Summary
In a snow-globed universe of bruised patrician pride, Lorenzo Todd—once a tow-haired boy flogged by Calvinist certainty, later a jilted swain—metastasizes into a granite-hearted colossus who weaponizes grudges like heirlooms. His emotional ledger contains four entries: Dudley Phillips, the friend-turned-rival who married the girl; Virginia, that union’s luminous daughter; Warren, his own restless seed; and the phantom ache of a love that curdled decades ago. Warren, primed to inherit both boardroom and bride, courts scandal with a chorus girl’s lawsuit, igniting a duel of filial philosophies: Dudley’s moral saber-rattling versus Todd’s swaggering approval of ‘ginger.’ The breach-of-promise suit detonates the engagement; fathers who once competed for a woman now compete for the right to forbid their children’s union. Banished, Warren vanishes into urban night, fracturing Todd’s last intact bond and shrinking the old man’s soul to a raisin. A physician’s ultimatum—Arizona or the grave—exiles the tycoon to a Christmas blizzard inside a trapper’s pine-scented hovel, where a wide-eyed boy preacher of snowflakes and starlight rekindles in him the ember of wonder. Miracles arrive by sled: Warren, chastened, materializes; Dudley and Dorothy track footprints of grace; Virginia extends forgiveness like a sacrament. The prodigal’s metamorphosis is signed in marriage vows, while the child-messiah who thawed a millionaire’s heart inherits the kingdom of capital.
Synopsis
Lorenzo Todd, in his childhood had been strictly dealt with; in his youth the girl he loved deserted him; and, growing into manhood, he became morose and grouchy. The only ones he cared for were Dudley Phillips, his youthful rival for the love of the girl Phillips married; her daughter Virginia; and his own son Warren. Virginia and Warren were betrothed and Warren was sowing his last "wild oats" before settling down and becoming a partner in his father's business. Dudley objected to Warren's pranks, while Todd liked the idea of his boy displaying a little "ginger." Finally, Warren was sued by a chorus girl for breach of promise and Dudley declared that he should never marry Virginia, while Todd declared he would not allow Warren to marry her. When Warren told his father that he still intended to make Virginia his wife or leave home forever, Todd told him to go and when he left Todd's soul shriveled even smaller, and he became more of a grouch than ever, until his heart was actually affected and the doctor ordered him to go to Arizona. While he is snowbound in a trapper's cabin at Christmas, a little boy makes him rejoice in the realization of God's great works, and touches the spring that opens his shriveled soul. Fate restores Warren to his father, and Dudley, having heard of Todd's predicament, takes Dorothy with him; there is a general reunion. Warren thoroughly cured of his wildness, completes the pact that he and Virginia had made: and the boy, who had been the cause of Todd's rejuvenation, starts life as a millionaire.
