DUNCAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3889, 25 September 1928, Page 81

DUNCAN.

By

Katherine Mercer.

(Copyright.—For the Otago Witness. ; “ Duncan’s a good hoy, but he’s not brilliant,” Duncan’s mother said occasionally. The occasions when he had heard it, or thought she had said it, became too frequent as he grew older, Dunean felt —not that he ever remarked in words, or that or any other feeling, unless forced. “ Now Fraser’s name will come top of every examination he goes up for,” she had been known to say recklessly, of course, in strict privacy. “ He looks it, with his spectacles already, and stooping shoulders. Who wants a schoolboy to be as sober as a professor ? ” Fraser’s other parent countered, with due respect for propriety. “ If it’s games you want you’ll find no fault with Douglas then/’ his wife retorted. “ There’s no other for miles around that has his name as often in the papers for winning this or that, racing and jumping, swimming and cycling. You know it’s few enough ever comes near him in any game he can try.” “ Oh. I’ve no fault wi’ Douglas at games.” The intonation, distinctly more northern, expressed a Puritanic disapproval of such frivolous pursuits, a more than Puritanic distrust of Douglas’s aptitude for anything else as thoroughly as his wife would have done had he praised their son to her face. “ Well, where’s the fault you’ll find with Alan ? ” she questioned. ‘‘Where’s the guid?” “ Ask any girl around for that,” she owned. “ For a boy of his age it’s scandalous.” “ He’s away wi’ the lasses,” Alan’s father admitted. “ He’s practised all his life on you, that’s how he’s come by it. He can twist you round his finger, and pay for all he wants wi’ a smile, an’ maybe a kiss. A fine way to be bringing up a lad! ” “ He never came by aught of his ways from you,” she retorted smilingly. “ Not he. He’ll go his own way for every whimsy he takes, and be sure you’ll never find a fault in him all the days of your life. Now Duncan that there’s no fault in will always sit down in the corner furtherest from the fire in winter, and be out of sight and mind doing odd jobs all the day long, and get never a word of praise for ten each of his brothers has,” their father summed

up. “ I’ll pay more attention to him,” she promised, conscience-struck. “ But somehow it’s what you say, Duncan isn’t noticeable beside the others.” He had not said it, but he knew it was true, almost as clearly as Dunean did. and said nothing. “ What kind of start is it to be giving a lad, to be trying to pay more attention to him because of feeling it’s duty ? ” he fired for a last shot. Presently came the school sports, a day completed grandly by an evening that combined school concert, prizegiving, and uproarious feasting. A day of glory for parents and offspring both, and who more justified in rejoicing than Fraser's mother, unless it were Douglas’s or maybe Alan’s, after his performances on the stage? “ The whole show’s a succession of Macgrcgors,” she heard a neighbour re mark, and hid her acknowledgment of its being the truth with proper composure. “ After all, who else bo.vs as good ? ” she said defiantly when her husband privately taxed her with undue pride. “ I thought we had four,” he answered drily.

“There’s none of them better than Duncan,” she said quickly. “He was helping shift the tables in the supper room, and afterwards somebody’s horse got loose, so Duncan was the best pari of the evening catching it, when the. other boys couldn’t get away to help.” “ Well, he may have liked that best.’'" She stared. Then: “ He’s not jealous,” she said hotly. ‘'You’re not to go thinking that.” “ I’m not thinking he’s a saint, either. He’s just a good, quiet boy —as you say, not noticeable.”

Next evening the whole family listencl with interest to an item in the local paper. She counted the surprising number of times their names appeared, and later privately cut out the slip to put it away. Her husband caught her doing it, and said not a word, so expressively that with a suddenly hot face she left the room, and went straight to where she knew she would find Duncan. Ho was sitting on his bed, looking moodily across the room at Alan’s pillow Something in the set of his shoulders reminded her of other school days, long forgotten behind happy, well-filled years. “ Duncan,” she said softly. He stiffened. “ Yes, mother. Something you want me to do ? ” “ Dunean ” She stopped again. “ All right, I’ll come,” he said soberly, without standing up.

“ Duncan—to-night, seeing the names in the paper reminded me of something I had not remembered for years.” He looked up with a surprise that set her hurrying. “ Did you ever hear about my cousin Nancy, Duncan ? ” “Yes,” looking rather puzzled. “She died, didn’t she, over in Australia?” “ Yes. I missed her, too, though not as much as if she had died when we were children together. We were always together, you know.” He nodded. An old story, this, but why bring it up to-night? “ It’s an odd thing, a really pretty girl often takes her good looks as a matter of course —pays no more attention to them than to the sunlight. She’s too used to being pretty to-think about it.” Duncan paid polite interest, obviously with no interest whatever in the subject. “It was that way with Nancy. While I was as proud of her looks as —as i r I’d been her mother, I was always plain Not downright ugly, you know—just heavy and clumsy. The kind nobod) notices.” He moved uneasily, as if disagreeing. “ Nancy wasn’t clever. Just pretty and charming, and kind, always ready to help anyone. She rather wondered why people liked her, if she ever thought about it. I didn’t —I knew. And though 1 was so proud of her being pretty—big girls, you know—l began to wish even a few people would take notice of me and like me. I wasn’t a bad sort, you know, only plain and awkward —the soi t nobody notices. But I wasn’t good at any thing,.except ordinary 7 house cooking. My grandfather used to praise my 7 scones —I used to take special pains to cook as many- times as I could when he came One day he came in just as I was taking, a batch out of the oven—you know how nice they are, all hot, with plenty of butter.”

“You bet!” he agreed heartily. “All the fellows like your scones.” “ Grandfather said they were the best he’d tasted, better than any at the show,” he said. “ You ought to put them in there, you’d be sure of a prize.” Grandmother was sitting in her rocking-chair by the window knitting, and she started to laugh at him. “ You don’t know what the lassie’s good at,” she said. “ She’d take a prize with knitting sooner than cocking, any day. She taught me herself all the knitting I knew.” Well, then and there I decided. I never told anyone, not even mother. But I entered my name for the show for both. When the show day came I was up very early, and had scones in the oven before anyone else was up. I’d put everything ready before I went to bed, and I’d got Nancy to promise to help with my work that day, so she came over before breakfast. Once the dishes were washed off we went together. She carried the parcel with my knitting, and I had hold of the scones, three kinds, all wrapped in a towel. “ Duncan ” She paused impressively. “Did you get any prizes?”

“Duncan, I got four! Three firsts and a second. Nancy thought I ought to have had all four firsts. She looked so pretty, standing up saying how sure she was the judge would have given me that last first if he had tasted the scones.” She stopped to smile at the tender recollection of her champion. “ But I didn’t care. To have got any at all was enough for me to know my name would be in the paper, and I’d done something worth being noticed.” “ I know,” he blurted involuntarily. “ I never have, you know. But I know how you felt.” “ Duncan, you do such a lot in the garden, you know you’re a good gardener. Why don’t you put some things in the show this summer?”

He considered the idea silently. “ Nobody else need know.” “ Not even dad ? ” “ Well, of course, he’d see your name in the prize list. He’d read it out. He needn’t know till then.” “ I mightn’t get a prize,” he objected. “ Yes, you would. We’d heap manure where you grew the special plants—” “ Don’t want to put too much on some things.” “Of course not. You see, you know the way to go about it. You always do grow the tilings. Why not win the prizes? ” “Here’s Alan coining.'' And there’s dad calling. Right-o,” he said hurriedly. Her eyes were wet as Alan caught her in the doorway and whirled her around in a short, impromptu dance.

“ He’s a great boy at digging.” she was thinking, which was hardly in itself a strain of thought sentimental enough to draw a tear.