magnetism, and Electro-dynamics: Embracing the Latest Discoveries and Improvements, Digested Into the Form of a Treatise, for the use of the Students of Harvard University : Being the Second Part of a Course of Natural Philosophy, by John Farrar and ..."
Heracles held up his hand. "Good enough and well done." He turned and looked at Maggie, still standing by the open doors, her hands clasped in front of her apron. "Did you know that Jonathan here could read this well?"
"No sir," she said. "It never came up."
"I think it should have come up," Heracles said, tousling Jonathan's hair, which was something that Jonathan absolutely hated. "Don't you?" He swiveled back to Jonathan and asked, "Where did you learn to read?"
The boy shrugged his already broad shoulders and answered. "I supposed it was at the orphanage. Maybe the nuns taught me." He picked the book up and flipped it open. "I just look at the words and they just seem to join to sounds in my head, and those sounds just seem to connect to pictures, so I know what it all means." He found a page that showed pictures of coils and tubes and gears. "It's not hard, really." He tapped the page. "This page here, with the pictures. I would reckon that this is some sort of coil of wire wrapped around a round box of some kind, right? What it's for... well, you got me there. I guess I'd have to read the book to find that out." He closed the book. "Still, it's all the same. Pictures... words... they all go together, don't they?" He looked up at Heracles. "They all just tell a story."
Heracles was silent for a long time.
"You're not going to kick me out, are you?" Jonathan broke the long quiet. "I mean, that's what I thought at first, what with you calling Maggie and me down here and all. But you got something else in mind, don't you?"
"What?" Heracles came back from wherever he had gone in his mind. "Kick you out?" He shook his head and his immaculate gray hair didn't lose any shape. "No, my boy, furthest thing from it."
He jumped from his chair and walked over to the fireplace. He reached up and gently tapped the portrait above it, gently stroking the face of Justin, who stared petulantly back. "Furthest thing from it." He turned from the fireplace. "In fact, I'm going to give you a job."
"A job?" Maggie's and Jonathan's voices joined in unison.
"That is," Heracles went on, "if you'd like one."
"What sort of job?" Jonathan asked.
Heracles crossed over to Maggie and took her hands. The unfamiliarity cause her to blush from her neckline to her hairline. She looked away.
"Maggie," Heracles said quietly, "I was going to make you send the boy to school, starting tomorrow. He's old enough that he should be taught some sort of trade, so that he can make it on his own." Still holding Maggie's hands, Heracles looked over his shoulder at young Jonathan. "I can see now that it would be a grave mistake to assume that Jonathan would fit in with other children his age."
"What sort of job?" Jonathan hopped off his stool and came over to where the adults stood. It was a bit uncomfortable to see Heracles holding Maggie's hands, but still... a job's a job.
Heracles released Maggie and turned to crouch a bit so he could look directly into Jonathan's eyes. Maggie pulled her hands up to her breast and cradled them there, as if they were burned.
"I will pay you five cents for ever book in this library that you read." Heracles' voice was serious, but there was a twinkle in his eye. "How does that sound?"
Jonathan pursed his lips and rolled his eyes up to his copper colored eyebrows. His brow creased in what would, later, become a permanent form on his forehead and slowly shook his head negatively. "I don't know. These are some pretty big books, sir." He spread his hands out from his sides. "And I'm not very big, as you can see." A thought seemed to electrify through his mind, and his eyes lit up. "How about a dollar a book? How does that sound to you?"
Heracles straightened and laughed loudly. The sound startled Maggie, and she jumped just a bit. "Maggie! Did you hear that?" Heracles was laughing while he spoke. "No wonder he's called a haggling rat in the city!"
Jonathan turned beet red in the face. "I don't really like folks laughing at me, sir, no matter who you are. I think I'm going to tell you where you can put your job."
"Jonathan!" Maggie said, shocked. "You apologize to Mister Stone!"
Heracles wave her protest away. "No apology necessary, Maggie. No offense taken." To Jonathan, he said, "I wasn't laughing at you, young man. I was surprised at your offer! I think I should apologize to you!"
Jonathan looked up at Heracles. "Hmph," he hmphed. "Then I guess there's no harm done. But still... for my humiliation and all, how bout a dollar ten?"
This brought another laugh from Heracles. "Oh," he said as he clapped his hands, "you are a hagglin' rat, you are." He walked over to where his chair sat by the fire and pulled three hard candies from the bowl, and then he walked back to Jonathan and passed a red one to the boy.
"Listen here, my boy," he said, as he hunkered down to look Jonathan in the face. "My father sent me across the country when I was thirteen. He said I needed an education about how life worked. About how people lived and what they thought. And he sent me alone."
Jonathan popped the red candy in his mouth, puckering at the hotness of the cinnamon. "So? Was your dad angry at you or somethin'? You break something or get caught stealin'?" It was almost like talking to the other kids in town, down on Water Street.
"No, he wasn't angry." Heracles waved the question away. "I didn't get caught stealing and I didn't break anything. He just wanted me to understand."
"Understand what?" Jonathan asked, uncomprehendingly. "Understand what it's like to be alone and lost?"
Heracles turned his head to look at Maggie. She hadn't moved a muscle since he had let go of her hands and still had them clasped together. "Maggie, would you please go sit by the fire or something? This is going to take a while, and you're making me nervous just standing there."
"Yes sir," Maggie cried out as she jumped. "Which chair should I take, sir?"
Heracles shook his head at her. "I don't care, Maggie! Take Elizabeth's chair. God knows she's not going to sit in it any time soon. In fact, while you're there, eat some of those caramels. I hate spending good money after bad, and they're just going to waste."
"Yes sir!" Maggie moved to and sat ramrod straight in the chair by the fire. Hesitantly, she took a single caramel from the bowl and unwrapped it, flinching with each crinkly sound the waxed paper made.
"And do try to relax, Maggie," Heracles commanded. "I'm not going to fire you for relaxing."
"Yes sir." Maggie said meekly, as she let the muscles in her back relax. Soon, a sigh was heard from her as the warmth of the fire had taken hold of her and she slowly began to realize that she was in no danger.
Heracles turned back to Jonathan. "Now then, where was I?"
"Your dad had just kicked you out," the boy reminded him.
"Oh yes." Heracles opened his mouth to continue, when Maggie interrupted him.
"May I get a book, sir?" she asked.
Heracles let out a great woof of air. He looked at Jonathan sternly but his eyes showed nothing but amusement. "And this is why I'm happier when Elizabeth is away," he whispered conspiratorially to the boy.
Standing, he waved his arms in a great circle, indicating the entire drawing room. "All you see is at your command, madam. Peruse and read to your hearts content! We are having a discussion over here! If you feel the need to make a cup of tea, then do so. If you feel the need to make privy, then do that as well. As I am, by all rights, your employer, I declare this day to be your holiday and you are to treat yourself to whatever may enter your mind, be it a shopping spree or making breakfast at six o’clock in the evening."
Seeing the fearful look on his maid's face, he spoke again, more gently. "No, Maggie. I have not gone mad. I merely wish to speak to your son..." He stopped. "Jonathan here, without interruption. I am quite sure the house will maintain itself for one day. Please, do as you wish, just do not interrupt me again."
Maggie, nodded, with fearful tears in her eyes. The only time she had ever seen Mister Stone like this was back when Justin used to argue with them, and those were fearful days, to be sure. She walked to a section of the library she was familiar with and chose a thin book on philosophy. She sat back in Elizabeth's chair and opened the book, but didn't read a single word of it. Instead, she just listened.
"Now then," Heracles said, sitting cross-legged on the marble floor. "Hmm... This floor is going to get very cold, very soon."
He stood back up and waved at one of the stools that sat near the reading table. "Pull one of those stools by the fire, boy. We'll talk like civilized men." Then he crossed over to his own chair by the fire and sat. He looked over at Maggie, saw that she was seriously pretending to read and smiled. Let her have her secrets, he thought. She'll be hearing every word I say anyway.
Jonathan didn't bring a stool. Instead, he just sat by the Heracles' chair on a pillow. "It's easier on my tailbone, sir."
Heracles nodded in approval. "Just so," he said. "Very smart choice." He pulled a candy from his bowl and offered it to Jonathan. "Another?" Once Jonathan accepted it, Heracles told his story.
His father had sent him out into the world, with nary a penny. Young Heracles had only a few hundred dollars, which in 1843 was quite a bit of money, but still, the feeling of being alone was enough to diminish the security money would bring.
His father told him to travel for a year and not one day less. After a year, he would be welcomed back into the house as a member and a son. Before that year expired, however, he would be treated as nothing but a vagabond, and homeless.
Heracles, even at thirteen could see that it was a test. He was scared, as he had a right to be, but he was determined to see the task through, to make his father proud of him.
His mother, a rather strong willed woman, bowed to her husband’s wishes and though in agreement, secretly wished that this test would pass quickly and it was she who pressed the money into Heracles' hand even as she hugged him goodbye and closed the door after him.
He left his home in Chicago and wandered south, as south sounded like the direction he should go. Knowing that the meager monies his mother had given him would not go very far, and in fact, might get him killed, he kept the money hidden in his shoe and when he returned, he gave the money back to his mother.
Instead, he learned to barter, to trade hard work for room and board. He worked in the cattle yards and the textile mills, never staying in one place to terribly long. To stick around in any one place invites questions of parentage and home, and these were questions that Heracles was not going to answer. He was an orphan, looking to learn about life, and as such, he figured he was destined to roam. Always heading south, as it was warm in the south.
Many times, Heracles would huddle before late night campfires, listening with fear at the noises of the wood. It was well known that a white man found by Indians would be killed. He learned stealth and how to feed off the land. It was very simple. Either learn or die. There would be times when he thought about giving up and going home, but knew that would mean his failure and that failure would reflect in his father's eyes forever.
There were incredibly lean times, days of walking when he wouldn't see anyone or any settlement nearby. There were wonderful times, when he could join a farm family at prayer after tending the crops all day.
"Why didn't you just stay in one place? You would have been safe and warm." Jonathan asked the question, with wide eyes, listening to the stories of near death and adventure.
"But what would I have learned, Jonathan? How to be safe and warm? Any bedbug knows how to do that." Heracles shook his head, his black eyes ablaze with memories that may or may not have been true. "No, sir. I was looking for adventure. Things I could take back after that year and tell the tales of. I wasn't just wanting to make my father proud, young man, I was wanting to come back and amaze him!"
Heracles grew strong and hardy in a very short time. He worked carpentry in many of the small towns along the way and the coal mines of a tiny town known as Terre Haute, where he met a man named John Chapman.
Chapman was a preacher, and would stand just outside of town, speaking of charity and doing good works. Chapman was dressed in rags, and would speak to anyone who would listen. Heracles found the man fascinating, and went to listen often. There was something about the ragged preacher's simple sincerity that touched the young man and so Heracles packed his small bag of belongings and followed the preacher where he went.
"We traveled all across Indiana and into Ohio. Everywhere we went, wherever there was a town John would stop and talk and trade and teach. He was a talker, that man. He taught me about human nature, the good side and the not so good side. There are those that can be helped, that want to be helped and all they need is just a hand up. Not a hand out, mind you. There is a tremendous difference between the two."
"There was this one time John saw a horse, way past it's prime. He walked up to the farmer, who was carrying a heavy hammer, and asked the farmer what was going to happen to the horse."
"Well, we all knew what was going to happen. The horse was no good for farming any more. Too old to pull the plow and just taking up space. The farmer was carrying that hammer to put the poor old nag out of her misery."
"John just ups and offers the man twenty dollars for it. Now, fifty dollars back then was an awful lot of money, especially for a broken down old horse. But the farmer looks back at John and asks to see the color of his money."
"John reaches into his own shoe and pulls out a few bills. The farmer takes a look at the money, unfolds it, holds it up to the light and says, 'Mister, you're crazier than a nuthatch, but you bought yourself a horse.'"
"John handed me the reigns and has me follow him into town. The horse wasn't all that old, and seemed to me to be in good health. Besides the fact that she couldn't pull the plow anymore, there was no good reason for her to be put down."
"In town, John goes into the land assayer's office and buys fifteen acres of land. He didn't really care where the land was, just that it was good land and had to be next to a farmer of good repute who needed a horse."
"Then we walk the horse to the land that John just bought and he goes up to the farmer nearby and talks to him a bit. He says that he will give the farmer the horse, if the farmer will swear to treat the horse humanely until the day the horse dies a natural death."
"I learned a lot from John. The most important thing I learned from him is that everyone deserves a chance. One chance and the option to have that chance and sometimes that chance has to have a little help from an outside source."
Jonathan squinted his eyes in thought. "Sounds to me you were gone for more than a year."
Heracles nodded and smiled. "You are right, absolutely. I was gone for a total of three years. After the first year, I sent a letter back, saying I would be a little late. I met John Chapman in my second year, after working in the Indiana coal mines. I followed him around for the next year, doing good deeds, and planting apple trees."
"Apple trees?" Jonathan's eyes got round. "That's kinda crazy, isn't it?"
"Well," Heracles rubbed the side of his nose. "It would have been, except John had a belief that apples could cure the ills of the world. And there was many a farmer down in Ohio that those little apple trees saved the farms of. John didn't just plant trees, son. He planted nurseries and left those farmers to watch over them. Pretty much all the cider we drink comes from those trees that John Chapman planted."
"Oh," Jonathan said. "So what happened the last year?"
"John and I had a falling out, of sorts. He followed the religious beliefs of a man named Emanuel Swedenborg, which, in truth, isn't a bad belief as far as those things go. But John and I saw it with different eyes. John was what they call an ascetic. That sort of person lives with the barest minimum of everything, clothing, food, shelter... everything."
"He believed that the worse his life was here on earth, the better off his life would be in the afterlife." Heracles sighed. "And that's fine and good, I suppose, if you believe in the afterlife like John did. Now, I believe in doing good works, and helping people out and being the very best possible person I can be while alive." He smiled down at Jonathan. "But, I also believe in being comfortable. That would place me as a hedonist, I suppose, as I like to be warm and well clothed and to eat good food. And I like what I like."
"I guess that John had high hopes for me, and was mightily disappointed when I told him of my life back here, and that I was going to return to it soon. I had received a letter that my father was ill, you see, and that I was needed back home. John thought that I should stay with him and forsake my evil life of luxury. I told him that his way of life was all right for a time, but I really did miss my family and my evil life of luxury."
Another quick smile ran across Heracles rocky face. "As you can imagine, that didn't go over very well. He kicked me out, called me irredeemable and sent me packing. This suited me just fine, as it was time to be coming back anyway. Father was ill and mother, as strong as she was, just was not trained in the family business. I at least, had some background from just watching my father. Besides, I was sixteen. It was time to grow up."
"So I came back home, full of stories of the wilderness of the road. Father was indeed, very ill. He passed away the next year and I took over as head of Stone Shipping. I was 17, and my father had worked very hard to teach me all he could about his company. The things that John Chapman taught me served me well and I took my father's company and made it stronger than it ever was."
"Okay," said Jonathan, "but did you amaze him?"
"What?" A look of bewilderment crossed Heracles face.
"You said you wanted to make your dad not only proud, but that you wanted to amaze him." Jonathan's face held nothing but pure sincerity. "Did you?"
Bewilderment changed to puzzlement. Puzzlement changed to comprehension. "You know, Jonathan." Heracles paused, but briefly. A frown crossed his eyes. "I never stopped to think about it." His face clouded and he disappeared into thought.
"So, what has this to do with this job you're offering me?" Jonathan interrupted the older man's ponderings. "And are you going to pay me a dollar ten for ever book I read?"
Shaken out of his reverie, Heracles Stone stared at the young wiry, red headed boy. "The point," he said finally, "was to tell you that every journey has a starting place. And that I know a thing or two about haggling too, or else I wouldn't be in this chair talking to you." He smiled gently and laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. "I'll pay you seventy-five cents for every book you read, but you have to write me an essay about what each book contained. I don't mean one or two paragraphs for an essay. I mean an essay that lets me know you understood what you had read."
"Writing?" Jonathan's eye brows bushed up. "Writing's hard work! Pay me eighty-five cents and we have a deal."
Heracles held out his hand and smiled, "Then we have and accord, Master Ratzenmueller"
Jonathan looked at the proffered hand and then looked back up into Heracles' eyes. "I'm not a master yet, sir." He spit into his palm and then grasped the hand offered him. "But I will be." And his face was split with a large Cheshire grin. "And you're paying for it!"
It wasn't the first snow of the 1884, but it was the largest and most serious. The wind, thankfully, was light, so the tiny clumps of white fell nearly straight down. Children in the park were dancing with warmly bundled delight, trying to catch the pristine flakes on their tongues. Snow ball wars had already erupted, even though the ground was barely covered. Patches of browns and greens showed through the blanketing cover making the park appear quilted and stuck between the winter, which was trundling implacably forward, and the fall, which was fast departing.
Across from the park stood a tall building called, by those who didn't work there, the Ivory Tower. Those who worked in it called it by its rightful name, The Stone Foundation. It was an imposing structure, rising eight stories, taller than any other building in the city, and took up an entire block.
Built in 1882 by the Stone Foundation, the buildings original white marble walls would reflect the sun and on sunny days would briefly blind the horses pulling goods and passengers as they moved through the streets. Enough of a complaint was raised that the owner of the Foundation, Justin Stone, pulled down the white marble facade and replaced it with more expensive black marble.
When asked about the expense, the hundreds of thousand of dollars spent on the renovation, especially with a world depression going on, Mr. Stone shrugged his shoulders and said "It's what the people needed to have done. So I did it."
It was an enormous black cube of a building, and it gained something of a tourist reputation, as people from the outlying areas would come and sit in the park and marvel at it, sitting there, on the bank of Boston Harbor, looking for all the world like a giant domino, lying on its side.
There was a waiting list of six months or longer just to work in the Ivory Tower, and it didn't matter if you were a common trade laborer or a well educated expert of the newly discovered science of particle physics. The Stone Foundation was dedicated to the Common Good, finding ways to rid the world of it's social ills and improve the life of the common worker.
Laboratories were set up in the building, on every floor, working to discover cures to the various plagues that were rampant in the world. Smallpox had virtually been wiped out due to the work the Foundation had done. A number of household appliances, from the common toaster to the Tesla Tube had been refined and patents filed. There were rumors that the Foundation was going to release an electric automobile that ran on the magnetic field of the very earth itself.
Every day, at precisely noon, a steam whistle would blow from the top of the Ivory Tower, and it would echo out across the city. The whistle would call to all the working men and their families, all the children and their parents. It would signal that it was lunch time, and it would signal them to come to Stone Park, to bring their families and sit and eat a good hot meal, all provided by the Stone Foundation. The fact that there were vitamins and curatives included in the meal was never mentioned. The Foundation had made the decision not to muddy the waters.
When asked how the Foundation could afford such expense, every day, Justin Stone would smile beamingly at the questioner and say "It's what the people need. The world is in the middle of a depression and all of my money means nothing if there are hungry children near me and I ignore their grumbling stomachs."
Justin Stone, the man himself, was a bit of a tourist interest as well. Tall, slightly over six feet, with immaculate blonde hair and flashing blue eyes and smile, was an immediate lighthouse for anyone near him. Children, pets, and people of all talents and abilities would gather around him, wherever he went. He was quick with a joke, an easy listener and was the life of any party he attended or gave. His easy style, quite the opposite of most stuffy billionaires of the time, made him a man of the people, and the people rewarded him with adoration.
On this day, November sixteenth, of 1884, Justin stood just outside the glass doors of his apartment on the top of the building. He looked down at the park from nearly a hundred feet up and smiled gently. His long and lean body wrapped against the chill in the air by a long black woolen frock coat, and on his head he wore a black felt top hat. His starched linen shirt gleamed white from under his bright red vest and black puff tie. His long fingered hands were covered in soft gray doeskin gloves and held gently in his right hand was his favorite lion headed walking stick.
"It's a good day, Jonathan," he said softly. His voice, baritone and gentle, could reach a five octave range when he wished to. He could whisper and be heard by the ear he wished to address from across a crowded concert hall, simply by the amount of control he had.
Jonathan Quincy Ratzenmueller was Justin Stone's oldest and dearest friend. An odd and unlikely pair they made, too. Jonathan stood, in bare feet, at five foot four inches. His hair, a shocking copper color, was an unruly mass that defined any comb or brush. It was only by the judicious use of scissors that his birds nest was kept under control, and even at its shortest length, gave the impression that it would not stand to have any sort of hat placed upon it, lest said hat be eaten by the very hair it was attempting to protect. His entire body, with the exception of a few places that were never seen in polite company, was curly copper which shone in a summer sun like hot metal.
His bushy brows were generally found frowning over his pastel blue eyes, frowning over some twisted piece of metal that should be doing something useful or an enigmatic mathematical equation which was stubbornly refusing to give up it's solution.
Jonathan had a wide mouth surrounded by moustache and beard and he had a quick smile and a fast temper. He was known in the local pubs and a number of the non-local ones as well, as a fair gambler, a decent pool player and a friendly ear to all who needed one. He was also know in the city streets, where he grew up, as a fierce fighter, with heavy hammer like fists and a head that would break through most masonry.
To the streets, he was known as Rat, for his stubborn survivability and solid loyalty. To Justin, he was known simply as John or Jonathan, depending on the occasion. The staff that worked with him and under him, he was known as JR or sometimes, Mister Ratzenmueller. The later was only used in the first meeting, as the name was quickly done away with by Jonathan himself. "Too many syllables," he would say. "Call me JR or Jon or Rat, but don't call me Mister Ratzenmueller."
Justin Stone had been born into money, raised up by a shipping family that suffered none of the ill financial effects of the various wars and political traumas of the world. Everyone needed to ship goods and supplies, and Stone Shipping was world known for their fairness and honesty. If they ever refused to ship for an individual, well, it was assumed it was for a good reason. Stone Shipping had a reputation that could make or break any other reputation, and so, it was in the very best interest of all parties involved that the Stones were treated with the honor due to royalty. Riff-Raff was not allowed, and would have to find some other way to move their goods and people across the waters and rails.
Jonathan had been born on the streets, to a father who wasn't there and a mother who died shortly after giving birth. He spent the first few years of his life in an orphanage, which had long since burned down under mysterious and unexplained circumstances. It was not an easy childhood, and Jonathan did not like to talk about it, and in fact, would stoutly refuse to speak of anything that happened before his eleventh birthday.
His eleventh birthday was the day that he was found rummaging in the garbage behind one of the Stone's buildings, near the harbor. He was discovered by a maid of Heracles Stone, current owner of Stone Shipping, and the maid, rather than shoo the boy off, offered him a hot meal and a bath.
Once fed and bathed, the maid, whose name was Maggie, presented the freshly washed boy to the elder Stone, explaining the situation in which she found him. Heracles took one look at the young Jonathan and harrumphed for a bit. He asked the boy a few questions about his life, which Jonathan answered boldly, if not a bit harshly, making the point quite clear that he, Jonathan had no family, needed no family, didn't want no family and that was quite all right thankyouverymuch.
Heracles was privately amused by the boy's lack of fear and straight forward answers. Finally he grumbled to Maggie, but not unkindly, "Well, your charity brought him in, he's yours now."
This, coincidentally, was exactly what Maggie Ratzenmueller had hoped her employer would say. She had lost her husband when he accidentally slipped of one of the Stone's docks in the winter of 1881 and never resurfaced and his body was never recovered. Maggie swore she would never have another husband after his death. She would not go into details, but there was some evidence that her husband had been an abusive man, prone to drink heavily and take out his frustrations of life upon his wife with great vigor. There was also some evidence that his accident occurred shortly on the heels of one of his frustrative exercises, but oddly, nobody pursued that line very far, especially after Maggie was given a position in the Stone's household.
After that, she was above reproach, and in many areas of the city where women were abused or abandoned, Maggie could be seen coming and going, sometimes carrying food, sometimes books, sometimes necessities that babies might need. The women that Maggie ministered to claimed that they had been visited by a saint, who wanted no recognition. The women that Maggie ministered to also found themselves the recipient of a Stone Foundation Grant. It wasn't much, and it wasn't a handout. But the grant gave the women a way to move forward, to pull themselves up and out.
The only requirement of the grant was that each woman must work twenty hours a week doing charity, be it a hospital, an orphanage, a poorhouse or simply helping out in a soup kitchen. Those women who did not hold up their end of the bargain would find the stipend from the grant disappear and they were welcome to go back to the lives they once lived. There was no second chance.
Even after forswearing that she would never marry again, and in truth, she never went on another date for the remainder of her life, Maggie had wanted a child. The sight of young Jonathan, digging in the garbage like the rat he looked like, broke her heart. With tenderness and great care, she brought the young man up as if he was her own.
Oh, it wasn't all light and sugar, to be sure. Jonathan was a handful of spit and vinegar. It took weeks before he was able to trust that the offer was real and genuine. He was always looking over his shoulder for when the other shoe would drop and he would find himself back on the streets, scrounging for a living.
He was free to come and go as he pleased, and he could still be found hanging around the city's pubs and bars and diners, looking for a handout. On a few occasions, items not very valuable would be found missing. It was obvious to Maggie what had happened, and that Jonathan had been responsible, taking what he took to wherever he could find a price for it. He never took anything very large, and he never took any thing very expensive.
When Maggie finally confronted him, the boy would respond that the Stones had so much, it wasn't likely they would miss what he had taken.
That was the day that Jonathan found out that love can take the form of a hickory switch, and it was the day that Maggie found out that children can break your heart harder than any abusive husband.
Later that very same night, Jonathon heard Maggie crying in her bedroom, which was just to the side of his. He didn't disturb her, but he understood why she was crying. He was not an ignorant boy, but he was surprised when he felt wetness on his own cheeks as well. From that moment on, not another thing from the house disappeared under his hand.
He did continue his treks out into the city, visiting his old haunts, keeping his old contacts alive. Maggie had started to give him a small allowance, thinking that a boy of eleven should gain some idea of financial responsibility. She had underestimated Jonathan's life. He had already gained a keen sense of when to hold your cards close to your chest and when to lay them down. He understood the difference between a penny and a dollar and was already very adept at bringing a price of a dollar much closer to being the price of a penny.
There were some sweet shops where he was called 'That hagglin' rat!' after a few very successful bargaining matches, and his chums on the streets were the better for it. He gained a large following of young urchins and even some older boys who recognized a leader when they saw one.
Often he would come home days later, as dirty and disheveled as when Maggie first found him.
Maggie would force the boy into a hot tub, and when he was presentable, she would fill his grumbling belly and talk to him. She spent hours explaining, gently and lovingly that this was his home, that he had no need to go back to his old life, that he had found a family that would take him in and love him.
Jonathan would always nod at her words, promise that he would do better, promise to stop his wanderin' ways. He never did completely stop his sojourns out into the wilds of the city, but made them less and less frequently.
The second month after Jonathan had entered the Stone's household that he and Maggie were called before Heracles in the large drawing room toward the front of Stone's mansion.
The marbled floors echoed as Maggie and Jonathan walked to the drawing room. He was nervous and so was she. The large portraits on the heavily paneled walls seemed to stare down at him, accusingly.
"Do you think he's going to kick me out?" Jonathan asked, looking sideways at Maggie as they moved across the great marble entryway. "I mean, I haven't been the best, you know. It's not like I'm his son or anything."
Heracles Stone did, indeed, have a son. A young boy named Justin, who was away at boarding school and not due back until spring holiday next March. Heracles’ wife and Justin's mother, whose name was Elizabeth was abroad in England. England would always be home to her and she found it convenient to travel when Justin was away at school. Heracles found it convenient as well, as he had always believed that, as much as he loved his wife, and make no mistake about it, he did indeed love his wife, he could conduct business much more efficiently when she wasn't around.
"Oh, I don't think so," Maggie said in a hushed tone. She suspected she knew what the discussion was about. Jonathan, though being polite enough, was simply too rough around the edges, so to speak. As hard as she tried, there was a wildness in him that simply could not be tamed.
Many was the time she would catch the disapproval in her employer's eyes when, for instance, Jonathan was caught sliding down the solid oak banister from the second floor to the first. Or his breaking of some rather expensive china when he was practicing his juggling. Or when one of Elizabeth's cats turned up painted blue.
Oddly, the only thing her employer would say at times like this would be "I suppose the boy has to learn some self discipline" and his eyes would make no mistake about who it was that would be teaching the boy those rudimentaries of behavior.
So, in truth, it was with a sinking heart that Maggie pushed open the large oak double doors leading to the drawing room. They slid back into their frames with a slight hiss, oiled rollers doing their job against groove carved in the marble floor.
The drawing room was very large, with an enormous fireplace set against the back wall. There was a cheery fire burning in it, and it's wide oak mantle was decorated in holly. It was just past the holiday season, and it was the Stone's believe that the holidays should be kept alive as long as possible. Above the fireplace was an oil portrait of the Stone family. Heracles on the left with Elizabeth on the right. Young Justin stood between them, looking bored and slightly amused at something.
Heracles' face was squarish and solid looking, as if out of granite. This was not to say he did not have a kind face, because he did. But it was a face of severity, of leadership. It was the face of a man who would look at the world and say "I can do this", whatever this might be. His coal black eyes radiated confidence and honesty and, perhaps, a glint of humor as well.
Elizabeth, by contrast, had a slender face, bespeaking of her French and English ancestors. Her eyes were the bright blue of robin's eggs and her long blonde hair was artistically set upon her head. There was a tiara adorning the gold, and it was an easy guess that the red, blue and clear jewels in the tiara were not just there for show.
Justin had his mother's face, eyes and hair. What he got from his father did not show in this portrait, but those who knew the boy knew that he was razor sharp with an eye that did not miss the slightest detail. One of the reasons why he was at boarding school was that he would often argue with his father's business associates on a small detail and argue it for hours, in spite of his being right or wrong. Even at the tender age of ten, Justin was a bit much for his parents to handle, regardless of their policy that children should be heard as well as seen.
Justin was the youngest student at his school, and had already proven to the older classmates that he was well adept in the art of fisticuffs and swordsmanship. The monthly reports sent back to his parents indicated that the boy was beyond precociousness, incredibly bright and was quickly making many friends among not only the other students but the faculty as well. Despite his outspokenness, that is.
To say that his parents would nod sagely to each other and agree that they had made the right choice in sending Justin to a private school would be a slight understatement. The party they had in honor of their freedom was still talked about in some social circles, much to Justin's chagrin.
To the left of the entrance doors, there were three large windows, easily four foot wide, running from about a foot above the floor to a foot below the ceiling. As these windows faced south, there was always light pouring in during the day, so that even on over cast days, the room was well lit.
On either side of the fireplace sat two large, green, over stuffed wingback chairs. Next to each chair was a small table, and on each table there was an oil reading lamp with a shade made popular by a man named Tiffany. There was also a small bowl on each table, containing sweet candies. On the left hand table, there was hard sugars, round and multi-colored bought from a vendor in town. On the right hand table, there were caramels, from a company in Richmond, Virginia.
The left hand chair was Heracles', as he liked the feel of the hard candies, and was a firm believer that buying local was good for local business. The right hand chair was for Elizabeth, and though she rarely sat there, preferred the softer milky taste of the caramels and would comment that those particular candies always reminded her of home. Why that was, she never explained.
The center of the room was taken up by a long maple table, lovingly polished to a high dark gloss. The table carried a number of books stacked around the centerpiece of a large, illuminated globe of the earth. There were inkwells and nibs and pens and stacks of writing paper, as well as envelopes. The table was long enough that there were four large oil lamps sitting on it, and there was plenty of room for everything else, too.
Jonathan was well familiar with the inkwells, as it was part of his chore to make sure that an inkwell never ran dry. It was something that he found amusing, as it seemed that nobody in the house ever used this room for writing, and very rarely did an inkwell get used and if it did run dry, it was more than likely from evaporation.
The walls of the drawing room were all white plaster. It was the family belief that knowledge should never be kept in a dark place, and so it was in this room. If it had not been the for the fact that floor to ceiling bookcases filled practically every inch that had not been taken up by a portrait of a president or of some piece of sculpture perched on a pedestal, the room would have gleamed in the dark.
Heracles Stone was sitting in his chair, to the left of the fireplace.
"It is time for the boy to go back to school," the patriarch said.
"I don't see why, sir," Jonathan said as politely as he could. "I've never been to school a day in my life. What good would it do now?"
Maggie gasped. "Never? Never been?" She held her hand up to her blue and white calico throat. "Oh, sir!" a cry to her employer. "I didn't know."
"It's all right, Maggie." Heracles went to one of his bookshelves and took down a thick volume, bound in brown leather. "There are a lot of young boys that have never been to school." He came back to where the two stood and handed the book to Jonathan. "Can you read this?" he asked of the young man.
Jonathan turned the book over in his hands, feeling the fine grain of the leather and looking at the gold leaf lettering. He raised it to his nose and sniffed it.
"It's pretty old, isn't it?" the boy asked, looking up into the face above him.
"Not so old as you might think, Jonathan." Heracles waved the boy over to the wooden table, followed him there and took his seat on one of the four legged stools next to the boy. "The age of a book does not mean that the book has lost its use. In that respect, it's quite a bit like a man. Still, the question sits. Can you read it?"
Jonathan dropped the book on to the hard surface and turned it so that he could see the words upright. "The cover says," he read "'Elements of Electricity, Magnetism, and Electro-dynamics: Embracing the Latest Discoveries and Improvements, Digested Into the Form of a Treatise, for the use of the Students of Harvard University : Being the Second Part of a Course of Natural Philosophy, by John Farrar and ..."
Heracles held up his hand. "Good enough and well done." He turned and looked at Maggie, still standing by the open doors, her hands clasped in front of her apron. "Did you know that Jonathan here could read this well?"
"No sir," she said. "It never came up."
"I think it should have come up," Heracles said, tousling Jonathan's hair, which was something that Jonathan absolutely hated. "Don't you?" He swiveled back to Jonathan and asked, "Where did you learn to read?"
The boy shrugged his already broad shoulders and answered. "I supposed it was at the orphanage. Maybe the nuns taught me." He picked the book up and flipped it open. "I just look at the words and they just seem to join to sounds in my head, and those sounds just seem to connect to pictures, so I know what it all means." He found a page that showed pictures of coils and tubes and gears. "It's not hard, really." He tapped the page. "This page here, with the pictures. I would reckon that this is some sort of coil of wire wrapped around a round box of some kind, right? What it's for... well, you got me there. I guess I'd have to read the book to find that out." He closed the book. "Still, it's all the same. Pictures... words... they all go together, don't they?" He looked up at Heracles. "They all just tell a story."
Heracles was silent for a long time.
"You're not going to kick me out, are you?" Jonathan broke the long quiet. "I mean, that's what I thought at first, what with you calling Maggie and me down here and all. But you got something else in mind, don't you?"
"What?" Heracles came back from wherever he had gone in his mind. "Kick you out?" He shook his head and his immaculate gray hair didn't lose any shape. "No, my boy, furthest thing from it."
He jumped from his chair and walked over to the fireplace. He reached up and gently tapped the portrait above it, gently stroking the face of Justin, who stared petulantly back. "Furthest thing from it." He turned from the fireplace. "In fact, I'm going to give you a job."
"A job?" Maggie's and Jonathan's voices joined in unison.
"That is," Heracles went on, "if you'd like one."
"What sort of job?" Jonathan asked.
Heracles crossed over to Maggie and took her hands. The unfamiliarity cause her to blush from her neckline to her hairline. She looked away.
"Maggie," Heracles said quietly, "I was going to make you send the boy to school, starting tomorrow. He's old enough that he should be taught some sort of trade, so that he can make it on his own." Still holding Maggie's hands, Heracles looked over his shoulder at young Jonathan. "I can see now that it would be a grave mistake to assume that Jonathan would fit in with other children his age."
"What sort of job?" Jonathan hopped off his stool and came over to where the adults stood. It was a bit uncomfortable to see Heracles holding Maggie's hands, but still... a job's a job.
Heracles released Maggie and turned to crouch a bit so he could look directly into Jonathan's eyes. Maggie pulled her hands up to her breast and cradled them there, as if they were burned.
"I will pay you five cents for ever book in this library that you read." Heracles' voice was serious, but there was a twinkle in his eye. "How does that sound?"
Jonathan pursed his lips and rolled his eyes up to his copper colored eyebrows. His brow creased in what would, later, become a permanent form on his forehead and slowly shook his head negatively. "I don't know. These are some pretty big books, sir." He spread his hands out from his sides. "And I'm not very big, as you can see." A thought seemed to electrify through his mind, and his eyes lit up. "How about a dollar a book? How does that sound to you?"
Heracles straightened and laughed loudly. The sound startled Maggie, and she jumped just a bit. "Maggie! Did you hear that?" Heracles was laughing while he spoke. "No wonder he's called a haggling rat in the city!"
Jonathan turned beet red in the face. "I don't really like folks laughing at me, sir, no matter who you are. I think I'm going to tell you where you can put your job."
"Jonathan!" Maggie said, shocked. "You apologize to Mister Stone!"
Heracles wave her protest away. "No apology necessary, Maggie. No offense taken." To Jonathan, he said, "I wasn't laughing at you, young man. I was surprised at your offer! I think I should apologize to you!"
Jonathan looked up at Heracles. "Hmph," he hmphed. "Then I guess there's no harm done. But still... for my humiliation and all, how bout a dollar ten?"
This brought another laugh from Heracles. "Oh," he said as he clapped his hands, "you are a hagglin' rat, you are." He walked over to where his chair sat by the fire and pulled three hard candies from the bowl, and then he walked back to Jonathan and passed a red one to the boy.
"Listen here, my boy," he said, as he hunkered down to look Jonathan in the face. "My father sent me across the country when I was thirteen. He said I needed an education about how life worked. About how people lived and what they thought. And he sent me alone."
Jonathan popped the red candy in his mouth, puckering at the hotness of the cinnamon. "So? Was your dad angry at you or somethin'? You break something or get caught stealin'?" It was almost like talking to the other kids in town, down on Water Street.
"No, he wasn't angry." Heracles waved the question away. "I didn't get caught stealing and I didn't break anything. He just wanted me to understand."
"Understand what?" Jonathan asked, uncomprehendingly. "Understand what it's like to be alone and lost?"
Heracles turned his head to look at Maggie. She hadn't moved a muscle since he had let go of her hands and still had them clasped together. "Maggie, would you please go sit by the fire or something? This is going to take a while, and you're making me nervous just standing there."
"Yes sir," Maggie cried out as she jumped. "Which chair should I take, sir?"
Heracles shook his head at her. "I don't care, Maggie! Take Elizabeth's chair. God knows she's not going to sit in it any time soon. In fact, while you're there, eat some of those caramels. I hate spending good money after bad, and they're just going to waste."
"Yes sir!" Maggie moved to and sat ramrod straight in the chair by the fire. Hesitantly, she took a single caramel from the bowl and unwrapped it, flinching with each crinkly sound the waxed paper made.
"And do try to relax, Maggie," Heracles commanded. "I'm not going to fire you for relaxing."
"Yes sir." Maggie said meekly, as she let the muscles in her back relax. Soon, a sigh was heard from her as the warmth of the fire had taken hold of her and she slowly began to realize that she was in no danger.
Heracles turned back to Jonathan. "Now then, where was I?"
"Your dad had just kicked you out," the boy reminded him.
"Oh yes." Heracles opened his mouth to continue, when Maggie interrupted him.
"May I get a book, sir?" she asked.
Heracles let out a great woof of air. He looked at Jonathan sternly but his eyes showed nothing but amusement. "And this is why I'm happier when Elizabeth is away," he whispered conspiratorially to the boy.
Standing, he waved his arms in a great circle, indicating the entire drawing room. "All you see is at your command, madam. Peruse and read to your hearts content! We are having a discussion over here! If you feel the need to make a cup of tea, then do so. If you feel the need to make privy, then do that as well. As I am, by all rights, your employer, I declare this day to be your holiday and you are to treat yourself to whatever may enter your mind, be it a shopping spree or making breakfast at six o’clock in the evening."
Seeing the fearful look on his maid's face, he spoke again, more gently. "No, Maggie. I have not gone mad. I merely wish to speak to your son..." He stopped. "Jonathan here, without interruption. I am quite sure the house will maintain itself for one day. Please, do as you wish, just do not interrupt me again."
Maggie, nodded, with fearful tears in her eyes. The only time she had ever seen Mister Stone like this was back when Justin used to argue with them, and those were fearful days, to be sure. She walked to a section of the library she was familiar with and chose a thin book on philosophy. She sat back in Elizabeth's chair and opened the book, but didn't read a single word of it. Instead, she just listened.
"Now then," Heracles said, sitting cross-legged on the marble floor. "Hmm... This floor is going to get very cold, very soon."
He stood back up and waved at one of the stools that sat near the reading table. "Pull one of those stools by the fire, boy. We'll talk like civilized men." Then he crossed over to his own chair by the fire and sat. He looked over at Maggie, saw that she was seriously pretending to read and smiled. Let her have her secrets, he thought. She'll be hearing every word I say anyway.
Jonathan didn't bring a stool. Instead, he just sat by the Heracles' chair on a pillow. "It's easier on my tailbone, sir."
Heracles nodded in approval. "Just so," he said. "Very smart choice." He pulled a candy from his bowl and offered it to Jonathan. "Another?" Once Jonathan accepted it, Heracles told his story.
His father had sent him out into the world, with nary a penny. Young Heracles had only a few hundred dollars, which in 1843 was quite a bit of money, but still, the feeling of being alone was enough to diminish the security money would bring.
His father told him to travel for a year and not one day less. After a year, he would be welcomed back into the house as a member and a son. Before that year expired, however, he would be treated as nothing but a vagabond, and homeless.
Heracles, even at thirteen could see that it was a test. He was scared, as he had a right to be, but he was determined to see the task through, to make his father proud of him.
His mother, a rather strong willed woman, bowed to her husband’s wishes and though in agreement, secretly wished that this test would pass quickly and it was she who pressed the money into Heracles' hand even as she hugged him goodbye and closed the door after him.
He left his home in Chicago and wandered south, as south sounded like the direction he should go. Knowing that the meager monies his mother had given him would not go very far, and in fact, might get him killed, he kept the money hidden in his shoe and when he returned, he gave the money back to his mother.
Instead, he learned to barter, to trade hard work for room and board. He worked in the cattle yards and the textile mills, never staying in one place to terribly long. To stick around in any one place invites questions of parentage and home, and these were questions that Heracles was not going to answer. He was an orphan, looking to learn about life, and as such, he figured he was destined to roam. Always heading south, as it was warm in the south.
Many times, Heracles would huddle before late night campfires, listening with fear at the noises of the wood. It was well known that a white man found by Indians would be killed. He learned stealth and how to feed off the land. It was very simple. Either learn or die. There would be times when he thought about giving up and going home, but knew that would mean his failure and that failure would reflect in his father's eyes forever.
There were incredibly lean times, days of walking when he wouldn't see anyone or any settlement nearby. There were wonderful times, when he could join a farm family at prayer after tending the crops all day.
"Why didn't you just stay in one place? You would have been safe and warm." Jonathan asked the question, with wide eyes, listening to the stories of near death and adventure.
"But what would I have learned, Jonathan? How to be safe and warm? Any bedbug knows how to do that." Heracles shook his head, his black eyes ablaze with memories that may or may not have been true. "No, sir. I was looking for adventure. Things I could take back after that year and tell the tales of. I wasn't just wanting to make my father proud, young man, I was wanting to come back and amaze him!"
Heracles grew strong and hardy in a very short time. He worked carpentry in many of the small towns along the way and the coal mines of a tiny town known as Terre Haute, where he met a man named John Chapman.
Chapman was a preacher, and would stand just outside of town, speaking of charity and doing good works. Chapman was dressed in rags, and would speak to anyone who would listen. Heracles found the man fascinating, and went to listen often. There was something about the ragged preacher's simple sincerity that touched the young man and so Heracles packed his small bag of belongings and followed the preacher where he went.
"We traveled all across Indiana and into Ohio. Everywhere we went, wherever there was a town John would stop and talk and trade and teach. He was a talker, that man. He taught me about human nature, the good side and the not so good side. There are those that can be helped, that want to be helped and all they need is just a hand up. Not a hand out, mind you. There is a tremendous difference between the two."
"There was this one time John saw a horse, way past it's prime. He walked up to the farmer, who was carrying a heavy hammer, and asked the farmer what was going to happen to the horse."
"Well, we all knew what was going to happen. The horse was no good for farming any more. Too old to pull the plow and just taking up space. The farmer was carrying that hammer to put the poor old nag out of her misery."
"John just ups and offers the man twenty dollars for it. Now, fifty dollars back then was an awful lot of money, especially for a broken down old horse. But the farmer looks back at John and asks to see the color of his money."
"John reaches into his own shoe and pulls out a few bills. The farmer takes a look at the money, unfolds it, holds it up to the light and says, 'Mister, you're crazier than a nuthatch, but you bought yourself a horse.'"
"John handed me the reigns and has me follow him into town. The horse wasn't all that old, and seemed to me to be in good health. Besides the fact that she couldn't pull the plow anymore, there was no good reason for her to be put down."
"In town, John goes into the land assayer's office and buys fifteen acres of land. He didn't really care where the land was, just that it was good land and had to be next to a farmer of good repute who needed a horse."
"Then we walk the horse to the land that John just bought and he goes up to the farmer nearby and talks to him a bit. He says that he will give the farmer the horse, if the farmer will swear to treat the horse humanely until the day the horse dies a natural death."
"I learned a lot from John. The most important thing I learned from him is that everyone deserves a chance. One chance and the option to have that chance and sometimes that chance has to have a little help from an outside source."
Jonathan squinted his eyes in thought. "Sounds to me you were gone for more than a year."
Heracles nodded and smiled. "You are right, absolutely. I was gone for a total of three years. After the first year, I sent a letter back, saying I would be a little late. I met John Chapman in my second year, after working in the Indiana coal mines. I followed him around for the next year, doing good deeds, and planting apple trees."
"Apple trees?" Jonathan's eyes got round. "That's kinda crazy, isn't it?"
"Well," Heracles rubbed the side of his nose. "It would have been, except John had a belief that apples could cure the ills of the world. And there was many a farmer down in Ohio that those little apple trees saved the farms of. John didn't just plant trees, son. He planted nurseries and left those farmers to watch over them. Pretty much all the cider we drink comes from those trees that John Chapman planted."
"Oh," Jonathan said. "So what happened the last year?"
"John and I had a falling out, of sorts. He followed the religious beliefs of a man named Emanuel Swedenborg, which, in truth, isn't a bad belief as far as those things go. But John and I saw it with different eyes. John was what they call an ascetic. That sort of person lives with the barest minimum of everything, clothing, food, shelter... everything."
"He believed that the worse his life was here on earth, the better off his life would be in the afterlife." Heracles sighed. "And that's fine and good, I suppose, if you believe in the afterlife like John did. Now, I believe in doing good works, and helping people out and being the very best possible person I can be while alive." He smiled down at Jonathan. "But, I also believe in being comfortable. That would place me as a hedonist, I suppose, as I like to be warm and well clothed and to eat good food. And I like what I like."
"I guess that John had high hopes for me, and was mightily disappointed when I told him of my life back here, and that I was going to return to it soon. I had received a letter that my father was ill, you see, and that I was needed back home. John thought that I should stay with him and forsake my evil life of luxury. I told him that his way of life was all right for a time, but I really did miss my family and my evil life of luxury."
Another quick smile ran across Heracles rocky face. "As you can imagine, that didn't go over very well. He kicked me out, called me irredeemable and sent me packing. This suited me just fine, as it was time to be coming back anyway. Father was ill and mother, as strong as she was, just was not trained in the family business. I at least, had some background from just watching my father. Besides, I was sixteen. It was time to grow up."
"So I came back home, full of stories of the wilderness of the road. Father was indeed, very ill. He passed away the next year and I took over as head of Stone Shipping. I was 17, and my father had worked very hard to teach me all he could about his company. The things that John Chapman taught me served me well and I took my father's company and made it stronger than it ever was."
"Okay," said Jonathan, "but did you amaze him?"
"What?" A look of bewilderment crossed Heracles face.
"You said you wanted to make your dad not only proud, but that you wanted to amaze him." Jonathan's face held nothing but pure sincerity. "Did you?"
Bewilderment changed to puzzlement. Puzzlement changed to comprehension. "You know, Jonathan." Heracles paused, but briefly. A frown crossed his eyes. "I never stopped to think about it." His face clouded and he disappeared into thought.
"So, what has this to do with this job you're offering me?" Jonathan interrupted the older man's ponderings. "And are you going to pay me a dollar ten for ever book I read?"
Shaken out of his reverie, Heracles Stone stared at the young wiry, red headed boy. "The point," he said finally, "was to tell you that every journey has a starting place. And that I know a thing or two about haggling too, or else I wouldn't be in this chair talking to you." He smiled gently and laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. "I'll pay you seventy-five cents for every book you read, but you have to write me an essay about what each book contained. I don't mean one or two paragraphs for an essay. I mean an essay that lets me know you understood what you had read."
"Writing?" Jonathan's eye brows bushed up. "Writing's hard work! Pay me eighty-five cents and we have a deal."
Heracles held out his hand and smiled, "Then we have and accord, Master Ratzenmueller"
Jonathan looked at the proffered hand and then looked back up into Heracles' eyes. "I'm not a master yet, sir." He spit into his palm and then grasped the hand offered him. "But I will be." And his face was split with a large Cheshire grin. "And you're paying for it!"
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 12:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 12:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 02:21 am (UTC)So ok, by the time i got to this paragraph, i understood that this building, at the time of this story, had existed not more than two years,.... and all of this stuff had already happened inside of it? Already? I suppose it could be so.... but... it feels like maybe you've got a lot of the building's history shoved into too short a period of time or something. If they really DID do stuff that fast, that's really awesome, tho!
Why, tho, did they call a building that was once white, and now black, the IVORY tower? Yeah, picky of me....
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Jonathan Quincy Ratzenmueller was Justin Stone's oldest and dearest friend. An odd and unlikely pair they made, too. Jonathan stood, in bare feet, at five foot four inches. His hair, a shocking copper color, was an unruly mass that defined any comb or brush. ((Uh.... DEFIED, perhaps?))
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When Maggie finally confronted him, the boy would respond that the Stones had so much, it wasn't likely they would miss what he had taken.
That was the day that Jonathan found out that love can take the form of a hickory switch, and it was the day that Maggie found out that children can break your heart harder than any abusive husband.
Later that very same night, Jonathon heard Maggie crying in her bedroom, which was just to the side of his. He didn't disturb her, but he understood why she was crying. He was not an ignorant boy, but he was surprised when he felt wetness on his own cheeks as well. From that moment on, not another thing from the house disappeared under his hand.
You get perfect marks for this section, my friend. Well done.
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The drawing room was very large, with an enormous fireplace set against the back wall. There was a cheery fire burning in it, and it's wide oak mantle was decorated in holly. It was just past the holiday season, and it was the Stone's believe... ((belief?))
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"I will pay you five cents for ever book in this library that you read."
(( ever... or every? ))
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Heracles shook his head at her. "I don't care, Maggie! Take Elizabeth's chair. God knows she's not going to sit in it any time soon. In fact, while you're there, eat some of those caramels. I hate spending good money after bad, and they're just going to waste."
(( They're getting stale is what they're doing! If she travels while her son is in school, it's a horrible waste to have them sitting there at all!))
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(continued)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 02:44 am (UTC)No, a great deal of the experiments were not done in the current building. This is a NEW building, because there are NEW experiments. Wait for it....
And thanks for the spell checker! Sherry tells me I have the absolute worse time dealing with 'Ever' and 'Every'.
And yes... stale is going to waste, without a doubt. In my research, I found out that the caramels we eat NOW would be considered garbage back in the late 1800's. Man... wish I could have had some REAL caramels
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 03:22 am (UTC)I *know* about the symbolic ivory tower and all that, but i had to call you out anyway; that's my job. *grin* And the same goes for the name outlasting the color. People would ASK. Why does everyone call that BLACK BUILDING the IVORY TOWER, huh? they'd say, scratching their heads, looking at the locals like they's loco. *grin* Maybe their education system is faulty? *grin*
So.... you're saying there were OTHER Stone Foundation buildings? Is that what you're saying? Cuz, if you were saying that, it's not clear in the story line, and you might consider making it clear. Cuz ditz-haids like me need that info to help us follow along without incredulity. Or something.
*hee*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 03:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 02:21 am (UTC)(( i've never heard it phrased that way, and it may be utterly proper, and i just never heard of it. If so, just ignore me. My brain, however, wants to phrase it " make use of the privy ". There. I said my piece. *snort* ))
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His father had sent him out into the world, with nary a penny. Young Heracles had only a few hundred dollars, which in 1843 ...
So ok... i think there is an issue here with the dates, luv. ALL of them have been 1800's so far, but i'm thinkin' maybe you meant some of them to be 1900's, perhaps. Or not. But something isn't adding up.
If in 1843 Justin's DAD is a teenager, then you've got Maggie's hubby dying in 1881, and Jonathan being 11 years old... or perhaps younger... or something.... *confused* But in 1882, Justin appears to be a grown man....
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"John handed me the reigns.... (( reins ))
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Heracles held out his hand and smiled, "Then we have and accord, ((an))
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*Applause* Off to an EXCELLENT start, my dear! And a spit shake, to lock it in! *whooop*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 02:30 am (UTC)The start date of the story is in 1884
Justin - 32 b. 1852 13 in 1865
Jonathan - 30 b. 1854 11 in 1865 -- birthday march 13th
Maggie b. 1840 25 in 1865 d. 1879
Heracles b. 1830 35 in 1865 d. 1879
Elizabeth b. 1931 34 in 1865 d. 1870
I had to figure it out myself just to keep it straight.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 02:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 02:47 am (UTC)Have I mentioned how much I really don't like writing?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 03:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 02:26 am (UTC)I am looking forward to reading the next installment.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 02:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 11:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 03:28 am (UTC)*tips head to one side*
Are you two comparing meters again??? Oy.....
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 11:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-05 01:32 am (UTC)Not gonna make ANY COMMENT on that one, guys!!