"KATE, Kate!" said Aunt Prudence, shaking her head and finger at the
giddy girl.
"It's true, aunt. What! marry a tailor? The ninth part of a man,
that doubles itself down upon a board, with thimble, scissors, and
goose! Gracious!"
"I've heard girls talk before now, Kate; and I've seen them act,
too; and, if I am to judge from what I've seen, I should say that
you were as likely to marry a tailor as anybody else."
"I'd hang myself first!"
"Would you?"
"Yes, or jump into the river. Do any thing, in fact, before I'd
marry a tailor."
"Perhaps you would not object to a merchant tailor?"
"Perhaps I would, though! A tailor's a tailor, and that is all you
can make of him. 'Merchant tailor!' Why not say merchant shoemaker,
or merchant boot-black? Isn't it ridiculous?"
"Ah well, Kate," said Aunt Prudence, "you may be thankful if you get
an honest, industrious, kind-hearted man for a husband, be he a
tailor or a shoemaker. I've seen many a heart-broken wife in my day
whose husband was not a tailor. It isn't in the calling, child, that
you must look for honour or excellence, but in the man. As Burns
says--'The man's the goud for a' that.'"
"But a _man_ wouldn't stoop to be a tailor."
"You talk like a thoughtless, silly girl, as you are, Kate. But time
will take all this nonsense out of you, or I am very much mistaken.
I could tell you a story about marrying a tailor, that would
surprise you a little."
"I should like, above all things in the world, to hear a story of
any interest, in which a tailor was introduced."
"I think I could tell you one."
"Please do, aunt. It would be such a novelty. A very _rara avis_, as
brother Tom says. I shall laugh until my sides ache."
"If you don't cry, Kate, I shall wonder," said Aunt Prudence,
looking grave.
"Cry? oh, dear! And all about a tailor! But tell the story, aunt."
"Some other time, dear."
"Oh, no. I'm just in the humour to hear it now. I'm as full of fun
as I can stick, and shall need all this overflow of spirits to keep
me up while listening to the pathetic story of a tailor."
"Perhaps you are right, Kate. It may require all the spirits you can
muster," returned Aunt Prudence, in a voice that was quite serious.
"So I will tell you the story now."
And Aunt Prudence thus began:
A good many years ago,--I was quite a young girl then,--two children
were left orphans, at the age of eleven years. They were
twins--brother and sister. Their names I will call Joseph and Agnes
Fletcher. The death of their parents left them without friends or
relatives; but a kind-hearted tailor and his wife, who lived
neighbours, took pity on the children and gave them a home. Joseph
was a smart, intelligent lad, and the tailor thought he could do no
better by him than to teach him his trade. So he set him to work
with the needle, occasionally sent him about on errands, and let him
go to school during the slack season. Joseph was a willing boy, as
well as attentive, industrious, and apt to learn. He applied himself
to his books and also to his work, and thereby gave great
satisfaction to the good tailor. Agnes was employed about the house
by the tailor's wife, who treated her kindly.
As Joseph grew older, he became more useful to his master, for he
rapidly acquired a knowledge of his trade, and did his work
remarkably well. At the same time, a desire to improve his mind made
him studious and thoughtful. While other boys were amusing
themselves, Joseph was alone with his book. At the age of eighteen
he had grown quite tall, and was manly in his appearance. He had
already acquired a large amount of information on various subjects,
and was accounted by those who knew him a very intelligent young
man. About this time, a circumstance occurred that influenced his
whole after-life. He had been introduced by a friend to several
pleasant families, which he visited regularly. In one of these
visits, he met a young lady, the daughter of a dry-goods dealer,
toward whom he felt, from the beginning, a strong attachment. Her
name was Mary Dielman. Led on by his feelings, he could not help
showing her some attention, which she evidently received with
satisfaction. One evening, he was sitting near where she was
chatting away at a lively rate, in the midst of a gay circle of
young girls, and, to his surprise, chagrin, and mortification, heard
her ridiculing, as you too often do, the business at which he was
serving an apprenticeship.
"Marry a tailor!" he heard her say, in a tone of contempt. "I would
drown myself first."
This was enough. Joseph's feelings were like the leaves of a
sensitive plant. He did not venture near the thoughtless girl during
the evening, and whenever they again met, he was distant and formal.
Still, the thought of her made the blood flow quicker through his
veins, and the sight of her made his heart throb with a sudden
bound.
From that time, Joseph, who had looked forward with pleasure to the
period when, as a man, he could commence his business, and prosecute
it with energy and success, became dissatisfied with the trade he
was learning. The contemptuous words of Mary Dielman made him feel
that there was something low in the calling of a tailor--something
beneath the dignity of a man. He did not reason on the subject; he
only felt. Gradually he withdrew himself from society, and shut
himself up at home, devoting all his leisure to reading and study.
This was continued until he attained the age of manhood, soon after
which he procured the situation of clerk in a dry-goods store. At
his trade he could easily earn twelve dollars a week; but he left
it, because he was silly enough to be ashamed of it, and went into a
dry-goods store at a salary of four hundred dollars a year. As a
clerk he felt more like a man. Why he should, is more than I can
comprehend. But so it was.
As for Mary Dielman, she was not aware, at the time when she felt so
pleased with the attentions of Joseph Fletcher, that he was a
tailor--a calling for which she always expressed the most supreme
contempt. Her thoughtless words were not, therefore, meant for his
ears. The fact that she had uttered them was not remembered ten
minutes after they were spoken. Why she no longer met the
fine-looking, attentive and intelligent young man, she did not know.
Often she thought of him, and often searched the room for him, with
her eyes, when in company.
Nearly four years passed before they again met. Then Joseph was
greatly improved, and so was the beautiful maiden. The
half-extinguished fire of love, that had been smouldering in their
bosoms, rekindled, and now burned with a steady flame. They saw each
other frequently, and it was not long before the young man told her
all that was in his heart, and she heard the story with tremulous
delight.
The father of Mary, although a merchant, was not nearly so well off
in the world as many tailors. His family was expensive and drew too
heavily upon his income. The capital employed in trade was therefore
kept low, and his operations were often crippled for want of
adequate means. He had nothing, therefore, to settle upon his
daughter. When young Fletcher applied for her hand, his salary was
five hundred dollars. Mr. Dielman thought his prospects not over
flattering, but still gave his consent; at the same time advising
him not to think of marriage for a year or two, when he would no
doubt be in a better condition to take a wife.
The young couple, like most young couples, were impatient to be
married; and Joseph Fletcher, in order to be in a condition that
would justify him in talking a wife, was impatient to go into
business. Somehow or other, it had entered his mind that any young
man of business capacity and enterprise could do well in the West;
and he finally made up his mind to take a stock of goods, which he
found no difficulty in obtaining, and go to Madison, in Indiana.
Before starting, however, he engaged to return in six months, or so
soon as he was fairly under way, and make Mary his wife. At the time
named, he was back, when the marriage took place, and he returned
with his bride to Madison.
At the trade of a tailor, the young man had served an apprenticeship
of seven years. He was a good workman, and had, during the last two
years of his apprenticeship, assisted his master in cutting; so that
in the art to which he was educated he was thoroughly at home; and,
in setting it up, would have been sure of success. But success was
by no means so certain a thing in the new pursuit unwisely adopted.
He had been familiar with it for only about two years; in that time
he had performed his part as a clerk to the entire satisfaction of
his employers; but he had not gained sufficient knowledge of the
principles of trade, nor was his experience enlarged enough to
justify his entering into business, especially as he did not possess
a dollar of real capital. The result was as might have been
expected. A year and a half of great difficulty and anxiety was all
the time required to bring his experiment to a close.
Finding that he was in difficulty, two or three of his principal
eastern creditors, whose claims were due, sent out their accounts to
a lawyer, With directions to put them in suit immediately. This
brought his affairs to a crisis. An arrangement was made for the
benefit of all the creditors, and the young man thrown out of
business, with less than a hundred dollars in his pocket. Nearly
about the same time, Mr. Dielman, the father of his wife, failed
likewise.
As a serious loss has been sustained by his eastern creditors on
account of the unfortunate termination of his business, Fletcher
could not think of going back. He therefore sought to obtain
employment as a clerk in Madison. Failing in this, he visited
Louisville and Cincinnati, but with no better success. He was
unknown in the two last-named cities, and therefore his failure to
obtain employment there was no matter of surprise.
Things now wore a very serious aspect. A few weeks found the unhappy
young man reduced to the extremity of breaking up and selling his
furniture by auction in order to get money to live upon. There was
scarcely a store in Madison at which he had not sought for
employment. But all his efforts proved vain. He had a good trade;
why, you will ask, did he not endeavour to get work at that? You
forget. It was the trade of a tailor!--the calling so despised by
his wife. How could he own to her that he was but a tailor! How
could he break to her the disgraceful truth that she had married a
tailor!
The money obtained by selling their furniture did not last a very
long time.
"I will make another effort to obtain employment in Cincinnati,"
said the young man, after they were reduced almost to their last
dollar. "It is useless to try any longer in this place. I have
waited and hoped for some favourable turn of fortune, until my heart
is sick."
His wife made no objection, for she had none to make.
On the next day, Fletcher left for Cincinnati. He arrived there in
the night. On the following morning, he left the hotel at which he
had stopped, and, going into Main street, entered the first
merchant-tailor's shop that came in his way.
"Have you any work?" he asked.
"We have room for a journeyman, and are in want of one. Can you do
the best work?"
"I can."
"Did you serve your time in the city?"
"No. I am from the East."
"Very well. Here is a job all ready. You can go to work at once."
The young man did not hesitate. He took the bundle of work that was
given him, and was shown into the back shop. He wrote home
immediately that he had obtained employment, which he hoped would be
permanent, and that he would be in Madison, Saturday about midnight,
and leave again on Sunday evening. He did not say, however, what
kind of employment he had procured. That was a secret he meant, if
possible, to conceal. When he met his wife, he evaded her direct
questions as to the kind of employment he was engaged in, somewhat
to her surprise.
For a month, Fletcher went and returned from Cincinnati, weekly,
bringing home about eight dollars each week, after paying all his
expenses. By that time, his wife insisted so strongly upon going to
Cincinnati with him, and taking boarding, that he could make no
reasonable objection to the step. And so they removed, Fletcher
feeling many serious misgivings at heart, lest his wife should make
a discovery of the truth that she had married only a tailor!
"Where did you say the store was at which you are employed?" she
asked, a day or two after they were comfortably settled at a very
pleasant boarding-house in Cincinnati.
"On Main street," replied Fletcher, a little coldly.
"What is the name of the firm? I forget."
"Carter & Cassard."
Fletcher could not lie outright to his wife, so he told her the
truth, but with great reluctance.
No more was said then on the subject. About a week afterward, Mrs.
Fletcher said to her husband, "I was along Main street to-day, and
looked at the signs over every dry-goods store that I passed, but I
did not see that of Carter & Cassard."
In spite of all he could do, the blood rushed to the face of the
young man, and his eyes fell under the steady look directed toward
him by his wife.
"The store is there, nevertheless," said he. His manner and the tone
in which he spoke excited in the mind of his wife a feeling of
surprise.
For the next four days, there was a strong conflict in Fletcher's
mind between false pride and duty. It grieves me to say that, in the
end, the former conquered. On Saturday night, he came home with a
troubled look, and told his wife that he had lost his situation,
which he said had only been a temporary one. In this he certainly
went beyond the truth, for he had given it up voluntarily.
The poor young creature's heart sank in her. They had only been in
Cincinnati about two weeks; were among entire strangers, and all
means of subsistence were again taken from them. It is no wonder
that she wept bitterly upon receiving this sudden and distressing
intelligence. To see his wife in tears filled the heart of Fletcher
with the severest pangs. He more than half repented of what he had
done. But the thought of confessing that he was only a tailor made
him firm in his resolution to meet any consequence rather than that.
"He was a fool!" exclaimed Kate, no longer able to restrain her
indignation against the young man, and thus breaking in upon her
aunt's narrative.
"But remember, Kate, how contemptuously he had heard her speak of
his trade, and even vow that she would rather drown herself than
marry a tailor."
"Suppose she did say this, when a thoughtless girl"--
"As you are, Kate."
"Don't bring me into the matter, aunt. But suppose she did say so,
is that any reason for his starving her? He was bound to use his
best efforts for the support of his family, and ought to have been
thankful, under the circumstances, that he was a tailor."
"So I think. And his wife ought to have been thankful too."
"And I suppose she would have been if he had possessed the manliness
to tell her the truth."
"No doubt in the world of that," returned Aunt Prudence, and then
resumed her narrative:
A week was spent by the young man in another vain effort to find
employment as a clerk. Then he avowed his intention to go to
Louisville, and see if nothing could be done there.
"Try longer here, Joseph. Don't go away yet," earnestly and tearfully
pleaded his wife. "You don't know how hard it is for me to be
separated from you. I am lonely through the day, and the nights
pass, oh! so heavily. Something may turn up for you here. Try for a
while longer."
"But our money is nearly all gone. If I don't go now, I shall have
no means of getting away from this place. I feel sure that I can
find something to do there."
His wife pleaded with him, but in vain. To Louisville he went, and
there got work at the first shop to which he made application. At
the end of a week he sent his wife money, and told her that he had
procured temporary employment. She wrote back asking if she might
not join him immediately. But to this he objected, on the score
that, as his situation was not a permanent one, he might, in a few
weeks, be obliged to leave Louisville and go somewhere else. This,
to his wife, was by no means satisfactory. But she could do no less
than submit.
Thus separated, they lived for the next three months, Fletcher
visiting his wife and child once every two weeks, and spending
Sunday with them. During the time, he made good wages. But both
himself and wife were very unhappy. Earnestly did the latter plead
with her husband to be allowed to remove to Louisville. To this
however, he steadily objected. Daily he lived in the hope of
securing a clerkship in some store, and thus, being able to rise
above the low condition in which he was placed. The moment he
reached that consummation, so much desired, he would instantly
remove his family.
At length, it happened that Fletcher did not write once, instead of
several times, during one of the periods of two weeks that he was
regularly absent. The Sunday morning when he was expected home
arrived, but it did not bring, as usual, his anxiously looked-for
presence. His wife was almost beside herself with alarm. No letter
coming on Monday, she took her child and started for Louisville in
the first boat. She arrived at daylight, on Tuesday morning, in a
strange city, herself a total stranger to all therein, except her
husband, and perfectly ignorant as to where he was to be found. The
captain of the steamboat kindly attended her to a boarding-house,
and there she was left, without a single clue in her mind as to the
means of finding her husband. Inquiries were made of all in the
boarding-house, but no one had heard even the name of Joseph
Fletcher. As soon as she could make arrangements to get out, Mrs.
Fletcher visited all the dry-goods stores in the city, for in some
one of these she supposed her husband to be employed, although he
had never stated particularly the kind of business in which he was
engaged. This search, after being continued for a greater part of
the day, turned out fruitless. Night found the unhappy wife in an
agony of suspense and alarm. Some one at the boarding-house advised
her to have an advertisement for her husband inserted in a morning
paper. She did not hesitate long about this course. In the morning,
a brief advertisement appeared; and about nine o'clock a man called
and asked to see her.
She descended from her room to the parlour with a wildly throbbing
heart, but staggered forward and sank into a chair, weak almost as
an infant, when she saw that the man was a stranger, instead of her
husband, whom she had expected to meet.
"Are you Mrs. Fletcher?" he asked.
"I am," she faintly replied.
"You advertised for information in regard to your husband?"
"I did. Where is he? Oh, sir, has any thing happened to him?"
"No, ma'am, nothing serious. He has only been sick for a week or ten
days; that is, the man I refer to has. Your husband is a tailor?"
"Is the man you speak of a tailor?" eagerly asked Mrs. Fletcher.
"He is, ma'am; and has been working for me at No.--Fourth street."
"Then he is not my husband," replied the poor wife, bursting into
tears. "My husband is a clerk." In the bitterness of a keen
disappointment, rendered sharper by doubt and fear, Mrs. Fletcher
wept for some minutes. When she could command her feelings to some
extent, she thanked the tailor for calling, and repeated what she
had said, that the man at his house could not be her husband.
"He is from Cincinnati, ma'am; and goes there once in every two
weeks. I know that he has wife and child there," said the man.
"Still he cannot be my husband," replied Mrs. Fletcher; "for my
husband is not a tailor."
"No, not in that case, certainly." And the man owed and withdrew.
All day long the wife waited for some more satisfactory reply to her
advertisement, but no farther response to it was made. The call of
the tailor seemed like a mockery of her unhappy condition.
Night came, and all remained in doubt and darkness; and then the
mind of Mrs. Fletcher turned to the visit of the tailor, half
despairingly, in order to find some feeble gleam of hope. Perhaps,
she said to herself, as she thought about it, there is some mistake.
Perhaps it is my husband after all, and the man is in some error
about his being a tailor. As she thought, it suddenly flashed
through her mind that there had been a good deal of mystery made by
her husband about his situation in Cincinnati as well as in
Louisville, which always struck her as a little strange. Could it be
possible that his real business was that of a tailor? All at once
she remembered that her husband had been particularly silent in
regard to his early history. Trembling with excitement, she left the
house about eight o'clock in the evening, and started for the place
where she remembered that the tailor said he lived. He was in his
shop, and recollected her the moment she entered.
"Can I see the man you told me was named Fletcher?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am; and I sincerely hope there has been some mistake, and
that you will find him to be your husband; for he is very ill, and
needs to be nursed by a careful hand."
Mrs. Fletcher followed the tailor up stairs, her heart scarcely
beating under the pressure of suspense. In a small chamber in the
third story, the atmosphere of which was close, oppressive, and
filled with an offensive odour, she was shown a man lying upon a
bed. She needed not a second glance, as the dim light fell upon his
pale, emaciated face, to decide her doubts. Her husband lay before
her. Eagerly she called his name, but his eyes did not open. She
spoke to him again and again, but he did not recognise, even if he
heard her voice.
On inquiring, she found that he was ill with a violent fever, which
the doctor said was about at its crisis. This had been brought on by
too long continued labour--he having worked, often, sixteen and
seventeen hours out of the twenty-four--by that means earning a
third more wages than any journeyman in the shop.
Alarmed and troubled as she was, Mrs. Fletcher was utterly
confounded by all this. She could not comprehend it. All night she
hovered over the pillow of her husband, giving him medicine at the
proper times, placing the cooling draught to his lips or bathing his
hot forehead. Frequently she called his name, earnestly and
tenderly, but the sound awoke no motions in his sluggish mind.
Toward morning, she was sitting with her face resting against a
pillow, when his voice, speaking distinctly, aroused her from a half
slumber into which she had, momentarily, lost herself. In an instant
she was leaning over him, with his name upon her lips. His eyes were
opens and he looked steadily into her face. But it was evident that
he did not know her.
"Joseph! Joseph! don't you know me?" said she. "I am your wife. I am
here with you."
"Poor Mary!" he murmured, sadly, not understanding what was said.
"If she knew all, it would break her heart."
"What would break her heart?" quickly asked his wife.
"Poor Mary! She said she would never marry"--here the sick man's
voice became inarticulate.
But all was clear to the mind of Mrs. Fletcher. She remembered how
often she had made the thoughtless remark to which her husband
evidently referred. The tears again fell over her cheeks, until they
dropped even upon the face of her husband, who, after he had said
this, muttered for a while, inarticulately, and then, closing his
eyes, went off into sleep.
Toward morning a slight moisture broke out all over him, and his
sleep that was heavy, became soft and tranquil. The crisis was past!
In order not to disturb the quiet slumberer, Mrs. Fletcher sat down
by the bedside perfectly still. It was not very long before,
over-wearied as she was, sleep likewise stole over her senses. It
was daylight when she was awakened by hearing her name called.
Starting up, she met the face of her husband turned earnestly toward
her.
"Dear husband!" she exclaimed, "do you know me?"
"Yes, Mary. But how came you here?" he said, in a feeble voice.
"We will speak of that at some other time," she replied. "Enough
that I am here, where I ought to have been ten days ago. But that
was not my fault."
Fletcher was about to make some farther remark, when his wife placed
her finger upon his lips, and said--
"You must not talk, dear; your disease has just made a favourable
change, and your life depends upon your being perfectly quiet.
Enough for me to say that I know all, and love you just as well,
perhaps better. You are a weak, foolish man, Joseph," she added,
with a smile, "or else thought me a weak and foolish woman. But all
that we can settle hereafter. Thank God that I have found you; and
that you are, to all appearances, out of danger."
Aunt Prudence looked into Kate's face, and saw that tears were on
her cheeks.
"Would you have loved him less, Kate," she asked, "if he had been
your husband?"
"He would have been the same to me whatever might have been his
calling. That could not have changed him."
"No, certainly not. But I have a word or two more to add. As soon as
Fletcher was well enough to go to work, he took his place again upon
the shop-board, his wife feeling happier than she had felt for a
long time. In about six months he rose to be foreman of the shop,
and a year after that became a partner in the business At the end of
ten years he sold out his interest in the business, and returned to
the East with thirty thousand dollars in cash. This handsome capital
enabled him to get into an old and well-established mercantile house
as partner, where he remained until his death. About the time of his
return to the East, you, Kate, were born."
"I!" ejaculated the astonished girl.
"Yes. Their two older children died while they were in Louisville,
and you, their third child, were born about six months before they
left."
"I!" repeat Kate, in the same surprised tone of voice.
"Yes, dear, you! I have given you a history of your own father and
mother. So, as you're the daughter of a tailor, you must not object
to a tailor for a husband, if he be the right kind of a man."
It may very naturally be supposed that Kate had but little to say
against tailors after that, although we are by no means sure that
she had any intention of becoming the bride of one.