"Good-morning," Mr. Button said, nervously, to the clerk in the
Chesapeake Dry Goods Company. "I want to buy some clothes for my
child."
"How old is your child, sir?"
"About six hours," answered Mr. Button, without due
consideration.
"Babies' supply department in the rear."
"Why, I don't think—I'm not sure that's what I want. It's—he's
an unusually large-size child. Exceptionally—ah—large."
"They have the largest child's sizes."
"Where is the boys' department?" inquired Mr. Button, shifting
his ground desperately. He felt that the clerk must surely scent
his shameful secret.
"Right here."
"Well—" He hesitated. The notion of dressing his son in men's
clothes was repugnant to him. If, say, he could only find
a very large boy's suit, he might cut off that
long and awful beard, dye the white hair brown, and thus manage to
conceal the worst, and to retain something of his own
self-respect—not to mention his position in Baltimore society.
But a frantic inspection of the boys' department revealed
no suits to fit the new-born Button. He blamed the store, of
course—in such cases it is the thing to blame the store.
"How old did you say that boy of yours was?" demanded the clerk
curiously.
"He's—sixteen."
"Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought you said
six hours. You'll find the youths' department in the
next aisle."
Mr. Button turned miserably away. Then he stopped, brightened,
and pointed his finger toward a dressed dummy in the window
display. "There!" he exclaimed. "I'll take that suit, out there on
the dummy."
The clerk stared. "Why," he protested, "that's not a child's
suit. At least it is, but it's for fancy dress. You
could wear it yourself!"
"Wrap it up," insisted his customer nervously. "That's what I
want."
The astonished clerk obeyed.
Back at the hospital Mr. Button entered the nursery and almost
threw the package at his son. "Here's your clothes," he snapped
out.
The old man untied the package and viewed the contents with a
quizzical eye.
"They look sort of funny to me," he complained, "I don't want to
be made a monkey of——"
"You've made a monkey of me!" retorted Mr. Button fiercely.
"Never you mind how funny you look. Put them on—or I'll—or
I'll spank you." He swallowed uneasily at the
penultimate word, feeling nevertheless that it was the proper thing
to say.
"All right, father"—this with a grotesque simulation of filial
respect—"you've lived longer; you know best. Just as you say."
As before, the sound of the word "father" caused Mr. Button to
start violently. "And hurry."
"I'm hurrying, father."
When his son was dressed Mr. Button regarded him with
depression. The costume consisted of dotted socks, pink pants, and
a belted blouse with a wide white collar. Over the latter waved the
long whitish beard, drooping almost to the waist. The effect was
not good.
"Wait!"
Mr. Button seized a hospital shears and with three quick snaps
amputated a large section of the beard. But even with this
improvement the ensemble fell far short of perfection. The
remaining brush of scraggly hair, the watery eyes, the ancient
teeth, seemed oddly out of tone with the gayety of the costume. Mr.
Button, however, was obdurate—he held out his hand. "Come along!"
he said sternly.
His son took the hand trustingly. "What are you going to call
me, dad?" he quavered as they walked from the nursery—"just 'baby'
for a while? till you think of a better name?"
Mr. Button grunted. "I don't know," he answered harshly. "I
think we'll call you Methuselah."
III
Even after the new addition to the Button family had had his
hair cut short and then dyed to a sparse unnatural black, had had
his face shaved so close that it glistened, and had been attired in
small-boy clothes made to order by a flabbergasted tailor, it was
impossible for Button to ignore the fact that his son was a poor
excuse for a first family baby. Despite his aged stoop, Benjamin
Button—for it was by this name they called him instead of by the
appropriate but invidious Methuselah—was five feet eight inches
tall. His clothes did not conceal this, nor did the clipping
and dyeing of his eyebrows disguise the fact that the eyes
under—were faded and watery and tired. In fact, the baby-nurse who
had been engaged in advance left the house after one look, in a
state of considerable indignation.
But Mr. Button persisted in his unwavering purpose. Benjamin was
a baby, and a baby he should remain. At first he declared that if
Benjamin didn't like warm milk he could go without food altogether,
but he was finally prevailed upon to allow his son bread and
butter, and even oatmeal by way of a compromise. One day he brought
home a rattle and, giving it to Benjamin, insisted in no uncertain
terms that he should "play with it," whereupon the old man took it
with a weary expression and could be heard jingling it obediently
at intervals throughout the day.
There can be no doubt, though, that the rattle bored him, and
that he found other and more soothing amusements when he was left
alone. For instance, Mr. Button discovered one day that during the
preceding week he had smoked more cigars than ever before—a
phenomenon, which was explained a few days later when, entering the
nursery unexpectedly, he found the room full of faint blue haze and
Benjamin, with a guilty expression on his face, trying to conceal
the butt of a dark Havana. This, of course, called for a severe
spanking, but Mr. Button found that he could not bring himself to
administer it. He merely warned his son that he would "stunt his
growth."
Nevertheless he persisted in his attitude. He brought home lead
soldiers, he brought toy trains, he brought large pleasant animals
made of cotton, and, to perfect the illusion which he was
creating—for himself at least—he passionately demanded of the clerk
in the toy-store whether "the paint would come oft the pink duck if
the baby put it in his mouth." But, despite all his father's
efforts, Benjamin refused to be interested. He would steal down the
back stairs and return to the nursery with a volume of the
Encyclopædia Britannica, over which he would pore through an
afternoon, while his cotton cows and his Noah's ark were left
neglected on the floor. Against such a stubbornness Mr. Button's
efforts were of little avail.
The sensation created in Baltimore was, at first, prodigious.
What the mishap would have cost the Buttons and their kinsfolk
socially cannot be determined, for the outbreak of the Civil War
drew the city's attention to other things. A few people who were
unfailingly polite racked their brains for compliments to give to
the parents—and finally hit upon the ingenious device of declaring
that the baby resembled his grandfather, a fact which, due to the
standard state of decay common to all men of seventy, could not be
denied. Mr. and Mrs. Roger Button were not pleased, and Benjamin's
grandfather was furiously insulted.
Benjamin, once he left the hospital, took life as he found it.
Several small boys were brought to see him, and he spent a
stiff-jointed afternoon trying to work up an interest in tops and
marbles—he even managed, quite accidentally, to break a kitchen
window with a stone from a sling shot, a feat which secretly
delighted his father.
Thereafter Benjamin contrived to break something every day, but
he did these things only because they were expected of him, and
because he was by nature obliging.
When his grandfather's initial antagonism wore off, Benjamin and
that gentleman took enormous pleasure in one another's company.
They would sit for hours, these two, so far apart in age and
experience, and, like old cronies, discuss with tireless monotony
the slow events of the day. Benjamin felt more at ease in his
grandfather's presence than in his parents'—they seemed always
somewhat in awe of him and, despite the dictatorial authority they
exercised over him, frequently addressed him as "Mr."
He was as puzzled as any one else at the apparently advanced age
of his mind and body at birth. He read up on it in the medical
journal, but found that no such case had been previously recorded.
At his father's urging he made an honest attempt to play with other
boys, and frequently he joined in the milder games—football shook
him up too much, and he feared that in case of a fracture his
ancient bones would refuse to knit.
When he was five he was sent to kindergarten, where he initiated
into the art of pasting green paper on orange paper, of weaving
colored maps and manufacturing eternal cardboard necklaces. He was
inclined to drowse off to sleep in the middle of these tasks, a
habit which both irritated and frightened his young teacher. To his
relief she complained to his parents, and he was removed from the
school. The Roger Buttons told their friends that they felt he was
too young.
By the time he was twelve years old his parents had grown used
to him. Indeed, so strong is the force of custom that they no
longer felt that he was different from any other child—except when
some curious anomaly reminded them of the fact. But one day a few
weeks after his twelfth birthday, while looking in the mirror,
Benjamin made, or thought he made, an astonishing discovery. Did
his eyes deceive him, or had his hair turned in the dozen years of
his life from white to iron-gray under its concealing dye? Was the
network of wrinkles on his face becoming less pronounced? Was his
skin healthier and firmer, with even a touch of ruddy winter
color? He could not tell. He knew that he no longer stooped, and
that his physical condition had improved since the early days of
his life.
"Can it be——?" he thought to himself, or, rather, scarcely dared
to think.
He went to his father. "I am grown," he announced determinedly.
"I want to put on long trousers."
His father hesitated. "Well," he said finally, "I don't know.
Fourteen is the age for putting on long trousers—and you are only
twelve."
"But you'll have to admit," protested Benjamin, "that I'm big
for my age."
His father looked at him with illusory speculation. "Oh, I'm not
so sure of that," he said. "I was as big as you when I was
twelve."
This was not true—it was all part of Roger Button's silent
agreement with himself to believe in his son's normality.
Finally a compromise was reached. Benjamin was to continue to
dye his hair. He was to make a better attempt to play with boys of
his own age. He was not to wear his spectacles or carry a cane in
the street. In return for these concessions he was allowed his
first suit of long trousers… .