Reynolds Bartram and Eleanor Prency rapidly became so fond of each
other that the people of the village predicted an early engagement. The
young man had become quite a regular attendant at church,--not that he
had any religious feeling whatever, but that it enabled him to look at
his sweetheart for an hour and a half every Sunday morning and walk
home with her afterwards. Although he had considerable legal practice,
it was somehow always his fortune to be on the street when the young
lady chanced to be out shopping, and after he joined her there
generally ensued a walk which had nothing whatever to do with shopping
or anything else except an opportunity for two young people to talk to
each other for a long time on subjects which seemed extremely
interesting to both.
Nevertheless, there were occasional clouds upon their sky. The young
man who loves his sweetheart better than he loves himself occasionally
appears in novels, but in real life he seems to be an unknown quantity,
and young Bartram was no exception to the general rule. In like
manner, the young woman who loses sight of her own will, even when in
the society of the man whom she thinks the most adorable in the world,
is not easy to discover in any ordinary circle of acquaintances.
Bartram and Eleanor met one afternoon, in their customary manner, on
the principal street of the village, and walked along side by side for
quite a way, finally turning and sauntering through several residence
streets, talking with each other on a number of subjects, probably of
no great consequence, but apparently very interesting to both of them.
Suddenly, however, it was the young man's misfortune to see the two
Kimper boys on the opposite side of the street, and as he eyed them,
his lip curled, and he said,--
"Isn't it somewhat strange that your estimable parents are so greatly
interested in the father of those wretched scamps?"
"Nothing that my father and mother do, Mr. Bartram," said Miss Prency,
"is at all strange. They are quite as intelligent as anyone of my
acquaintance, I am sure, and more so than most people whom I know, and
I have no doubt that their interest in the poor fellow has very good
grounds."
"Perhaps so," said the young man, with another curl of his lip, which
exasperated his companion. "I sometimes wonder, however, whether men
and women, when they reach middle life and have been reasonably
successful and happy in their own affairs, are not likely to allow
their sympathies to run away with their intelligence."
"It may be so," said Eleanor, "among people of your acquaintance, as a
class, but I wish you distinctly to except my parents from the rule."
"But, my dear girl," said the young man, "your parents are exactly the
people to whom I am alluding."
"Then do me the favor to change the subject of conversation," said the
young lady proudly: "I never allow my parents to be criticised in my
hearing by anyone but myself."
"Oh, well," said the young man, "if you choose to take my remarks in
that way, I presume you are at liberty to do so; but I am sure you are
misunderstanding me."
"I don't see how it is possible to misunderstand anything that is said
so very distinctly: you lawyers have a faculty, Mr. Bartram, of saying
exactly what you mean--when you choose to."
"Well, I can't deny that I meant exactly what I said."
"But you can at least change the subject, can't you?"
"Certainly, if you insist upon it; but the subject has been
interesting me considerably of late, and I am really wondering whether
my estimable friend, the judge, and his no less estimable wife may not
be making a mistake which their daughter would be the most effective
person in rectifying."
"You do me altogether too much honor, sir. Suppose you attempt to
rectify their mistakes yourself, since you seem so positive about their
existence. To give you an opportunity of preparing yourself to do so, I
will bid you good day." Saying which, the young woman abruptly turned
into the residence of an acquaintance to make an afternoon call,
leaving the young man rather more disconcerted than he would have liked
to admit to any of his acquaintances.
He retraced his steps, moodily muttering to himself, and apparently
arguing also, for the forefinger of one hand was occasionally touching
the palm of the other, and, apparently without knowing in what
direction he was walking, he found himself opposite the shop of the
shoemaker who had been the indirect cause of his quarrel with his
sweetheart.
"Confound that fellow!" muttered Bartram, "he's in my way wherever I
move. I've heard too much of him in the stores and the courts and
everywhere else that I have been obliged to go. I have to hear of him
at the residence of my own sweetheart whenever I call there, and now I
find Eleanor herself, who has never been able to endure any of the
commoner specimens of humanity, apparently taking up the cudgels in his
defence. I wish I could understand the fascination that fellow exerts
over a number of people so much better than himself. Hang it! I am
going to find out. He is a fool, if ever there was one, and I am not.
If I can't get at the secret of it, it will be the first time that I
have ever been beaten in examining and cross-examining such a common
specimen of humanity."
Thus speaking, the lawyer crossed the street and entered the shop, but,
to his disgust, found both the cobbler's sons there with their father.
The boys, with a curiosity common to all very young people, and
particularly intense among the classes who have nothing in particular
to think of, stared at him so fixedly that he finally rose abruptly and
departed without saying a word. The boys went out soon after, and Billy
remarked to Tom, as the two sauntered homeward,--
"Tom, what do you s'pose is the reason that feller comes in to see dad
so much?"
"Gettin' a pair of shoes made, I s'pose," said Tom, sulkily, for he had
just failed in an attempt to extract a quarter of a dollar from his
father.
"The shoes that dad was makin' for him," said Billy, "was done two or
three weeks ago, 'cause I took 'em to his office myself. But he comes
to the shop over an' over again, 'cause I've seen him there, an'
whenever he comes he manages to get talkin' with dad about religion. He
always begins it, too, 'cause dad never says nothin' about it unless
the lawyer starts it first."
"Well," said Tom, "seems to me that if he wants to know anythin' on
that subject he could go to some of the preachers, that ought to know a
good deal more about it than dad does."
"Can't tell so much about that sort o' thing," said Billy. "There's
lots of men in this town that don't know much about some things that
knows a good deal about some others. You know when that dog we stole
last summer got sick, there was nobody in town could do anythin' for
him except that old lame nigger down in the holler."
"Well, you're a sweet one, ain't you?" said Tom. "What's dogs got to do
with religion, I'd like to know? You ought to be ashamed o' yourself,
even if you ain't never been to church."
"Well," said Billy, "what I was meanin' is, some folks seem to know a
good deal about things without bein' learned, that other folks will
give their whole time to, an' don't know very much about. Every place
that I go to, somebody says somethin' to me about dad an' religion.
Say, Tom, do you know dad's mighty different to what he used to be
before he got took up?"
"Of course I do. He's always wantin' folks to work, an' always findin'
fault with everythin' we do that ain't right. He didn't use to pay no
attention to nothin'; we could do anythin' we wanted to; and here I am,
a good deal bigger, an' just about as good as a man, an' he pays more
attention to me than he ever did, an' fusses at me as if I was little
bit of a kid. An' I don't like it, either."
"Well, as he said to me t'other day, Tom, he's got to be pretty lively
to make up for lost time."
"Well, I wish, then," said Tom, meditatively, "that he hadn't never
lost no time, 'cause it's takin' all the spirit out o' me to be
hammered at all the time in the way he's a-doin'. I just tell you what
it is, Billy," said Tom, stopping short and smiting the palm of one
hand with the fist of the other, "I've half a mind, off and on, to go
to steady work of some kind, an' I'll be darned if I don't do it, if
dad don't let me alone."
"Mis' Prency was talkin' to me the other day about dad," said Billy,
"an' she asked me whether he wasn't workin' awful hard at home after he
left the shop, an' I said, 'Yes,' an' she said, 'I hope you all do all
you can to help him?' an' I kind o' felt ashamed, an' all I could say
was that I didn't see nothin' I could help him about, an' she said she
guessed if I'd think a little while I could find out. Say, Tom, let's
go to work a-thinkin', an' see if there ain't some way to give dad a
lift. Seems to me he's doin' everythin' for us all the whole time, an'
we ain't doin' nothin' at all for him."
"Oh, now, quit your preachin'," said the elder brother, contemptuously.
"If you don't, I'll lamm you."
The younger brother prudently lapsed into entire silence, and the
couple soon reached home. Tom strolled about the room, his lower lip
hanging down, bestowing glares of different intensity upon every
individual and object present, and even making a threatening motion
with his foot towards the baby, who had crawled about the floor until
it was weary and fretful and was uttering plaintive cries from time to
time. His mother was out of the house somewhere, and the baby continued
to protest against its physical discomforts until Tom indulged in a
violent expletive, which had the effect of temporarily silencing the
child and causing it to look up at him with wondering eyes. Tom
returned the infant's stare for a moment or two, and then, moved by
some spirit which he was not able to identify, he stooped and picked
up the infant and sat down in a chair. When his mother returned, she
was so astonished at what she saw that she hurried out of the house,
down to the shop, and dragged her husband away and back to his home.
When the door was opened, Sam Kimper was almost paralyzed to see his
big son rocking the youngest member of the family to and fro over the
rough floor, and singing, in a hoarse and apparently ecstatic voice,--
"I'm Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines."