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ping from time to time to look at the telegram. Holmes was
formally his father’s curate but actually, and for a decade,
rector of the church. How did he die? Of old age—he was
seventy-five. He had lived a long time.
Dick felt sad that he had died alone—he had survived
his wife, and his brothers and sisters; there were cousins in
Virginia but they were poor and not able to come North,
and Holmes had had to sign the telegram. Dick loved his
father—again and again he referred judgments to what his
father would probably have thought or done. Dick was born
several months after the death of two young sisters and his
father, guessing what would be the effect on Dick’s moth-
er, had saved him from a spoiling by becoming his moral
guide. He was of tired stock yet he raised himself to that
effort.
In the summer father and son walked downtown to-
gether to have their shoes shined—Dick in his starched
duck sailor suit, his father always in beautifully cut cleri-
cal clothes—and the father was very proud of his handsome
little boy. He told Dick all he knew about life, not much but
most of it true, simple things, matters of behavior that came
within his clergyman’s range. ‘Once in a strange town when
I was first ordained, I went into a crowded room and was
confused as to who was my hostess. Several people I knew
came toward me, but I disregarded them because I had seen
a grayhaired woman sitting by a window far across the
room. I went over to her and introduced myself. After that I
made many friends in that town.’
His father had done that from a good heart—his father

300 Tender is the Night