GEORGE AND FANNIE ALDEN.
George Alden resided in a neat little cottage on a side street. His
house was presided over by his sister Fannie, his senior by ten years.
The dwelling, in no way pretentious, was simple in all its appointments,
and the very perfection of neatness. The little parlor was not elegant,
but all about were to be seen evidences of the cultivated taste of its
occupants.
The tables were covered with books of poems from both early and later
authors, while many classical works could be seen upon the shelves of
a pretty but quaint mahogany bookcase that rose from floor to ceiling
on one side of the apartment. The handsomest piece of furniture in the
house was a large square piano. On entering we behold a dark-haired lady
sitting before the instrument, while her fingers glide over the ivory
keys.
The performer is lost in her delightful pastime, her face glowing
with enthusiasm, and, the last strain finished, she rises from the
instrument, and we behold the sister of George Alden.
A lady of medium height, slightly built, with dark hair and eyes;
goodness and intelligence are written on every lineament of her
countenance. In early life her father was able to give her many
advantages; with a natural taste for music, she became mistress of
the pianoforte, and when her father's physical energies failed,
was obliged to teach music for the support of the family. A noble
girl--self-sacrificing to an extraordinary degree. When she announced
through the village papers, ten years before our story opened, her
desire for scholars in instrumental music, the good people of Cleverdale
responded with alacrity.
The family at that time consisted of the parents and the children,
Fannie and George, the latter a boy of fourteen. Attending the
Cleverdale Academy, at the age of sixteen he was graduated with all the
honors the institution afforded. He was a model youth, and on leaving
school possessed a little fund of two hundred and fifty dollars, earned
after school hours by keeping books for a Cleverdale merchant.
His sister, his adviser in everything, possessed a decided character
and excellent judgment. She had unbounded confidence in her brother.
Assisting him in his studies, she inculcated right ideas of independence
in his mind, and taught him the value of self-reliance and education. A
great reader herself, she had, by example and conversation, succeeded
in bringing him to such a delight in histories, travels, and general
literature, that he was considered an unusually well-informed young man.
When George Alden finished his common-school education he desired to
enter college, but his little savings would scarce allow him to enjoy
the fruition of that hope.
His sister succeeded in obtaining a large music class, while her mother
attended to the household duties with such aid as her daughter could
give, and Fannie was not only able to earn sufficient to provide the
family with necessary comforts, but from time to time placed small sums
of money in the savings bank. Foreseeing that George, with his ambition
to become a scholar, would desire to enter college, to assist him she
denied herself many of the luxuries that all young ladies naturally
enjoy.
Thoroughly devoted to her parents, she always said she should never
leave them so long as either required her services. Perhaps her
resolution would not have been so well preserved if a bullet from a
Southern rifle during the war of the Rebellion had not entered the heart
of a young Captain of a Cleverdale Company.
At seventeen, George was ready to enter college. With his sister's
savings of two hundred dollars added to his own fortune of two hundred
and fifty, with an additional sum of one hundred and fifty earned during
the past year, he bade farewell to home and friends to enter upon his
collegiate course.
Time passed and the boy rose rapidly in his classes. The father's health
continued to fail; his mind becoming wholly lost, he was indeed dead to
his friends long before the dissolution of body and soul. Although he
was a great care to his daughter, the patient girl never complained,
but ministered to his wants with as much gentleness as if he were a
child. One day the poor broken-down machinery refused to work, and
before George could be summoned home the vital spark had fled, and death
completed the work begun nearly two years before.
Fannie now resumed her music class, while George, through his own
efforts of teaching and doing such work as he could get, was enabled to
continue his course at college. Two years later he was graduated with
high honors, and returning home found his mother much changed in health,
while his sister showed evident signs of fatigue. It then came with full
force to him that he must give up the idea of a profession, temporarily
at least, and seek employment that would furnish him an immediate
income. Unlike many college-educated young men, he did not expect to
command a high position, but became salesman with the merchant whose
book-keeper he had been previous to entering college.
One year later, the teller in the Cleverdale bank resigning, George
Alden was appointed to the position, where we find him at the beginning
of this story.
It was not long before the mother followed the father. The two orphans
mourned the death of their parents; and after a few months of rest
Fannie recovered from her fatigue.
George would not at first give consent to her resuming the music class,
which she had been obliged to relinquish on account of her mother's
illness, but when she declared and insisted that she should be much
happier if allowed to help support the little household, he relented,
and she was again at her work teaching music.
The little house their parents left was encumbered with a mortgage,
which was finally paid, and it became the property of the brother and
sister. Belle Hamblin loved the noble-hearted Fannie, although the
latter was much her senior. Fannie Alden was her ideal of a true woman.
She knew all about the ties that bound Belle and George together, and
also knew of Senator Hamblin's opposition to her brother's suit. Often
thinking of what "might have been," if a bullet had not cut off a life
so dear to her, she said to George:
"Have patience and all will come right. You are both young and can
wait." She thought the hard-hearted father would some time realize that
his daughter's happiness was of more consequence than his own ambition.
When George Alden heard that Sargent was to enter the bank as teller he
threatened to resign, but his sister said:
"Resign! no, George, that must not be done. You can preserve your own
honor, and if the new teller is not honest his character will soon be
known. Your duty is to remain and not throw away your opportunity,
because your employers have chosen to hire a man in whom you have no
confidence."
"Fannie, I cannot work with a rascal, and I believe Sargent to be one.
Would an honest man make such a statement against another as he made
against Senator Hamblin, and then follow it by another, swearing the
first was false? I should constantly feel that such a man would do
something dishonorable, and perhaps get me into trouble. I cannot drive
the impression from my mind, that if Sargent ever comes into the bank as
teller there will be some complication."
"Take care of your own work, and you can keep yourself free from
trouble," she replied.
George Alden could not drive these thoughts from his mind, for he looked
upon Sargent as his evil genius, and was unable to conceal the fact that
he had no confidence in the man. Several times on returning from dinner
he found the teller engaged in looking over his books, and once asked
what he was doing, but Sargent only replied:
"I am posting myself thoroughly on the whole system of banking."
Two weeks before Senator Hamblin was to take his seat in the Senate
Chamber at Albany, a disaster occurred in Cleverdale, which we will
relate in the next chapter.