The dishes were washed, the evening paper read, the evening pipe smoked; and then, and only then, did Mr. Tucker take down his tool box and get out a hammer and some long nails.
“And I am going to nail the door open, Tommy, so you can not close it, as that was what the doctor said.
Tommy, and you are to be a man and stay here in the kitchen alone for an hour, and we will leave the lamp a-burning, and then when you find there is naught to be afraid of, you will be well and a real man and not something for a man to be ashamed of being the father of.”
But at the last Mrs. Tucker kissed Tommy and cried and whispered to her husband not to do it, and to wait till the boy was larger; but nothing was to do except to nail the thick door open so it could not be shut and leave the boy there alone with the lamp burning and the dark open space of the doorway to look at with eyes that grew as hot and burning as the flame of the lamp.
That same day Doctor Hawthorn took supper with a classmate of his, a man who specialized in psychiatry and who was particularly interested in children.
Hawthorn told Johnson about his newest case, the little Tucker boy, and asked him for his opinion, lohnson frowned.
“Children are odd, Hawthorn.
Perhaps they are like dogs.
It may be their nervous system is more acute than in the adult.
We know that our eyesight is limited, also our hearing and smell.
I firmly believe that there are forms of life which exist in such a form that we can neither see, hear nor smell them.
Fondly we delude ourselves into the fallacy of believing that they do not exist because we can not prove their existence.
This Tucker lad may have a nervous system that is peculiarly acute.
He may dimly appreciate the existence of something in the cellar which is unappreciable to his parents.
Evidently there is some basis to this fear of his.
Now, I am not saying that there is anything in the cellar.
In fact, I suppose that it is just an ordinary cellar, but this boy, since he was a baby, has thought that there was something there, and that is just as bad as though there actually were.
What I would like to know is what makes him think so.
Give me the address, and I will call tomorrow and have a talk with the little fellow.”
“What do you think of my advice?”
“Sorry, old man, but I think it was perfectly rotten.
If I were you, I would stop around there on my way home and prevent them from following it.
The little fellow may be badly frightened.
You see, he evidently thinks there is something there.”
“But there isn’t.”
“Perhaps not.
No doubt, he is wrong, but he thinks so.”
It all worried Doctor Hawthorn so much that he decided to take his friend’s advice.
It was a cold night, a foggy night, and the physician felt cold as he tramped along the London streets.
At last he came to the Tucker house.
He remembered now that he had been there once before, long ago, when little Tommy Tucker came Into the world.
There was a light in the front window, and in no time at all Mr. Tucker came to the door.
“I have come to see Tommy,” said the doctor.
“He is back in the kitchen,” replied the father.
“He gave one cry, but since then he has been quiet,” sobbed the wife.
“If I had let her have her way, she would have opened the door, but I said to her,
‘Mother, now is the time to make a man out of our Tommy.’
And I guess he knows by now that there was naught to be afraid of.
Well, the hour is up. Suppose we go and get him and put him to bed?”
“It has been a hard time for the little child,” whispered the wife.
Carrying the candle, the man walked ahead of the woman and the doctor, and at last opened the kitchen door.
The room was dark.
“Lamp has gone out,” said the man.
“Wait till I light it.”
“Tommy!
Tommy!” called Mrs. Tucker.
But the doctor ran to where a white form was stretched on the floor.
Sharply he called for more light.
Trembling, he examined all that was left of little Tommy.
Twitching, he looked into the open space down into the cellar.