TWO BAD CASES.
Old Capt. Elliott, so the people called him, could not climb a certain
stairway. That was not so strange, for it was the stairway of a new
life, and amendment is sometimes the hardest thing one can attempt.
And yet it does not seem as if a little piece of paper, would have so
hindered Capt. Elliott—a little piece of paper in his pocket—for it
bore him down as if it had been a mill–stone round his neck, and climb,
he could not. Say rather, climb he _would_ not. The facts were these.
He had been very much agitated by the services at the Hall. They were a
glass to his soul, in which he had looked, and had seen what a needy,
miserable being he was. He resolved he would begin a new life, and he
climbed one step in that stairway—the step of prayer. He thought he
had climbed another step, which is just as important, repentance; that
he had begun to leave behind him old sins and was on the way to speedy
improvement. But a call one evening from Miss P. Green led him to think
otherwise. She suddenly appeared at his door, interrupting him while he
was praying, her bright eyes flashing and her little curls dancing, and
handing him a letter, remarked, “I found this in the mail, Cap’n, and
none of your folks were down, and as I was over this way, I thought I
would bring it along.”
“Thank ye,” he replied gruffly, and taking the proffered note, he
turned away, leaving Miss P. Green on the broad stone steps before his
door.
She withdrew her bright eyes and her dancing little curls, saying,
“There, I should have thought he might have said, ‘It’s from
so–and–so.’ That would have been some pay; but _I_ know! It’s from
Boardman Blake. I can tell his handwriting a mile off. I wonder what he
is writing for, when he might come himself.”
Capt. Elliott also wondered; but some things we can say better with our
pens than we can with our tongues, and this was Boardman’s situation.
The old man forced open the envelope with his big fingers, and read
this:
“CAPT. ELLIOTT;
“_Dear Sir_,—I am aware that the time on my mortgage is up, and I know
you have a right to come over and take my house. I thought perhaps you
might give me a little time, as it is very hard just now to raise any
money. If you could do this, it would be a great favor to me. I am a
good deal worried about it, and am sorry you can’t have your money.
Hoping you can oblige me, I am,
“Truly yours,
“BOARDMAN BLAKE.”
“Can’t pay!” sneered the captain. “How does he get money to live on?
How does he s’pose I can live? Wants a little time? Well, hasn’t he had
it? It is that old mill into which his money has gone, and now he wants
more time. Nonsense!”
Capt. Elliott put the document in his pocket and tried to pray once
more, but he couldn’t. The step he wanted to climb up was so hard,
or rather that paper in his pocket was so weighty! “A little time,”
he kept mumbling to himself. Gray–headed old man, chafing because a
worried neighbor begged him not to take his house, but give him a
little time in which to attempt payment, while he himself was only
a beggar at God’s throne, and had not that Heavenly Father given
him a long time for repentance? Who was he, thus gripping another
unfortunate by the neck and refusing him the solicited favor? Get up
from your knees, Capt. Elliott. Stop your praying and go to writing.
Tell Boardman Blake he shall have his “little time.” Then kneel again
and ask God to have mercy on you, an undeserving old beggar. As it is,
that note in your pocket clogs your progress, holds you down and holds
you back. You thought you were getting along rapidly, and had mounted
several stairs and were up quite high. Now you feel bruised and sore,
and down in the depths, as if you had had a tumble and were lying at
the foot of the stairway again. A bad case indeed.
Ah, God will not take us unless we come to him whole–hearted in our
desire to serve Him, and not only ready to give up every sin, but
actually giving it up, letting go old grudges, willing to do the just
and honest and generous thing by our neighbor. Then He takes us up in
His arms and calls us, “Son, Daughter!”
Another bad case, and that very day too. The day was not stormy, and
yet threatening. The sea looked cold, and the white crests of the
waves were like patches of snow, pure but chilling, while between
these wintry tufts were black hollows of water. A mist had advanced
so far toward the station that the shore could not be inspected from
the lookout two miles either way. The patrols were on duty therefore,
and Walter was at the Crescent end of the beach, as that part facing
the rocks in the river was called. Wrapped in his thick, warm fisher
jacket, he faced the keen, chilly though not violent wind blowing from
the north–east. Now he made broad footprints in the gray sand with his
big rubber boots, then he stumbled over rocks matted with the rich
brown of the sea–weed, or some bold encroachment of the sea would
compel him to withdraw to the top of a high wall of rock. He was near
the end of his beat, and halted a moment to watch the play of the waves
about the Chair.
He soon became aware of the presence of another spectator, somebody
looking in the same direction. It was a man leaning upon a bulky rock
projecting from the sands. As soon as Walter saw his bending form,
the broad back, the strong shoulders supporting a round head, and
noticed that he was a person of short stature, he exclaimed, “That’s
the man! That’s the way the man looked whom I saw one morning in Uncle
Boardman’s store, standing behind the counter as if handling the books
on those shelves. I have been hunting for him all this time. Yes,
that’s—” The man here turned quickly about, and involuntarily Walter
added, and said it aloud, “Baggs!”
“Hum, did you want me?” replied Baggs rather ungraciously.
“Oh!” said Walter confusedly. “Beg your pardon, Mr. Baggs. Good
morning!”
“Well, no, I should think it was a bad morning. I want to know why you
are interrupting me.”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I am on my beat, and I only wish to
attend to that. I saw you looking at the Chair, and I was looking at it
myself.”
“Well, can’t a man look at the Chair and not be interrupted?” replied
Baggs, with a good deal of warmth.
“Oh, yes, and I can too,” said Walter, who was not the person to
be crowded when in the discharge of his duties. He felt that he
represented the whole Life Saving Service of the Atlantic coast, and
he was not willing that Baggs or any one else should do anything that
looked like interference. “I suppose,” added Walter, “I looked at you
rather hard, for you made me think of a man who mysteriously appeared
and then disappeared in my uncle’s store one morning.” The next
moment, Walter was saying to himself, “There, I did not intend to say
that. Just like me to let a thing out.”
Walter’s impulsive nature could not easily retain in concealment
anything that interested him. It was like an arrow on the string of a
drawn bow, and fly it might, any moment. Baggs was disposed to let fly
something also.
“Then you haven’t forgotten that, have you?” he said testily. “What
do you suppose a man would want in there, at that time? He couldn’t
be stealin’, for I’d like to know what your uncle has got in there
that’s worth stealin’, or got anywhere as to that matter. No, sir, I
wasn’t the man. My mission is not that of a thief,” said the pure and
lofty Baggs, striking an attitude designed to be majestic, but which
only made more conspicuous the awkward proportions of his thick, squat
figure.
“If you had let my uncle alone,” exclaimed Walter very decidedly, “he
would have had something that might have been worth the envying.”
“Are you going to teach _me_, sir?”
“No, I am going about my business,” replied Walter coolly, “for I can’t
stay here any longer.”
“Well, sir, another time don’t interrupt anybody looking off.”
“I am willing any one should look at the Chair all day, Mr. Baggs. Good
day, sir.”
Walter had said, “Well, I’ll treat him decently anyway,” but his last
remark had an effect that does not generally follow “decent” remarks.
Baggs trembled with excitement, blustered, almost foamed, and inquired
stammeringly, “Why—why should I—look at—the Chair? Why—why—what
have I done—to it—why—what have I done to the Chair? You, you’re
mistaken, sir, you—”
Walter turned away in silence and walked on to the end of his beat.
Baggs remained, muttering to himself as he looked toward the ill–omened
rocks. When he did leave, he took the road leading to the village,
passed through The Harbor and then followed the winding line of the
water up to the mill.
“My nephew!” he exclaimed, and stopped as that brisk vigorous young
trader approached.
“Not much trade stirring to–day,” remarked Chauncy, rubbing his hands.
“Won’t be in this hole,” replied the uncle gloomily.
“Oh, yes,” said Chauncy encouragingly, “it will come, it will come.
Fact is, the weather is against us. You can’t force a market against
the weather.”
The two had halted near the water. Just beyond their feet, in a little
curve of the shore, the water suddenly deepened. The boys of the
neighborhood called it the “Pool,” and sometimes used it as a bathing
tub.
“There are too many people that are against us ever to expect much,
Chauncy.”
“What do you mean, uncle?”
“Well,” said Baggs, dropping his voice and moving his head nearer to
Chauncy’s ear as if afraid that somebody might hear him, “there is that
Walter Plympton. I think he knows more than is good for our business.
He must somehow be forced out of the neighborhood. As I understand it,
he will not be at the station long, but he must not stay here at all. I
will get his old booby uncle to send him home; and I want you, nephew”
(he always said this when he wished to be affectionate, and sincerely
affectionate he never was), “I want you, nephew, to say round here and
there, you know, that you—don’t think he is much of a feller—indeed
you know of his bein’—bein’—”
“Being what, uncle?” asked Chauncy eying sharply his relative.
“Well, if you don’t just know, get up something. Well—”
“Get up what, uncle?”
“Well, now, at the ’cademy, wasn’t there some scrape, wasn’t there
drinkin’, wasn’t there—”
Chauncy was flippant and conceited and brassy, and he had veneered
certain of his uncle’s tricks of trade with the name “business
methods,” and had practiced them as the customary thing among shrewd,
enterprising men, and therefore permissible. Chauncy was not base
enough to spatter with lies the character of one whom he knew to be
trustworthy. He had rather avoided Walter since the boat–race, but he
could not deliberately go to work to ruin his character. Chauncy now
mildly demurred; but at the same time, he lifted his cap and stroked
those formidable locks of hair, and that meant a pugnacious attitude, a
very decided, “I won’t.”
“Oh, I don’t believe I would, uncle,” said Chauncy. “I don’t really
know anything against Walter. He’s a sort of a Puritan, and thinks
considerable of Walter Plympton; but we all of us have a pretty good
idea of ourselves. Guess I wouldn’t,” and he added a title sometimes
used among the great man’s relatives, “Uncle Bezzie.”
This fond uncle was not in a mood to be contradicted, and then patted
with a soft title. He turned fiercely on Chauncy, his face swelling
and darkening, his crooked eye flashing, and his voice roughening.
“What are you—you—makin’ opposition for? Who raised you,—who—raised
you, sir,—yes, raised from—from obscurity, and gave you a place
in—in—a fust class mercantile house? What—why—do you oppose for?
You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir, yes—and—take that.”
The uncle here lost control of the temper hidden behind the usually
mild voice. He lost control of himself altogether, for advancing toward
the astonished Chauncy, who was peacefully but decidedly rubbing his
lofty knob of hair, he suddenly and violently pushed his beloved nephew
over into the water. There was a fearful agitation, for a few moments,
down in that hitherto peaceful pool; but Chauncy soon crawled out of
the unexpected bath.
“That’s—that’s mean!” he ejaculated, spitting the water from his mouth
and shaking it off from his dripping clothes. Baggs, though, did not
hear him. He was angrily moving away.