THE PROFESSOR OF ODD JOBS.
An ancient man, hoary gray with eld.
--_Dante_.
The little house was situated right at the foot of the hill south of
Brudenell Hall.
Ishmael approached it from behind and walked around to the front. He
opened the little wooden gate of the front yard and saw seated in
the front door, enjoying that early autumn morning, a stalwart old
man, whose well-marked features and high forehead were set in a rim
of hair and beard as white as snow. A most respectable and
venerable-looking form, indeed, though the raiment that clothed it
was old and patched. But Ishmael had to look again before he could
recognize in this reverend personage the Professor of Odd Jobs.
A curiosity to know whether the professor would recognize him
induced Ishmael to approach him as a stranger. As he came into the
yard, however, Morris arose slowly, and, lifting his old felt hat,
bowed courteously to the supposed stranger.
"Your name is Morris, I believe," said Ishmael, by way of opening a
conversation.
But at the first word the professor started and gazed at his
visitor, and exclaiming: "Young Ishmael! Oh, my dear boy, how glad I
am to see you once more before I die!" burst into tears.
Ishmael went straight into his embrace, and the old odd-job man
pressed the young gentleman to his honest, affectionate heart.
"You knew me at once, professor," said Ishmael affectionately.
"Knew you, my boy!" burst out the old man, with enthusiasm. "Why, I
knew you as soon as ever you looked at me and spoke to me. I knew
you by your steady, smiling eyes and by your rich, sweet voice,
young Ishmael. No one has a look and a tone like yours."
"You think so because you like me, professor."
"And how you have grown! And they tell me that you have risen to be
a great lawyer? I knew it was in you to do it!" said the professor,
holding the young man off and gazing at him with all a father's
pride.
"By the blessing of Heaven, I have been successful, dear old
friend," said Ishmael affectionately; "but how has it been with you,
all these years?" he asked.
"How has it been with me? Ah, young Ishmael--I should say 'Mr.
Worth.'"
"Young Ishmael, professor."
"No, no; 'Mr. Worth.' I shall love you none the less by honoring you
more. And with me you are henceforth 'Mr. Worth.'"
"As you please, professor. But I hope it has been well with you all
these years?"
"Come in, Mr. Worth, and sit down and I will tell you."
The professor led the way into the humble dwelling. It was as neat
as ever, with its sanded floor, flag-bottom chairs, and pine
tables,--all of the professor's manufacture,--and its bright tinware
and clean crockery ranged in order on its well scrubbed shelves.
But its look of solitude struck a chill upon Ishmael's spirits.
"Where are they all, professor?" he inquired.
"Gone, Mr. Worth," answered Morris solemnly, as he placed a chair
for his guest.
"Gone! not dead!" exclaimed Ishmael, dropping into the offered seat.
"Not all dead, but all gone," answered the professor sadly, letting
himself sink into a seat near Ishmael.
"Your wife?" inquired the young man.
"There--and there," answered the professor, pointing first down and
then up; "her body is in the earth; her soul in heaven, I hope."
"And your daughters, professor?" inquired Ishmael, in a voice of
sympathy.
"Both married, Mr. Worth. Ann Maria married Lewis Digges, old
Commodore Burghe's boy that he set free before he died, and they
have moved up to Washington to better themselves, and they're doing
right well, as I hear. He drives a hack and she clear starches. They
have three children, two girls and a boy. I have never seen one of
them yet."
"And your other daughter?"
"Mary Ellen? She married Henry Parsons, a free man, by trade a
blacksmith, and they live in St. Inigoes. They have one child, a
boy. I haven't seen them either since they have been married."
"And you are quite alone?" said Ishmael, in a tender voice
"Quite alone, young Ishmael," answered the professor, who forgot on
this occasion to call his sometime pupil Mr. Worth.
"And how is business, professor?"
"Business has fallen off considerably; indeed I may say it has
fallen off altogether."
"I am very sorry to hear it. How is that, professor?"
"Why, you see, Mr. Worth, its falling off is the natural result of
time and progress, of which I cannot complain, and at which I ought
to rejoice. It was all very well for the neighborhood to patronize a
Jack of all trades like me when there was nothing better to be had;
but now you see there are lots of regular mechanics been gradually
coming down and settling here--carpenters and stone-masons and
painters and glaziers and plumbers and tinners and saddlers and
shoemakers, and what not. Law, why you might have seen their signs
as you rode through Baymouth."
"I did."
"Well, you see these mechanics, they have journeymen and apprentices
with their trades at their fingers' ends, and they can do their work
not only easier and quicker and better than I can, but even cheaper.
So I cannot complain that they have taken the custom of the
neighborhood from me."
"Professor, I really do admire the justice and forbearance of your
nature."
"Well, young Ishmael, there was another thing. I was getting too old
to tramp miles and miles through the country with a heavy pack on my
back, as I used to do."
"Well, then, I hope you have saved a little money, at least, old
friend, to make you comfortable in your old age," said Ishmael
feelingly.
The poor, old odd-job man looked up with a humorous twinkle in his
eye, as he replied:
"Why, law, young Ishmael, the idea of my saving money! When had I
ever a chance to do it in the best o' days? Why, Ishmael, they say
how ministers of the gospel and teachers of youth are the worst paid
men in the community; but I think, judging by my own case, that
professors are quite as poorly remunerated. It used to take
everything I could rake and scrape to keep my family together; and
so, young Ishmael, I haven't saved a dollar."
"Is that so?" asked Ishmael, in a voice of pain.
"True as gospel, young Ishmael--Mr. Worth."
"How then do you manage to live, Morris? I ask this from the kindest
of feelings."
"Don't I know it, young--Mr. Worth. Well, sir, I do an odd job once
in a while yet, for the colored people, and that keeps me from
starving," said the professor, with a smile.
Ishmael fell into a deep thought for a while, and then lifting his
head, said:
"Well, professor, you have been in your day and generation as useful
a man to your fellow-creatures as any other in this world. You have
contributed as much to the comfort and well-being of the community
in which you live as any other member of it! And you should not and
you shall not be left in your old age, either to suffer from want or
to live on charity--"
"I may suffer for want, Mr. Worth, but I never will consent to live
on charity!" said the odd-job man with dignity.
"That I am sure you never will, professor; though mind! I do not
believe it to be any degradation to live by charity when one cannot
live in any other way. For if all men are brethren should not the
able brother help the disabled brother, and that without humbling
him?"
"Yes; but I am not disabled, young--Mr. Worth. I am only disused."
"That is very true. And therefore I spoke as I did when I said just
now that you should not suffer from want nor live by charity. Listen
to me, professor. I have a proposition to make to you. Your
daughters are all married and your work is done; you are alone and
idle here. But you are not a mere animal to be tied down to one spot
of earth by local attachment. You are a very intelligent man with a
progressive mind. You will never stop improving, professor. You have
improved very much in the last few years. I notice it in your
conversation--"
"I am glad you think so, young--Mr. Worth! but I'm getting aged."
"What of that? You are 'traveling towards the light,' and after
improving all your life here you will go on progressing through all
eternity."
"Well, sir, that thought ought to be a great comfort to an old man."
"Yes. Now what I want to propose to you is this--I think you love
me, professor?"
"Love you, young--Mr. Worth! Why the Lord in heaven bless your dear
heart, I love you better than I do anything on the face of the
earth, and that's a fact," said the professor, with his face all in
a glow of feeling.
And all who knew him might have known that he spoke truth; for
though he was not in the least degree deficient in affection for his
daughters, yet his love of Ishmael amounted almost to idolatry.
"Dear old friend, I will prove to you some day how high a value I
set upon your love. I think, professor, that loving me, as you do,
you could live happily with me?"
"What did you say, young--Mr. Worth? I did not quite understand."
"I will be plain, professor. You have lived out your present life
here; it is gone. Now, instead of vegetating on here any longer,
come into another sphere, a more enlarged and active sphere, where
your thoughts as well as your hands will find employment and your
mind as well as your body have food."
"How is that to be done, young--Mr. Worth?"
"Come with me to Washington. I have a suite of three very pleasant
rooms in the house where I board. Now suppose you come and live with
me and take care of my rooms? Your services would be worth a good,
liberal salary, from which you would be enabled to live very
comfortably and save money."
"What, young Ishmael! Me! I go to Washington and live with you all
the time, day and night, under one roof! and live where I can get
books and newspapers and hear lectures and debates and see pictures
and models, and, in short, come at everything I have been longing to
reach all my life?"
"Yes, professor, that is what I propose to you."
"There! I used to say that you'd live to be a blessing to my
declining years, young--Mr. Worth (I declare I'll not forget myself
again), Mr. Worth! there! Do you really mean it, sir?"
"Really and truly."
"There, then, I am not going to be a hypocrite and pretend to
higgle-haggle about it. I'll go, sir; and be proud to do it; it will
be taking a new lease of life for me to go. Do you know, I never was
in a large city in all my life, though I have always longed to go?
Well, sir, I'll go with you. And I will serve you faithfully, sir;
for mine will be a service for love more than for money. And I will
never forget the proprieties so far as to call you anything else but
'Mr. Worth,' or 'sir,' in the presence of others, sir, though my
heart does betray me into calling you young Ishmael sometimes here."
"I shall leave here on Saturday morning. Can you be ready to go with
me as soon as that?"
"Of course I can, Mr. Worth. There's nothing for me to do in the way
of preparation but to pack my knapsack and lock my door," answered
this "Rough and Ready."
"Very well, then, professor, I like your promptitude. Meet me at
Brudenell Hall on Saturday morning at seven o'clock, and in the
meantime I will find a conveyance for you."
"All right; thank you, sir; I will be ready."
And Ishmael shook hands with the professor and departed, leaving him
hopeful and happy.
At the dinner-table that day, being questioned by his father,
Ishmael told him of the retainer he had engaged.
"Ah, my dear boy, it is just like you to burden yourself with the
presence and support of that poor old man, and persuade him--and
yourself, too, perhaps--that you are securing the services of an
invaluable assistant. And all with no other motive than his
welfare," said Mr. Brudenell.
"Indeed, sir, I think it will add to my happiness to have Morris
with me. I like and esteem the old man, and I believe that he really
will be of much use to me," replied the son.
"Well, I hope so, Ishmael; I hope so."
There was through all his talk a preoccupied air about Mr. Brudenell
that troubled his son, who at last said:
"I hope, sir, that you have received no unpleasant news by this
mail?"
"Oh, no; no, Ishmael! but I have had on my mind for several days
something of which I wish to speak to you--"
"Yes, sir?"
"Ishmael, since I have been down here I have followed your counsel.
I have gone about among my tenants and dependents, and--without
making inquiries--I have led them to speak of the long period of my
absence from my little kingdom, and of the manner in which Lady
Hurstmonceux administered its affairs. And, Ishmael, I have heard
but one account of her. With one voice the community here accord her
the highest praise."
"I told you so, sir."
"As a wife, though an abandoned one, as mistress of the house, and
as lady of the manor, she seems to have performed all her duties in
the most unexceptionable manner."
"Everyone knows that, sir."
"But still remains the charge not yet refuted."
"Because you have given her no chance to refute it, sir. Be just!
Put her on her defense, and my word for it, she will exonerate
herself," said Ishmael earnestly.
Mr. Brudenell shook his head.
"There are some things, Ishmael, that on the very face of them admit
of no defense," said Mr. Brudenell, with an emphasis that put an end
to the conversation.
Punctually at seven o'clock Saturday the professor, accoutered for a
journey, with knapsack on his back, presented himself at the
servant's door at Brudenell Hall.
His arrival being announced, Ishmael came out to meet him.
"Well, here I am, Mr. Worth; though how I am to travel I don't know.
I have walked, by faith, so far!" he said.
"All right, professor. Mr. Brudenell will lend me an extra horse."
And father and son took leave of each other with earnest wishes for
their mutual good.