The sky, as if presaging David Dubbs's misfortune, had grown overcast,
and flung down spiteful little sallies of snow as he crossed the river
on his way to Mr. Griffin's. The creaking of the bridge's huge timbers
and the splitting ice below it made him shiver and pull his threadbare
coat close about him and sacrifice his old hands to the wind to save his
freezing ears. The same scarf bound them as the night before, but an icy
gale like that which swept from the open river would have frozen through
arctic furs. Notwithstanding all this, his spirits were lighter than
usual. The scene he had left at home floated on before his eyes, and
transfused itself with the black, sketchy trees against the sky and
blent with the ragged barbs of smoke that depended from cottage
chimneys. The wind had been boisterous enough, and would have torn it
away on a cantering jaunt not many minutes ago, but, surcharged as it
was now with blinding snow, it had its own liberty to look after, and
paid little heed to anything else.
The snow came on thicker and thicker, and had begun to whiten the
streets by the time David reached Mr. Griffin's house, and now, as he
stood shocked and bewildered in the garden again, it lay deep and
dreadfully silent as far as the eye could reach. Had he heard truly? Had
he, for the first time in a long, and honest, and reputable life, been
called a thief? And by the man whom his heart had overflowed in
gratitude to but a moment before! David Dubbs a thief! And what of? What
had he stolen? Oh, it was cruel to his poor old heart! "And the girls so
merry, even now," he thought. How; how could he go to them with these
bitter tidings? To be deprived of even the poor means his pen had
faithfully and honestly earned for them; to toil so long, so wearily for
the meed of a thief, for the name of a thief! and he wept in his utter
woe.
His hat was still on his head, his coat was undone, his scarf had fallen
back on his shoulders; his poor old eyes were wide apart again, now, and
the wind tugged at his scanty hair, and the snow, no whiter than itself,
sifted through it and drifted into the folds of his clothes. But,
stunned, and tortured, and despairing though he was, the old clerk
staggered on insensibly homeward. Back through the dreary trees; back
through the drifted streets; back to the bridge, where he stopped by
some fatal impulse and leaned near a bleak abutment that overlooked the
river--gazing, gazing, gazing in a blank stare at the driving channel
below. The thought, the lurking purpose was shadowed dimly on his
distraught mind. The cold, rolling river once passed, the seething cakes
of ice once passed, and it would soon be over, soon be over. Life had
been a worthless gift to him. His youth had been falsely colored by the
visions of childhood; his age had been falsely colored by the ambitions
of youth. Nothing he had looked to in the distance ever had grown into
reality. Why should he survive his good name! And he clutched the stones
and raised himself up and quivered at the top of the stone wall.
But now his hand relaxed, and his face, clouded and suffering before,
fell into a calmer look of attention, almost a smile broke over it, and
he gazed out against the sky as if transfixed.
It was the vision that had, like the pillar of cloud by day and of fire
by night, preceded and gladdened him on his way; the scene of his happy,
unsuspecting girls; of the pale Little Scout--whose simple touch would
then have instantly revived and soothed him, whose tender love was his
comfort, his sanctuary from pursuing evils; the scene of his old home,
far cosier, far more beloved, far more cheerful for all its homeliness,
for all its poverty, than the more pretentious one of Emanuel Griffin;
the scene of lowly pleasures it had cherished; of the bitter trials it
had assuaged; and, finally, of the bright, laughing group he had left
there, oh! so little prepared, so little conscious of the blight he
would bring among them. This vision, these thoughts had flowed in upon
his already disturbed mind, and had driven quite away all consciousness
of where he was or how long he had stood in the bitter cold, when a
policeman--overcoated, and furred, and frozen-bearded,--came by, and,
suspecting things to be not altogether right, caught David by the
sleeve, and adjusted his scarf and hat, saying,--
"No loafing on the bridge, old man. Move on; move on, now!" at which
David started, looked all around him, and then moved on as commanded.
His back, always bent, and his gait, always decrepit and shuffling, were
now pitiably so, and he had a long, long journey before him; but, thanks
be to Him whose omnipotent care protects and watches over the poor in
spirit, he had escaped a far longer one. On and on he went, not cold
now, not thinking, not in haste; passing thick-coated travellers who
ran, and clapped their hands, and swung their arms for warmth; passing
gay companies in cabs that rolled over the snow as softly as footsteps
on velvet. But he heeded nothing of all this, and staggered onward to
his own poor home.
A light was streaming out from the windows of the old warehouse,
crossing the snow piled on the platform above and slanting on the heaps
beneath. It was an inviting glimmer, a herald from within to all cold
travellers without of the blessedness of home, and, as David approached
the corner of the court, his eye was greeted cheerily by its "Welcome
home!" and, indeed, it was the first thing he had distinctly seen since
leaving the house of Mr. Griffin. But his heart failed him. How could he
face his dear girls again and tell them of the destitution of to-morrow?
Of the worse than poverty? Thus he thought, and lingered, and slunk
away by turns, but the ray of home-born light allured him, impassively,
into its midst, and as he stood over against the house, a poor, weak,
old man, rambling in his mind, and heroically deciding rather to leave
them in peace to-night, one more night, and return to them to-morrow, a
window was thrown up, and Jacob Tripple, putting forth his head, looked
up and down the court, and then directly in front of him, where David
stood immovable in the light.
"Why, there he is, now!" he cried. "What's gone amiss, David? What's
kept you so long? Here he is! Here he is!" he exclaimed again and again,
and, drawing in his head in much less time than the words could be said,
Jacob Tripple, followed by the girls, was down-stairs, was--still
followed by the girls--out in the snow, and had forcibly carried David
up with them.
They laid him on the settee, moaning and crying aloud against Emanuel
Griffin, and repeating again and again that they were "Beggars, beggars,
beggars!" and exclaiming, "My poor Little Scout! My poor girls! My
poor----"
"They shall not suffer, father!" said a new voice, the sound of which
raised him up with wide-opened eyes and palsied hands at his head, and a
long stare at the speaker--"It's Tom, father. Don't you know me?"
repeated the voice.
Know him! How should he know him? tall, and brawny, and whiskered, with
pleasant blue eyes, and ruddy cheeks, and good nature streaming from his
whole face! Him who, so many years ago,--a beardless youth--had run off
to California after gold bubbles, and whom little good had been heard of
when anything at all was heard of him. Know him? Of course he did not;
but, as he sat down beside him on the settee and shook his old hand,
David put his arms about his neck, and hung his head upon his bosom, and
saw, in imagination, the thriftless boy of long ago whom he loved for
all his waywardness.
Tom's strong arms soon bore him to his old seat near the fire, and, for
the first time, David's wandering eye noticed the bower of green holly
and red-berried mistletoe that decked the room. General Washington was
loaded with it. The old clock, actually striking in a cheerier voice the
hour of nine, had its full share. The dresser hid in festoons of it.
Even David's chair had its sprig. But what was that on the floor? An
opened trunk, like a cloven pomegranate, displaying within rich trinkets
that many a lady might covet?
"Wha--what's it all mean, girls? Tell me, Little Scout," said David,
catching her hand. "What happened to me? I thought I came home--home to
tell you Griffin threw me out in the snow, and called me a thief, and
how all of them scowled and cried out at me, and I thought----" then,
looking at the tall man, he cried again,--
"Tom, is it so? Is it so, my dear boy?"
"Yes, father," said Tom, slowly, to calm him, "it is, happily, all so."
Then his little daughter, who had stood by his side through it all,
kissed him, and said,--
"Come, father, look at the pretty presents Tom has brought us and you.
See here's a beautiful new coat hanging on your peg for you, and Molly
and Polly are as gay as any ladies," and she led him, tottering and
feeble, to the loaded table--no longer ashamed of its defaced back
beneath the pile of gifts it bore.
Then Mr. Tripple, hand in hand with the unresisting Polly, and Molly,
and Tom, an unbroken circuit of cheery faces that electrified David
Dubbs into a wrinkled smile in spite of lingering grief, clustered
around the table and exclaimed aloud with admiration at the gifts Tom
had brought.
But David, still overshadowed by the events of the afternoon, said, in a
quivering voice,--
"But to-morrow, children, to-morrow! I am discharged by Griffin; we
shall starve to-morrow!"
"Not while I'm about," laughed Tom. "Come, come, be calm, and I'll tell
you all about it."
And he did tell of the long years of hope and distress, of despair when
unconsciously within reach of fortune; of its final realization and of
its golden yield. "So here I am, father, and your old hand shall write
no more for Emanuel Griffin."