FATHER AND CHILD--THE OLD STORY
"Come here, Tessie."
"Yes, dad."
"Sit down, girlie."
"Let me kneel, here. There, like that, then you can't be very cross, I
know. Let me put my arms around your neck, and I know your lecture won't
be very serious."
"Kiss me."
"There."
"And now I want to talk to you, seriously, Tessie."
"I knew you did, dad; you had such a long face. What have I done?"
"Nothing yet, girlie. It's to prevent your doing something that I fear
you will be sorry for all your life that I am talking to you now."
"Yes, dad."
"Gerald Danvers has been here nearly a month. He's in love with
you--that's plain to be seen. There's no blame to himself for that. You
are a very pretty girl."
"Dad!"
"That's so. That don't matter much; and if you are only flirting that
wouldn't matter much, either. But the point is--are you? Do you feel
that you love him, Tessie?"
She was playing with the seal at the end of his watch-chain, and her
eyes were cast down as she answered:
"He's the nicest man round these parts, dad."
"To look at, Tessie--yes. I admit that. He's got the city polish on him.
It's a question if that's good though. The bit of veneer on an article
of furniture doesn't make the wood beneath any better quality."
"No, but the farm hands, dad! And then at Oakville who is there to talk
to?"
"Maybe not polished people, Tessie."
"No, dad, and that's it. Don't think I'm blaming you, dear old daddie,
but you see the years you sent me away to boarding-school made a change
in me. The girls--I met people of a different class. One must talk, you
know, dad, and there isn't a soul for miles round that has an idea
beyond the crops."
"I see--I see."
"Don't think I'm finding fault, daddie--not for a moment. I am as happy
as possible at the dear old farm. I was born here, and I should like to
die here. But one likes to exchange ideas, dad. You might, for instance,
circle ten miles round the farm and you would not meet one soul who
could tell you what poetry meant."
"And this man, Danvers, he talks well?"
"He is a gentleman, dad."
"Without a dollar to call his own."
"Dad! is he any the less a gentleman for that?"
"The world thinks so, Tessie."
"Let it, dad, I don't; and I know you don't. A man's a man for all
that."
"But a poor man, Tessie--in a double sense. I am really sorry to hear
you say this."
"What have I said, dad?"
"Nothing, girlie, nothing. But I can read you. You like Danvers?"
She was playing with the charm on the chain again as she answered:
"I don't dislike him, dad."
The old man sighed.
"I have heard you yourself say, dad, that you liked him."
"Ah! but there's a difference in my and your liking. When a woman begins
by liking a man, she generally ends up by loving him."
No answer.
"Danvers was sent out to me, Tessie, with a letter of introduction. You
read it. By the next mail another letter came. I opened it myself, as I
have done all letters since Josh went away. It was from the writer of
the letter of introduction."
"Another, dad?"
"No. He repeated that he would be glad if I would do all I could for
Danvers, but, above all, I was to make him work, and work hard. That his
life up, he had never done a stroke of work, that he had always lived on
his friends, that his friends had provided him with an outfit and paid
his passage money, and hoped that in a new country, where he had not a
single friend, he would be forced to work--work for his living."
"Poor fellow!"
"Tessie!"
"Well, dad, isn't he a poor fellow? Fancy, thousands of miles from a
friend, and, as you say, without a dollar of his own. Am I wrong, dad,
to sympathize with, and say of him 'poor fellow'?"
The old man stifled a groan.
He was acting badly. He felt that. He was trying to paint this man in
repulsive colors, and was but exciting a tender feeling! He was putting
his foot into it deeper every step he took.
It is curious how persistently parents force their children into the
marriages they are so anxious not to bring about.
Bespatter her lover to a girl, and straightway the girl loves him the
more. Call him everything black you can lay your tongue to, and the girl
will be framing pretty speeches for future use--to make up to him for
it.
"Tessie, think, my girl, you are happy now because you have everything
you can reasonably want. Just picture to yourself what your life would
be married to a centless man."
"But, dad, why should you think he will always be poor?"
"All his life, Tessie, he has been living on other people."
"But he may reform, dad. You said he was doing the work better than Josh
had done it."
"New brooms sweep clean."
"And in a new country, dad, perhaps he has turned over a new leaf."
"Supposing he has, Tessie, what is his future? If he left here, he might
get a job as a store clerk; what can he expect to be better? A store
clerk with perhaps a dozen dollars a week."
"You are hard on him, dad."
"Come, Tessie, have I been? But for the fact that Josh is away on a
holiday, what could I have done with him? There is not an ounce of farm
work in him. They send such men out from the mother country--God knows
what for--when we want only muscle, strength, and grit."
"He has been useful, dad."
"Useful! And when Josh comes back, what then? I have told him it is only
a temporary job, and perhaps that is the reason."
"For what, dad?"
"His making love to you."
"Dad!"
"Oh, I know the world, Tessie, better than you do. He thinks you are a
pretty girl, and that if he can make you love him, he is in for a soft
thing."
"Oh, dad, you are unjust."
"I would to God he had never come here."
"Dad!"
"It is true. Marry? Of course you'll marry. It's a woman's mission in
life. I can't say I have seen the man yet that I think worthy of you,
but that is neither here nor there. But I did think you would fall into
the hands of a man who had a bit of land of his own to walk on, and a
roof of his own to cover him----"
"You are bitter, dad."
"I feel so, girlie. You are so bound up heart and soul in my heart and
soul that what affects you affects me. I want to see you happy."
"I know that, dad."
"Tell me, he has not spoken to you of love yet?"
"Not--with his lips, dad--yet."
Then the old man groaned aloud. He knew it was hopeless to talk.
He prayed for the return of Josh that he might have a reasonable excuse
for packing off Danvers.
And Josh--all that was left of him--after the inquest had been buried in
the city cemetery.