Read Online Voodoo Tales: The Ghost Stories of Henry S Whitehead (Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural) by Henry S. Whitehead, David Stuart Davies - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Henry S. Whitehead, David Stuart Davies
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to my knowledge, took off even for muscle-kneadings at the capable hands of Black Joe, our rubber, the shoes he had been wearing, nor, of course, the heavy woolen stockings he always wore under them.
When quizzed about his dry-rubs, Morley always answered with his unfailing good-nature, that it was a principle with him. He believed in the dry-rub. He avoided difficulty and criticism in this strange idea of his, as it seemed to the rest of us, because Ernie Hjertberg, whose word was law and whose opinions were gold and jewels to us boys, backed him up in it. Many of the older athletes, said Ernie, preferred the dry-rub, and a generation ago nobody would have thought of taking a shower after competition or a workout. So it became a settled affair that Williamson Morley should dry-rub himself while the rest of us revelled under our cascades of alternate hot and cold water and were cool and comfortable while Morley at least looked half-cooked, red, and uncomfortable after his plain towellings!
It was, too, entirely clear to the rest of us that Morley’s dry-rubs were taken on principle. That he was a bather – at home – was entirely evident. He was, besides being by long odds the best-dressed fellow in a very dressy, rather ‘fashionable’ New York City school, the very pink and perfection of cleanliness. Indeed, if it had not been for Morley’s admirable disposition, self-restraint, and magnificent muscular development and his outstanding athletic preëminence among us – our football teams with Morley in were simply invincible, and his inordinately long arms made him unbeatable at tennis – the school would very likely have considered him a ‘dude’. A shot-putter, if it had been anybody else than Morley, who, however modestly, displays a fresh manicure twice a week at the group-critical age of fifteen or sixteen is – well, it was Morley, and whatever Morley chose to do among our crowd, or, indeed any group of his age in New York City in those days, was something that called for respectful imitation – not adverse criticism. Morley set the fashion for New York’s foremost school for the four or five years that he and Gerald Canevin were buddies togther.
It was when we were sixteen that the Morley divorce case shrieked from the front pages of the yellow newspapers for the five weeks of its lurid course in the courts.
During that period I, who had been a constant visitor at the house on Madison Avenue where Williamson, an only son, lived with his parents, by some tacit sense of the fitness of things, refrained from dropping in Saturdays or after school hours. Subsequently, Mrs Morley, who had lost the case, removed to an apartment on Riverside Drive. Williamson accompanied his mother, and Mr Morley continued to occupy the former home.
It was a long time afterwards, a year or more, before Williamson talked of his family affairs with me. When he did begin it, it came with a rush, as though he had wanted to speak about it to a close friend for a long time and had been keeping away from the topic for decency’s sake. I gathered from what he said that his mother was in no way to blame. This was not merely ‘chivalry’ on Williamson’s part. He spoke reticently, but with a strong conviction. His father, it seemed, had always, as long as he could remember, been rather ‘mean’ to the kindest, most generous and whole-souled lady God had ever made. The attitude of Morley senior, as I gathered it, without, of course, hearing that gentleman’s side of the affair, had always been distant and somewhat sarcastic, not only to Mrs Morley but to Williamson as well. It was, Williamson said, as though his father had disliked him from birth, thought of him as a kind of inferior being! This had been shown, uniformly, by a general attitude of contemptuous indifference to both mother and son as far back as Williamson’s recollection of his father took him.
It was, according to him, the more offensive and unjust on his
When quizzed about his dry-rubs, Morley always answered with his unfailing good-nature, that it was a principle with him. He believed in the dry-rub. He avoided difficulty and criticism in this strange idea of his, as it seemed to the rest of us, because Ernie Hjertberg, whose word was law and whose opinions were gold and jewels to us boys, backed him up in it. Many of the older athletes, said Ernie, preferred the dry-rub, and a generation ago nobody would have thought of taking a shower after competition or a workout. So it became a settled affair that Williamson Morley should dry-rub himself while the rest of us revelled under our cascades of alternate hot and cold water and were cool and comfortable while Morley at least looked half-cooked, red, and uncomfortable after his plain towellings!
It was, too, entirely clear to the rest of us that Morley’s dry-rubs were taken on principle. That he was a bather – at home – was entirely evident. He was, besides being by long odds the best-dressed fellow in a very dressy, rather ‘fashionable’ New York City school, the very pink and perfection of cleanliness. Indeed, if it had not been for Morley’s admirable disposition, self-restraint, and magnificent muscular development and his outstanding athletic preëminence among us – our football teams with Morley in were simply invincible, and his inordinately long arms made him unbeatable at tennis – the school would very likely have considered him a ‘dude’. A shot-putter, if it had been anybody else than Morley, who, however modestly, displays a fresh manicure twice a week at the group-critical age of fifteen or sixteen is – well, it was Morley, and whatever Morley chose to do among our crowd, or, indeed any group of his age in New York City in those days, was something that called for respectful imitation – not adverse criticism. Morley set the fashion for New York’s foremost school for the four or five years that he and Gerald Canevin were buddies togther.
It was when we were sixteen that the Morley divorce case shrieked from the front pages of the yellow newspapers for the five weeks of its lurid course in the courts.
During that period I, who had been a constant visitor at the house on Madison Avenue where Williamson, an only son, lived with his parents, by some tacit sense of the fitness of things, refrained from dropping in Saturdays or after school hours. Subsequently, Mrs Morley, who had lost the case, removed to an apartment on Riverside Drive. Williamson accompanied his mother, and Mr Morley continued to occupy the former home.
It was a long time afterwards, a year or more, before Williamson talked of his family affairs with me. When he did begin it, it came with a rush, as though he had wanted to speak about it to a close friend for a long time and had been keeping away from the topic for decency’s sake. I gathered from what he said that his mother was in no way to blame. This was not merely ‘chivalry’ on Williamson’s part. He spoke reticently, but with a strong conviction. His father, it seemed, had always, as long as he could remember, been rather ‘mean’ to the kindest, most generous and whole-souled lady God had ever made. The attitude of Morley senior, as I gathered it, without, of course, hearing that gentleman’s side of the affair, had always been distant and somewhat sarcastic, not only to Mrs Morley but to Williamson as well. It was, Williamson said, as though his father had disliked him from birth, thought of him as a kind of inferior being! This had been shown, uniformly, by a general attitude of contemptuous indifference to both mother and son as far back as Williamson’s recollection of his father took him.
It was, according to him, the more offensive and unjust on his
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