The evolution of the plan had commenced earlier than Abraham Lockwood’s decision to stay out of Philadelphia society. In spite of his election to membership in The Ruffes he had not long deceived himself as to his actual standing in the off-campus life of his club-mates. He did not agree with Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) that manners and money make a gentleman, nor with the contemporary John Cardinal Newman that a gentleman was one who never inflicted pain. Abraham Lockwood’s association with the University bucks had taught him that Fuller was overly cynical and Newman not cynical enough, and that both had failed to define a gentleman. At the University, then in Washington, then in the post-bellum years, Abraham Lockwood had been evolving his plan with more thoroughness than the time he spent thinking about it might indicate. He had been fortunate in the kind of woman he made his wife—sound breeding, financially well off, adequately educated—but he realized at some undeterminable stage that his plan was not merely to raise his sons to be gentlemen. They would be gentlemen according to Fuller, but for them to be gentlemen was not the ultimate desideratum; it was only a phase, a step toward the family status in the generation that would succeed his sons’. Abraham Lockwood knew that his grandsons and great-grandsons would have no titles, but if his plan was successful, “Mr. Lockwood of Swedish Haven” would be sufficient, and he was becoming convinced that what he sought to achieve could be accomplished in the third generation, the second after his own.
Abraham Lockwood’s plan was more than a plan—which was only a method—and more than an ambition—which was only a desire. It was a Concern, in the Quaker sense of the term. Although he was not a Quaker, he had heard of the Concern, which was the name given to obsessive act or thought, or both, of a religious nature. A Quaker who accosted strangers on the street, a Quaker who used his money for special missionary purposes—each was said to be influenced by a Concern. Abraham Lockwood’s Concern was the establishment of a dynasty of his own line, beginning with Moses Lockwood, and apart from and independent of the 1630-Watertown line. He would proceed, and was already proceeding, with his Concern as the theme and motivation of his life and of the lives of his family. The gentlemanliness of his sons was not an end in itself but only a desirable, minor characteristic. Its place, its value in Abraham Lockwood’s Concern was quite possibly inferior to the place and value of the two fatal shootings in which Moses Lockwood had been involved. Assuming that his father had killed two men in cold blood, Abraham Lockwood felt no shame or even lasting embarrassment. Murder had never disqualified a family from a position in history; it was the method by which kings became kings, barons became dukes, and in the year 2000 the only Bundy and the only Lichtmann worth remembering might easily be the early Nineteenth Century victims of Moses Lockwood’s quickness on the trigger. Then, too, assuming that there would be a friendlier appraisal of Moses Lockwood, the historian could make much of the man’s bravery in the first Battle of Bull Run. For the present, Abraham Lockwood would have his father remembered as a hero and a man of action, for of such stuff is family pride fashioned; for the present and the near future Abraham Lockwood would have himself regarded as a man of business and leading citizen; for the more distant future he would have his sons regarded as gentlemen, men of affairs, patrons of the arts, third-generation leaders of their community and the first generation upon whom the national public would bestow the title, Lockwood of Swedish Haven. He sometimes hoped for more sons, so that he could direct them into the professions—the law, medicine, the clergy, the army—but a larger family naturally increased the chances of breeding a scoundrel, and he could not give to five or six boys the same supervision that he could concentrate on George and Penrose.
Abraham Lockwood, as stated, had heard of the Quaker Concern, and he was aware that his great plans could be called a Concern, but he did not so refer to them, or it. He gave no name to it. A concern. A cause. A campaign. A plan. A strategy. An obsession. A purpose. A mania—it did not matter that he gave it no name. It could have mattered if he had given it a name, since a designation, a definition would have inhibited his actions within the meaning of the name. It was so constantly in his thoughts and took so many forms of action that an action that could be called loving was sometimes followed by an action that could be called cruel, and neither modifier would be applicable to a third action. Since the Concern was Abraham Lockwood’s secret it did not need a name. Adelaide would have understood a father’s ambition to have George become a lawyer and Pen-rose a banker, but Abraham Lockwood could not make the daughter of Levi Hoffner understand the Concern, and he did not try. There was, after all, the danger that Adelaide might not agree with her husband’s plans for her sons’ future, and Abraham Lockwood had a respect for her potential influence. The boys loved her, and properly so. She was prettier than most mothers, she was strict but kindly, she bound their wounds and calmed their fears, and her education had not taken her so far from their mental level that she was unable to comprehend their small, daily discoveries. She was extremely useful to their well-being and as a symbol of gentle discipline, which prepared the boys for unquestioning obedience of their father’s orders. He could, moreover, count on her support even in situations where she was not sincerely on his side.
George wanted a dog, but Abraham Lockwood had seen dogs go mad with hydrophobia, racing up and down the street until someone brought out the shotgun. Therefore George was denied a dog, although Adelaide had all but given her consent to the purchase of the red setter that he asked for.
George did not want to go to school in Gibbsville, although the trip back and forth every day meant a ride on the railroad train. “Naturally, he doesn’t want to go to private school. The school he’s going to now doesn’t start till October and ends in April,” said Abraham Lockwood. “And if he stays in public school here, pretty soon you and I won’t be able to understand him, he’s so Dutchy.”
To Adelaide it did not seem fair that once a week George had to remain late in Gibbsville for his piano lesson with Professor Fischer. “He doesn’t get home any day before the four-twenty-five. That doesn’t give him much time to play with his chums,” she said.
“He has all the other afternoons and all day Saturday. You wish you could play the piano, and I wish I could,” said Abraham Lockwood. So matters stood until several months later.
“Poppa, George wants to tell you something,” said Adelaide one evening before supper.
The boy was flustered.
“Go ahead and tell Poppa,” said Adelaide. “I’ll leave you two alone.” She went out.
“What is it, son?”
“Poppa, I don’t like Professor kissing me all the time. He makes me sit on his lap and kisses me.”
“Professor Fischer?”
“Yes sir.”
“What else does he do?”
“He squeezes my behind.”
“In front, too? Your pecker?”
“Yes. He wants me to squeeze his pecker, too. I don’t like him. I don’t want to squeeze his pecker, but he makes me. Do I have to take piano lessons, Poppa?”
“You can stop taking them from Professor.”