READY TO TRY.
"YOU see," said Jerry, as Nettie came, protesting as she walked that
she could stay but a few minutes, because there was Norm's collar,
and she had four nice apples out of which she was going to make
some splendid apple dumplings for dinner, "you see we must contrive
something to keep a young fellow like Norm busy, if we are going to
hold him after he is caught. It doesn't do to catch a fish and leave
him on the edge of the bank near enough to flounce back into the water.
Norm ought to be set to work to help along the plans, and kept so busy
he wouldn't have time to get tired of them."
"But how could that be done?" Nettie said in wondering tones, which
nevertheless had a note of admiration in them. Jerry went so deeply
into things, it almost took her breath away to follow him.
"Just so; that's the problem which ought to be thought out. I can think
of things enough; but the room, and the tools to begin with, are the
trouble."
"What have you thought of? What would you do if you could?"
"O my!" said Jerry, with a little laugh; "don't ask me that question,
or your folks will have no apple dumplings to-day. I don't believe
there is any end to the things which I would do if I could. But the
first beginnings of them are like this: suppose we had a few dollars
capital, and a room."
"You might as well suppose we had a palace, and a million dollars,"
said Nettie, with a long-drawn sigh.
"No, because I don't expect either of those things; but I do mean to
have a room and a few dollars in capital for this thing some day; only,
you see, I don't want to wait for them."
"Well, go on; what then?"
"Why, then we would start an eating-house, you and I, on a little
bit of a scale, you know. We would have bread with some kind of
meat between, and coffee, in cold weather, and lemonade in hot,
and a few apples, and now and then some nuts, and a good deal of
gingerbread--soft, like what auntie Smith makes--and some ginger-snaps
like those Mrs. Dix sent us from the country, and, well, you know the
names of things better than I do. Real good things, I mean, but which
don't cost much. Such as you, and Sarah Ann, and a good many bright
girls learn how to make, without using a great deal of money. Those
things are all rather cheap, which I have mentioned, because we have
them at our house quite often, and the Smiths are poor, you know. But
they are made so nice that they are just capital. Well, I would have
them for sale, just as cheap as could possibly be afforded; a great
deal cheaper than beer, or cigars, and I would have the room bright and
cheery; warm in winter, and as cool as I could make it in summer; then
I would have slips of paper scattered about the town, inviting young
folks to come in and get a lunch; then when they came, I would have
picture papers if I could, for them to look at, and games to play, real
nice jolly games, and some kind of music going on now and then. I'd
run opposition to that old grocery around the corner from Crossman's,
with its fiddle and its whiskey. That's the beginning of what I would
do. Just what I told you about, that first night we talked it over.
The fellows, lots of them, have nowhere to go; it keeps growing in my
mind, the need for doing something of the sort. I never pass that mean
grocery without thinking of it."
You should have seen Nettie's eyes! The little touch of discouragement
was gone out of them, and they were full of intense thought.
"I can see," she said at last, "just how splendid it might grow to be.
But what did you mean about Norm? there isn't any work for him in such
a plan. At least, I mean, not until he was interested to help for the
sake of others."
"Yes, there is, plenty of business for him. Don't you see? I would have
this room, open evenings, after the work was done, and I would have
Norm head manager. He should wait on customers, and keep accounts.
When the thing got going he would be as busy as a bee; and he is just
the sort of fellow to do that kind of thing well, and like it too," he
added.
"O Jerry," said Nettie, and her hands were clasped so closely that the
blood flowed back into her wrists, "was there ever a nicer thought than
that in the world! I know it would succeed; and Norm would like it so
much. Norm likes to do things for others, if he only had the chance."
"I know it; and he likes to do things in a business way, and keep
everything straight. Oh! he would be just the one. If we only had a
room, there is nothing to hinder our beginning in a very small way.
Those chickens are growing as fast as they can, and by Thanksgiving
there will be a couple of them ready to broil; then the little old
grandmothers did so well."
"I know it; who would have supposed that almost four dollars could be
made out of some daisy grandmothers! Miss Sherrill gave me one dollar
and ninety-five cents which she said was just half of what they had
earned. I do think it was so nice in her to give us that chance! She
couldn't have known how much we wanted the money. Jerry, why couldn't
we begin, just with that? It would start us, and then if the things
sold, why, the money from them would keep us started until we found a
way to earn more. Why can't we?"
"Room," said Jerry, with commendable brevity. "Why, we have a room;
there's the front one that we just put in such nice order. Why not? It
is large enough for now, and maybe when our business grew we could get
another one somehow."
Jerry stopped fitting the toe of his boot to a hole which he had made
in the ground, and looked at the eager young woman of business before
him. "Do you mean your mother would let us have the room, and the
chance in the kitchen, to go into such business?"
"Mother would do _anything_," said Nettie emphatically, "anything in
the world which might possibly keep Norm in the house evenings; you
don't know how dreadfully she feels about Norm. She thinks father," and
there Nettie stopped. How could a daughter put it into words that her
mother was afraid her father would lead his son astray?
"I know," said Jerry. "See here, Nettie, what is the matter with your
father? I never saw him look so still, and--well, queer, in some way.
Mr. Smith says he doesn't think he is drinking a drop; but he looks
unlike himself, somehow, and I can't decide how."
"I don't know," said Nettie, in a low voice. "We don't know what to
think of him. He hasn't been so long without drinking, mother says,
in four years. But he doesn't act right; or, I mean, natural. He isn't
cross, as drinking beer makes him, but he isn't pleasant, as he was
for a day or two. He is real sober; hardly speaks at all, nor notices
the things I make; and I try just as hard to please him! He eats
everything, but he does it as though he didn't know he was eating.
Mother thinks he is in some trouble, but she can't tell what. He can't
be afraid of losing his place--because mother says he was threatened
that two or three times when he was drinking so hard, and he didn't
seem to mind it at all; and why should he be discharged now, when he
works hard every day? Last Saturday night he brought home more money
than he has in years. Mother cried when she saw what there was, but
she had debts to pay, so we didn't get much start out of it after all.
Then we spend a good deal in coffee; we have it three times a day, hot
and strong; I can see father seems to need it; and I have heard that
it helped men who were trying not to drink. When I told mother that,
she said he should have it if she had to beg for it on her knees. But
I don't know what is the matter with father now. Sometimes mother is
afraid there is a disease coming on him such as men have who drink;
she says he doesn't sleep very well nights, and he groans some, when
he is asleep. Mother tries hard," said Nettie, in a closing burst of
confidence, "and she _does_ have such a hard time! If we could only
save Norm for her."
"I'll tell you who your mother looks like, or would look like if she
were dressed up, you know. Did you ever see Mrs. Burt?"
"The woman who lives in the cottage where the vines climb all around
the front, and who has birds, and a baby? I saw her yesterday. You
don't think mother looks like her!"
"She would," said Jerry, positively, "if she had on a pink and white
dress and a white fold about her neck. I passed there last night, while
Mrs. Burt was sitting out by that window garden of hers, with her baby
in her arms; Mr. Burt sat on one of the steps, and they were talking
and laughing together. I could not help noticing how much like your
mother she looked when she turned her side face. Oh! she is younger, of
course; she looks almost as though she might be your mother's daughter.
I was thinking what fun it would be if she were, and we could go and
visit her, and get her to help us about all sorts of things. Mr. Burt
knows how to do every kind of work about building a house, or fixing up
a room."
"He is a nice man, isn't he?"
"Why, yes, nice enough; he is steady and works hard. Mr. Smith thinks
he is quite a pattern; he has bought that little house where he lives,
and fixed it all up with vines and things; but I should like him better
if he didn't puff tobacco smoke into his wife's face when he talked
with her. He doesn't begin to be so good a workman as your father,
nor to know so much in a hundred ways. I think your father is a very
nice-looking man when he is dressed up. He looks smart, and he is
smart. Mr. Smith says there isn't a man in town who can do the sort of
work that he can at the shop, and that he could get very high wages and
be promoted and all that, if"--
Jerry stopped suddenly, and Nettie finished the sentence with a
sigh. She too had passed the Burt cottage and admired its beauty and
neatness. To think that Mr. Burt owned it, and was a younger man by
fifteen years at least than her father--and was not so good a workman!
then see how well he dressed his wife; and little Bobby Burt looked as
neat and pretty in Sunday-school as the best of them. It was very hard
that there must be such a difference in homes. If she could only live
in a house like the Burt cottage, and have things nice about her as
they did, and have her father and mother sit together and talk, as Mr.
and Mrs. Burt did, she should be perfectly happy, Nettie told herself.
Then she sprang up from the log and declared that she must not waste
another minute of time; but that Jerry's plan was the best one she had
ever heard, and she believed they could begin it.
With this thought still in mind, after the dinner dishes were carefully
cleared away, and her mother, returned from the day's ironing, had
been treated to a piece of the apple dumpling warmed over for her, and
had said it was as nice a bit as she ever tasted, Nettie began on the
subject which had been in her thoughts all day:
"What would you think of us young folks going into business?"
"Going into business!"
"Yes'm. Jerry and Norm and me. Jerry has a plan; he has been telling me
about it this morning. It is nice if we can only carry it out; and I
shouldn't wonder if we could. That is, if you think well of it."
"I begin to think there isn't much that you and Jerry can't do, with
Norm, or with anybody else, if you try; and you both appear to be ready
to try to do all you can for everybody."
Mrs. Decker's tone was so hearty and pleased, that you would not have
known her for the same woman who looked forward dismally but a few
weeks ago to Nettie's home-coming. Her heart had so warmed to the girl
in her efforts for father and brother, that she was almost ready to
agree to anything which she could have to propose. So Nettie, well
pleased with this beginning, unfolded with great clearness and detail,
Jerry's wonderful plan for not only catching Norm, but setting him up
in business.
Mrs. Decker listened, and questioned and cross-questioned, sewing
swiftly the while on Norm's jacket which had been torn, and which
was being skilfully darned in view of the evening to be spent at the
parsonage.
"Well," she said at last, "it looks wild to me, I own; I should as soon
try to fly as of making anything like that work in this town; but then,
you've made things work, you two, that I'd no notion could be done,
and between you, you seem to kind of bewitch Norm. He's done things
for you that I would no sooner have thought of asking of him than I
would have asked him to fly up to the moon; and this may be another of
them. Anyhow, if you've a mind to try it, I won't be the one to stop
you. I've been that scared for Norm, that I'm ready for anything. Oh!
the _room_, of course you may use it. If you wanted to have a circus
in there, I think I'd agree, wild animals and all; I've had worse than
wild animals in my day. No, your father won't object; he thinks what
you do is about right, I guess. And for the matter of that, he doesn't
object to anything nowadays; I don't know what to make of him."
The sentence ended with a long-drawn, troubled sigh.
Just what this strange change in her husband meant, Mrs. Decker could
not decide; and each theory which she started in her mind about it,
looked worse than the last.
Norm's collar was ready for him, so was his jacket. He was somewhat
surly; the truth was, he had received what he called a "bid" to
the merry-making which was to take place in the back room of the
grocery, around the corner from Crossman's, and he was a good deal
tried to think he had cut himself off by what he called a "spooney"
promise, from enjoying the evening there. At the same time there was
a certain sense of largeness in saying he could not come because he
had received an invitation elsewhere, which gave him a momentary
pleasure. To be sure the boys coaxed until they had discovered the
place of his engagement, and joked him the rest of the time, until he
was half-inclined to wish he had never heard of the parsonage; but for
all that, a certain something in Norman which marked him as different
from some boys, held him to his word when it was passed; and he had
no thought of breaking from his engagement. It was an evening such as
Norman had reason to remember. For the first time in his life he sat
in a pleasantly furnished home, among ladies and gentlemen, and heard
himself spoken to as one who "belonged."
Three ladies were there from the city, and two gentlemen whom Norman
had never seen before; all friends of the Sherrills come out to spend
a day with them. They were not only unlike any people whom he had ever
seen before, but, if he had known it, unlike a great many ladies and
gentlemen, in that their chief aim in life was to be found in their
Master's service; and a boy about whom they knew nothing, save that he
was poor, and surrounded by temptations, and Satan desired to have him,
was in their eyes so much stray material which they were bound to bring
back to the rightful owner if they could.
To this end they talked to Norman. Not in the form of a lecture, but
with bright, winning words, on topics which he could understand, not
only, but actually on certain topics about which he knew more than
they. For instance, there was a cave about two miles from the town, of
which they had heard, but had never seen and Norm had explored every
crevice in it many a time. He knew on which side of the river it was
located, whether the entrance was from the east or the south; just how
far one could walk through it, just how far one could creep in it,
after walking had become impossible, and a dozen other things which it
had not occurred to him were of interest to anybody else. In fact, Norm
discovered in the course of the hour that there was such a thing as
conversation. Not that he made use of that word, in thinking it over;
his thoughts, if they could have been seen, would have been something
like this: "These are swell folks, but I can understand what they say,
and they seem to understand what I say, and don't stare as though I
was a wild animal escaped from the woods. I wonder what makes the
difference between them and other folks?"
But when the music began! I have no words to describe to you what
it was to Norm to sit close to an organ and hear its softest notes,
and feel the thrill of its heavy bass tones, and be appealed to
occasionally as to whether he liked this or that the best, and to
have a piece sung because the player thought it would please him; she
selected it that morning, she told him, with this thought in view.
"Decker, you ought to learn to play," said one of the guests who had
watched him through the last piece. "You _look_ music, right out of
your eyes. Miss Sherrill, here is a pupil for you who might do you
credit. Have you ever had any instrument, Decker?"
Then Norm came back to every-day life, and flushed and stammered. "No,
he hadn't, and was not likely to;" and wondered what they would think
if they were to see the corner grocery where he spent most of his
leisure time.
The questioner laughed pleasantly. "Oh, I'm not so sure of that. I
have a friend who plays the violin in a way to bring tears to people's
eyes, and he never touched one until he was thirty years old; hadn't
time until then. He was an apprentice, and had his trade to master,
and himself to get well started in it before he had time for music;
but when he came to leisure, he made music a delight to himself and to
others."
"A great deal can be done with leisure time," said another of the
guests. "Mr. Sherrill, you remember Myers, your college classmate? He
did not learn to read, you know, until he was seventeen."
"What?" said Norm, astonished out of his diffidence; "didn't know how
to read!"
"No," repeated the gentleman, "not until he was seventeen. He had a
hard childhood--was kicked about in the world, with no leisure and no
help, had to work evenings as well as days, but when he was seventeen
he fell into kinder hands, and had a couple of hours each evening
all to himself, and he mastered reading, not only, but all the common
studies, and graduated from college with honor when he was twenty-six."
Now Norm had all his evenings to lounge about in, and had not known
what to do with them; and he could read quite well.