AN UNUSUAL AMOUNT OF INTRODUCTION.
The front door of Dr. Brandegee's library had hardly closed behind that
earliest flock of his autumn birds, before the door by which he had
entered swung open, and a fine-looking, middle-aged matron stood in it,
remarking,--
"My dear, there are more than a dozen waiting in the parlor. Have you
not spent a great deal of time on those four?"
"They're worth it, Mary. There's enough in every one of them to make a
man of, and they've all started fairly well."
"I fear that is more than you will be able to say of all these others."
"Of course it will. Their fathers and mothers have had a great deal to
do with that."
They were all "examined," however, in due season, some in one way and
some in another; and during all that time Dab Kinzer and his friends
were inwardly wondering, whether they said so or not, precisely what
impression they had made upon the doctor.
It was just as well, every way, that they did not know.
It was a curious fact, that with one accord they accompanied Dick on his
return to their boarding-house; and, while he disappeared through the
door at the end of the hall with Miss Almira, some invisible
leading-string dragged them up stairs. Not that they really had any
studying to do; but it was dinner-time before they had finished turning
over the leaves of their text-books, and estimating the amount of hard
work it would cost to prepare for an "examination" on them.
There was no good reason for complaint of that dinner any more than of
their breakfast; and it wound up with a very excellent Indian-meal
pudding, concerning which Dabney went so far as to say he would like to
send the recipe home to his mother.
"I'm so glad you like it," said Mrs. Myers. "Almira, just remember that.
They can have it as often as they please."
She asked them, too, how they proposed to spend their afternoon, and
smilingly explained, as to Dick Lee, that,--
"Saturday is one of my busy days, and he will have to stay at home and
help. Errands to run, and I want him to learn how. He's a bright, active
little fellow."
That was all "according to contract;" but Dick did not come in for his
dinner until the rest had eaten theirs; and then he barely had time to
say to Dab Kinzer,--
"Did you ebber shell corn?"
"Course I have. Why?"
"'Cause dar's a bigger heap ob corn out in de barn dan you ebber see."
"Bigger'n Ham's?"
"Well, no, not so big as his'n, mebbe; but dar's more ob it. I's got it
to shell."
Dab went off with the other two, vaguely beginning to ask himself if
shelling corn came fairly into the proper meaning of the word "chores."
All that sort of thing was quickly forgotten, however; for there were a
dozen groups of boys scattered here and there over the broad expanse of
the "green," and Ford Foster at once exclaimed,--
"Boys, let's examine that crowd. It'll take all the afternoon to find
what they know."
Getting acquainted is apt to be a slow process in cases of that sort,
unless it is taken hold of with vigor; and Ford was the very fellow to
hurry it up. Before the afternoon was over, every boy on that green knew
who he was, and where he came from; and a good share of them had tried
their hands at "chaffing" him and his friends. Of these latter it may
safely be said that not a single one could afterwards remember that he
had seemed to himself to get the best of it.
"First day" at school is pretty safe to be a peace-day also; and none of
the wordy collisions went too far, although it was plain that the
new-comers had not yet attained any high degree of popularity.
After supper Dick Lee set off for Dr. Brandegee's, and his friends
attended him nearly to the gate.
They would have been glad to have had a report of his visit from him, on
his return; but he had his "chores" to do then, and any amount of
careful instruction concerning them to receive from Mrs. Myers and
Almira.
The other three were more thoroughly tired out than they had at all
expected, and were all quite ready to agree with Frank Harley,--
"We'd better get to bed, boys. I want to see if this is a good house to
sleep in."
"Sleep?" said Ford. "I could go to sleep in an omnibus."
Early to bed meant early to rise, necessarily; and they were all up and
dressed the next morning, when Dick Lee slipped in on them. Before they
had time to ask him a question, he exclaimed,--
"I say, Cap'n Dab, is you goin' to church dis mornin'?"
"Of course. We're all going."
"So I heerd Mrs. Myers tell Miss Almiry. She's goin' to take you along
wid her when she goes."
"Richard," said Ford, "are you going?"
"Habn't heerd a word about dat."
"Don't you go back on your friends, Richard. Be all ready in time,
sure's you live, and go with us, or I'll complain to Dr. Brandegee."
Dick's grin was a wide one; but he responded,--
"I'll be ready. See 'f I ain't."
The voice of Almira, calling his name at the foot of the stairs,
prevented any further conversation just then; and Dick found,
afterwards, that he had undertaken a task of some difficulty. He hardly
knew when or where he squeezed out the time for the proper polishing of
his shoes, or the due arrangement of his magnificent red necktie; but
both feats were accomplished most faithfully.
The subject of church-going came up again, incidentally, at the
breakfast-table; and the remarks of her young boarders met the emphatic
approval of Mrs. Myers and her daughter. Perhaps because neither of them
had been near enough, after Dick dodged out of their room at the end of
his early call, to hear Dabney Kinzer remark,--
"Ford, don't you think we can find our way across the green without any
help from the ladies?"
"I am pondering that matter. What do you say, Frank?"
"We must get out of it if we can politely. I don't just see how we'll do
it."
"Do it? Why, we'll all wait for Dick Lee."
Mrs. Myers took a little too much for granted; and when the hour came
for starting, there came a slight disturbance in the smooth current of
her calculations.
"Mr. Foster," she called out, in her best voice, from half way up the
stairs, "the first bell is ringing. Are you and your friends ready?"
"Ringing?" responded Ford. "So it is! I regret to say we are not yet
ready to go."
At the same moment Dab was whispering,--
"We mustn't start until it's nearly done tolling."
"What's that?" asked Frank.
"Don't you know? It's always so in the country. First they ring the
bell, as it's ringing now. That's to set people a-going. Then they toll
it. You'll hear in a few minutes. That means, the time's up."
Ford Foster's city training had not taught him as much as that, but he
was glad to know it.
Mrs. Myers once more urged upon them the necessity of making haste.
"It won't do to be late," she said. "I never allow myself to be a minute
behind time."
The last clause sounded a very, very little impatient; but Ford once
more politely expressed his sorrow, and abstained from putting on his
coat. At that moment, too, Dick Lee came tiptoeing in from his cheerless
garret, and looking astonishingly spruce. The "shine" on his shoes was a
brilliancy to be remembered; and so was the shine on his face, and the
sunset glow of his necktie.
"Sh! Dick," said Dab. "Hold still a minute. The bell's beginning to
toll."
"I fear Almira and I will be compelled to start," said Mrs. Myers
regretfully. "Perhaps you can overtake us if you hurry."
"Perhaps we could," replied Ford, "but I beg you will not let yourself
be late on our account. We're coming."
He began to put his coat on as she and Almira went through the gate. In
such a village as that, no one was afraid to leave a house alone for an
hour or two. Not only was the door-lock "on the latch" as usual, but
Dick Lee had been vaguely expected to stay at home. There, again, Mrs.
Myers had taken too much for granted; and she had not said a word to him
about it.
Just as she heard the bell give its last few rapid and warning strokes,
and disappeared through the church-door, she might have seen, had she
turned back and looked once more towards her own front gate, four
well-dressed youngsters hurrying from it across the street as if a great
deal depended on their reaching church before service could begin.
"It's very kind of Mrs. Myers to invite us," remarked Ford, "but she
never thought how bashful we'd be about it."
They were quickly within the ample porch of the roomy and not at all
overcrowded edifice, and were greeted by two or three benevolent-looking
elderly gentlemen, with a degree of prompt cordiality which left little
to be asked for.
The deacons were awake to their duty relating to new
scholars,--"students" they called them; and every attention was paid
these four who had begun so well their first Sunday.
So it would be at every church on that green; and it would really be
about the middle of the term before stray "academy boys" would be left
to find their own way to well-whittled benches in the galleries.
One of the best pews in the house, well forward in the middle aisle, and
they had it all to themselves. There was not another pew in church that
morning which seemed to attract so large a share of the attention of the
congregation. Mrs. Myers and Almira were several pews behind, and on the
other side of the house; and there had been no opportunity to capture
her four boarders, or any of them, while they were marching in.
"Almira! If they haven't brought Dick with them."
"Yes, mother; but how very well they look! Mr. Kinzer is really quite
handsome."
That was hardly Dab's opinion of himself, and nobody had ever taken
pains to tell him so; but the four of them, standing up together, and
all singing, made quite a picture. Dick Lee was between Dab Kinzer and
Frank Harley, and seemed to feel in honor bound to sing his best. That
was very well too.
If Glorianna could but have had a look at her boy that morning, there is
no such thing as telling how proud she would have felt about him. It was
too bad she could not have done so, especially as Dick was most loyally
thinking of her, and wishing that she could.
There was no fault to be found by Mrs. Myers, or anybody else, with the
strict decorum of her boarders, and their profound attention to the
service and sermon; but she felt that she had a duty to perform, and she
only waited the proper time for its performance.
The last hymn had been duly sung, and the boys were drifting along with
the tide in the aisle towards the door, when Dabney nudged Ford with his
elbow.
"We're nabbed, Ford."
"No escape this time, that's a fact. Don't let's try. She means it all
for politeness."
They would have been quite willing to have been allowed to get out and
go home unnoticed; but there in the porch awaiting them were Mrs. Myers
and Almira, and there was no possibility of an escape. It would have
been unkind to try in the face of so much smiling. Besides, they did
board with her; and she had her rights of property, one of which was to
show them off, and introduce them. She proceeded to exercise it at once;
and it was to the credit of the three white boys that they came promptly
to her assistance, and added any little matter she might happen to miss
in the hurry of the moment.
"Deacon Short, this is Mr. Dabney Kinzer, of Long Island; this is Mr.
Frank Harley, of Rangoon, son of Rev. Dr. Harley, our well-known
missionary; this is Mr. Ford Foster, son of the eminent New-York
lawyer."
"Delighted"--began the deacon, rapidly grasping and shaking hand after
hand, with a peculiar lift of his elbow, that placed most of what might
be called the "action" at the point of it; but Ford was thinking of the
thing Mrs. Myers had omitted, and he promptly added,--
"Glad to meet you, Deacon Short; and this is my friend Mr. Richard Lee,
of Long Island."
To do the good deacon justice, his grasp of Dick's hand was every bit as
cordial as any other of his grasps; and he beamed on the smiling black
boy in a way that gave him back, after the manner of a reflection, a
great glow of the best and broadest "beaming."
Mrs. Myers did not stop a moment in the repetition of her formula, and
there was sharp work before her; but Dab's tongue was also loose now,
and Elder Potter had hardly time to hear who he was before Deacon Short
had to let go of Dick, and hear Dab say,--
"How d'ye do, Elder Potter? and this is my near neighbor and friend, Mr.
Richard Lee."
"Mrs. Sunderland," began Mrs. Myers, to a lady whose face and dress
declared her a social magnate, "my new boarder, Mr. Frank Harley:" and
the rest of her introduction speech followed; and stately Mrs.
Sunderland had just time to utter a few words of gracious inquiry about
the "precious health" of Frank's father and mother, when he, too, took
up the "omission," and Dick Lee's introduction stepped into the place of
any other answer for a moment.
It was a good thing for Dick, as Mrs. Sunderland was a member of a
society for promoting emigration to Liberia, and was seized at once with
a dim idea that a part of her "mission" was standing before her in very
brilliant shoes and a new red necktie. She did not know how utterly she
and the other good people and those three boys were demolishing a
curious vision of Almira's and her mother's, of some social advantage
they might derive, thenceforward, from having "a colored servant" in
their employ. Dick's own chance was coming right down upon him, a little
before he was quite ready for it; for the minister and his wife came out
a few moments later, and Mrs. Sunderland took upon herself the duty of
presenting Richard Lee to them, very much if as she would have said,--
"My dear Mr. Fallow,--my dear Mrs. Fallow,--see what I've found! Is he
not remarkable?"
The words she really uttered were somewhat more formal; but the good,
quiet-looking little minister and very quiet-looking little wife were
still shaking hands with Dick, that is, with his right hand, when he
turned almost eagerly, and caught hold of Dab Kinzer with his left.
"Yes, sir, an' dis is Cap'n Dab--I mean, this is my friend Mr. Dabney
Kinzer, of Long Island,--de bes'--"
"How do you do, Mr. Kinzer? Glad to make your acquaintance," said Mr.
Fallow; and Dick's success was complete, except that he was saying to
himself,--
"I jes' can't trus' my tongue wid de oder boys. Dey's got to take dar
chances."
"Now, Mr. Kinzer," said Miss Almira, at that moment, "it's time we were
going home."
"Yes, Frank," said her mother patronizingly, "I think we had better be
going."
If such an exercise as "introduction" could earn it, they were both
entitled to good appetites; and, after all, it had been quite a nice
little affair.
Dabney was quite as tall as Miss Almira; but as they walked across the
green, side by side, he could not avoid a side-glance that gave him a
very clear idea of the difference between his present company and Annie
Foster. It was at that very moment that it occurred to Frank that he had
last walked home from church under the protecting wing of the portly and
matronly Mrs. Kinzer; and he could but draw some kind of a comparison
between her and Mrs. Myers.
"They're both widows," he thought; "but there isn't any other
resemblance."
Ford and Dick brought up the rear; and for some reason, or there may
have been more than one, they were both in capital good spirits.
"Tell you wot," exclaimed Dick: "if goin' to de 'cad'my is all like dis
yer--I am very glad indeed that I ever came."
"Oh! you're all right," said Ford; "but there's more good people in this
village than I'd any idea of. I'm glad we came to church."
"Dick," said Mrs. Myers a little sharply, when they reached the gate, "I
want some wood and a pail of water. You'd better hurry up stairs, and
put on your every-day clothes."