And now let's take a big jump forward. Hold your breath while we gather
our muscles for the effort, for when we land, it is at a point four years
from the day when Tom Gordon entered the employ of Josiah Warmore, the
leading merchant in the town of Bellemore, on the Hudson.
There have been many changes in those years, but in some respects slight
differences could be noted. It would be hard to tell from looking at Mr.
Warmore that he was one day older than when he stopped at the home of
Farmer Pitcairn and hired Tom Gordon. His hair and whiskers were so white
at that time that they could not grow any whiter. The face wears the same
kindly expression, the shoulders are no more stooped than they were then,
and his walk is as brisk and sprightly as ever. Few of his clerks are more
alert of movement than he.
Much the same may be said of Farmer Pitcairn and his wife. Possibly there
is an additional wrinkle or two on their homely faces, but their hearts
are as genial and as kindly as ever. They love Tom Gordon as if he were
their own son, and he fully returns the affection they feel for him.
And how has it been with Tom during those four years?
Well, he has had his shadow and sunshine, like the rest of us, but there
has been far more of the latter than the former. How could it be
otherwise, when I tell you that he has stood as firm as a rock upon the
principles that were implanted in his heart and soul by his noble mother?
He could never forget her teachings, which were added to by other wise and
good persons with whom he was thrown in contact later.
Now, Tom Gordon became what I call a healthy, sensible Christian youth. He
was not the good boy we used to read about in the Sunday-school books, who
mopes around, forever preaching a sermon whenever he opens his lips, and
finding a "lesson" in everything, even the leap of a grasshopper. When
those boys become so good that they can be no better, they generally lie
down, call all their playmates around them, deliver a farewell sermon, and
then depart. The mistake of that sort of life is that it makes religion
unattractive. It gives the idea that "the good die young," and that a
jolly, genial, fun-loving boy, bubbling over sometimes with mischief,
cannot be a Christian, when he is the very one that most pleases his
heavenly Father.
Tom had his fun, his enjoyment, and now and then his crosses. Such things
are inevitable and must be looked for. A thorn appeared in his side from
the first. A young clerk that had entered the store a few weeks ahead of
him was a sly, mean, gnarly fellow, who showed a dislike to the new-comer
and annoyed him in every way possible. He was larger and apparently
stronger than Tom, and seemed determined to provoke a quarrel with him.
Tom would have been glad to challenge him to a bout at fisticuffs, for he
was confident he could vanquish him in short order. He often yearned to do
so. More than once the hot defiance was tugging at his lips; but the
memory of poor Jim Travers's parting words, "Tom, try to be better: I tell
you, you won't be sorry when you come to die," restrained the angry
utterance and the hasty blow.
Max Zeigler was one of those young men that are inherently mean. He was
born that way, and his ugly disposition increased with his years. You
occasionally meet such persons, whose nature it seems impossible to affect
by any method of treatment. What was specially aggravating in Tom Gordon's
place was that Zeigler seemed to feel no dislike of any one in the store
besides himself. He slurred him the first day he met him, and kept it up
unremittingly.
Tom's first course was to accept these slurs in silence. His face often
flushed, when he saw the smiles on the countenances of the other clerks,
excited by some cutting witticism of Zeigler at the expense of himself.
His tormentor accepted the silence as proof of the timidity or rather
cowardice of the new employee, and rattled off his insults faster than
ever. While kindness as a rule will disarm a foe, there are some ingrates
so constituted that it moves them the other way. When Tom replied gently
to Zeigler, and asked him privately why he annoyed him without cause, the
fellow sneered the more at him. He took pains to indulge in profanity and
obscenity before Tom, and received the full reward he sought when he saw
how much his course grieved him.
Finally Tom struck the remedy. It was simple. He showed perfect
indifference toward his persecutor. When Zeigler made a cutting remark, he
acted as if he did not hear him. He continued his conversation with
another; and though his enemy repeated his words, they did not seem to
enter the ears of Tom. Even when Zeigler put a question direct to him, it
was ignored.
It then became the turn of Zeigler to flush at the general smile that went
round. At last he had been rebuffed.
One afternoon, when there was little custom in the store, Tom entered one
of the rear rooms, where were Zeigler and two other clerks. The fellow's
heart rankled at the snubbing he had received, and he was plotting some
way of "getting even" with the sanctimonious fellow, who would never
swear or indulge in a coarse word.
"This is just the place for a wrestling match," remarked Zeigler. "Gordon,
I will go you."
There was no ignoring this challenge. Tom was a wonderfully fine wrestler,
but none present knew it. He affected to be timid.
"You are bigger than I, and it would hardly be fair," replied Tom,
surveying the bulky form of his challenger.
"O pshaw! you are as heavy as I; besides, I will let you down easy."
"Try him, Gordon," whispered one of the clerks.
"If you will promise not to throw me too hard," said Tom doubtfully, "I
will take one turn with you."
"Of course I won't hurt you," grinned Zeigler, eager for the chance to
humiliate the fellow whom he despised.
All saw his purpose, and none more plainly than Tom himself.
The two doffed their coats and vests, and took their station in the middle
of the room, with their arms interlocked. Tom pretended an awkwardness
which deceived the others, and convinced Zeigler, to use a common
expression, he had a "cinch" in this little affair.
They struggled for a minute, and then, with the suddenness seemingly of a
flash of lightning, Zeigler's heels shot toward the ceiling, and he came
down on his back with a crash that shook the windows.
"I thought you knew something about wrestling," remarked Tom, standing
erect, and looking down on him with a smile, "but you don't know anything
at all."
The two spectators were convulsed with laughter. Zeigler's face was a
fiery crimson, and he scrambled to his feet in a fury.
"That was a slip; you can't do it again!" he exclaimed, springing at Tom
and hastily locking arms with him.
"All right; we'll see. Now do your best, for I mean to throw you just as I
did a minute ago. Are you ready?"
"Of course I am; go ahead."
Zeigler was not lacking in a certain skill. The lesson he had just
received was not lost on him. He was cautious, tricky, and alert--more so
than Tom suspected, and he put forth the utmost cunning of which he was
capable.
They twisted, swayed back and forth, and once Tom came within a hair of
falling, owing to a slight slip of one foot. But he was on his mettle,
and, putting forth his whole might and ability, he flung his antagonist on
his back with a violence that almost drove the breath from his body.
"Fudge!" remarked Tom, turning away in disgust; "I'll give you a few
lessons if you wish to learn how to wrestle. Any way, you had better take
lessons of some person before you bother _me_ again."
The other two clerks had dropped upon the nearest stools, and were holding
their sides with mirth.
"Zeigler," said one, when he recovered speech, "that's too big a contract
for you; you can't deliver the goods."
"You'll have to pay for those window-panes you shook out," added the
other.
"I've got a set of boxing-gloves here," growled Zeigler, who tried to
assume an indifference, as he brushed off his clothes and looked up with
flaming face. "I'd like to try you with them."
"I'm agreeable," replied Tom, who had seen Zeigler bang the other clerks
around with the gloves as he pleased. "I learned something of the business
when I was a newsboy. I hope you are better at it than you are at
wrestling."
While Tom was speaking he was drawing on a pair of gloves and fixing the
strings at the wrist. Zeigler was a little uneasy at the coolness of his
opponent, and his readiness in accepting his challenge. Then, too, when he
took his position, with his left foot advanced, his right glove in front
of his chest, his left arm extended, the pose was so like a professional,
that Zeigler's misgivings increased. Still he felt great confidence in
his own skill, and there was no criticism to be made upon his position
when he faced the youth, for whose vanquishment he would have given half
his year's salary.
"Now," said Tom, with his exasperating coolness, "I propose that _each do
his best_. I don't suppose you want any baby play. I don't. I invite you
to hit me as often and as hard as you can. I'm going to do the same with
you. _Time_!"
They began dancing about a common center, sawing their arms back and
forth, each looking sharply in the other's eye and on the alert for an
opening.
Tom meant to make the other lead; for, before assuming the aggressive, he
wished to know more about Zeigler. It might be he possessed greater skill
than Tom believed. He meant to learn something of his style.
They had circled round several times, when Zeigler thought he saw his
chance, and feinting quickly, let fly with his left. Instead of parrying
the blow, Tom dodged it by throwing his head back. The opportunity was a
capital one to counter on Zeigler, but Tom made no effort to do so. It
looked as if he lacked the quickness and skill, and failed to see his
chance.
Zeigler now began edging nearer. He had come within an inch of reaching
the face of Tom, when he failed to counter. A little closer, and he was
sure he could "knock him out." At any rate, if he failed to do so, he had
nothing to fear from a foe who did not know enough to use an elemental
advantage.
A quick step forward at the instant of feinting with his right, and
Zeigler again let fly with his left straight from the shoulder. It was a
vicious blow, and, had it landed, would have done damage; but a flirt of
the head allowed it to glide harmlessly over the shoulder. At the instant
of doing so, Tom cross-countered with a quickness and force that could not
have been excelled. That is to say, as Zeigler's left glove was darting
past Tom's left ear, and the momentum of the young man's body was throwing
him forward, Tom's right hand shot across the extended arm of the other,
and landed with fearful force on the nose and mouth of his opponent.
It was a fierce drive; for its effect was intensified by the fact that
Tom's glove met the head of the other as it was coming toward him. It
would have been bad enough had it landed on a stationary object, but the
object was approaching from the opposite direction.
Tom and the two clerks were startled by the effect of the blow, for
Zeigler went down like a log, rolling over on his back, his hands
flapping full length above his head, while he lay perfectly unconscious.
But when water was dashed in his face he revived. It was some time before
he freed his mouth and nose of the crimson result of colliding with the
glove; but, aided by the clerks, he donned his coat and vest, and assumed
something like a presentable condition.
While this was going on, Tom Gordon sat in a chair a few feet away,
looking on as though he felt little interest in the matter. He did not
help shape the other up, for two reasons. His aid was not necessary, and,
again, he knew it would not be acceptable to his discomfited antagonist.
"A rather neat blow, Zeigler," remarked Tom; "when you wish to even up
matters, I will be ready to accommodate you."
It sounded strange to the other clerks to hear the gentle Tom Gordon speak
thus to the young man who had played the bully so long over him. They
concluded that the crushed worm had at last turned. The vanquished one
made no reply except to give the other a look of hatred, and leave the
room.
Now, there is not one person in a thousand who would not have been
conquered morally as well as physically by an experience like that of Max
Zeigler. Such an utter overthrow would have made the bully the close
friend and champion of the other; but it was altogether different with
Zeigler. Before his swelled lip and bulging nose had resumed their normal
appearance, he resumed his petty persecutions as before. Those who knew of
the bout in the back room (and, indeed, every clerk quickly learned the
particulars) urged Tom to lay out his enemy so effectually that he would
stay laid out.
Young Gordon, however, chose the better course. He affected the same
indifference as before, and frequently did not seem to hear the words of
his enemy. The hardest duty Tom had to do was to keep back the scathing
retorts of which he thought so often, and which would have silenced
Zeigler. Nothing, indeed, is more difficult for a high-spirited person
than to bridle his tongue under the lashings of another. _How_ few of us
are equal to the task!