A NEW LIFE.
Next morning, by sunrise, Brydell was up and dressed and outdoors. The
two negro men on the place were feeding the stock under Mr. Laurison’s
directions, while a negro woman milked the cows.
Brydell looked about and saw that the vegetable garden was well weeded,
but there was a long straight walk down the garden, with flower beds on
each side of it, that were full of weeds. There were clumps of lilac,
both white and purple, great masses of the syringa, making the morning
air heavy with its sweet perfume, and snowball bushes blooming
profusely. Some early roses were out and a few gaudy peonies still
lingered.
Both beds and walk were choked with grass and all manner of vagrant
growth.
“If I had a garden hoe and rake, I could weed those flower beds,” said
Brydell to Mr. Laurison as they met in the backyard.
“I wish to goodness you would,” answered Mr. Laurison. “My wife has
nearly broken her heart over those flower beds. I’ve had to keep the
hands to work so steady that I actually haven’t had a chance to get at
the flowers; and she ain’t strong enough to do it herself, and it’s just
been a trial to her.”
Brydell had been taught to weed flowers under that stern martinet, Aunt
Emeline, and when an hour afterward Mrs. Laurison and Minna appeared,
one whole square was as neatly weeded as possible, the refuse piled up
in a wheelbarrow, and the garden looked like a different place.
Mrs. Laurison was delighted.
“You couldn’t have done anything that pleased me better, and a young
fellow that’s kind and considerate to women and children is apt to be a
good one. If Mr. Laurison keeps you, I’ve made up my mind to let you
have the little bedroom you slept in last night, instead of staying with
the hired men in the barn, because I see you are a gentleman’s son, and
your mother”—
“I haven’t any mother,” said Brydell, his eyes filling with tears at
Mrs. Laurison’s kind tones.
“Then there’s the more reason for being good to you,” she said.
Little Minna immediately dragged him off to see her garden, which was
the disorderly patch which usually satisfied children, and then they all
went in to breakfast.
After breakfast Mr. Laurison and Brydell had a business talk. Mr.
Laurison agreed to keep him a month on trial and to pay him ten dollars
besides his board. If he was satisfactory, he could keep the place
indefinitely.
Brydell never was so thankful and so relieved in his life, except when
he got that dispatch from Admiral Beaumont.
How much better was this wholesome country life than that dreary search
for employment in a city! And he had a good room to sleep in, instead of
a box on the top floor in a city boarding-house, and country milk and
butter and vegetables to eat—Brydell had an astonishing appetite—and his
work, although hard, was nothing like as hard as being perched upon an
office stool ten hours a day.
He had to buy himself some working clothes, but, as one result of his
training as a gentleman, Brydell never appeared at the table without
being neatly dressed. This worked a much-needed reform in Mr. Laurison,
who before Brydell came had no scruples about appearing at the dinner
table in his shirt sleeves. But he could not afford to be less well
dressed than his young hired hand and he began to take more pains with
his daily toilet.
This pleased Mrs. Laurison very much, who like most women attached
importance to the refinements of life, and who felt hurt to think that
though her husband put on his coat when they had guests to dinner, he
left it off when they were alone.
At the end of the month Mr. Laurison said nothing about Brydell’s
leaving and was secretly rather afraid that Brydell had got tired of his
job. But not so; Brydell had a great fund of sound sense, after all the
nonsense had been knocked out of him, and he knew he was in good luck to
have such a means of livelihood.
As soon as he felt any certainty about his position, he wrote a number
of letters—to his father, to Admiral Beaumont, to his Aunt Emeline, and
to Grubb the marine, who had got transferred to Portsmouth, New
Hampshire.
He got very prompt answers from the three of his correspondents who
could communicate with him. His Aunt Emeline wrote, saying if he
wouldn’t come back, she couldn’t help it—but there was nothing urgent in
her invitation. Brydell smiled rather bitterly as he laid the letter
down.
The admiral’s letter was overflowing. He could not give Brydell too much
encouragement, considered him bound to pass No. 1 next year, and
conveyed a long message from Billy Bowline to the effect that “Mr.
Brydell, he is bound to be a sailor man, ’cause he’s built that away.”
And Grubb’s letter, which was recklessly spelled and not fully up to the
standard of classic English, bade him “go in and Win. You have got Sand,
Mr. Brydell, and Sand is what makes a man. Some fellows as learns a lott
out of books ain’t got no natural manly carackter and disapp’ints their
friends. But you are not the sort to disapp’int.” Grubb then went on to
lament that he was stationed at Portsmouth. “For the cadets cruze will
most likely be here, Mr. Brydell, and there’s one of them, for reasons
which is known to you, as I would ruther not see in present
serkumstances.”
Brydell knew that the poor fellow meant Esdaile.
Meanwhile Brydell was working like a Trojan at his books.
Every evening after supper he would be claimed for half an hour by
little Minna, to play on the piano for her, to tell her stories, or to
amuse her in some way. Then he would take a lamp and go to his room and
study hard.
Often he was very tired, but it was a healthful fatigue. He did not feel
any sense of nervous exhaustion, but, if he found himself falling asleep
over his books, he would go to bed and get up at daylight next morning
feeling perfectly refreshed.
The outdoor life agreed with him wonderfully, and his boyish figure
began to fill out and lose some of its angles. And he had the
consciousness of making headway with his studies. He was forced to adopt
the old-fashioned plan of relying upon himself, instead of the
new-fashioned one of having a tutor to study with him and to take most
of the trouble off him.
Besides making steady progress in studies and character and physique, he
actually found himself happy. He had no associates of his own age, it is
true; the neighborhood was sparsely populated and he did not find any
very congenial acquaintances among boys of his own age, but he comforted
himself by thinking, “Never mind, I’ll have lots of fellows for company
next year.” He came to like Mr. Laurison; and Mrs. Laurison’s kindness
was unvarying. Little Minna became the apple of his eye.
In the summer she had a slight illness, and Brydell did not realize
until then how fond he was of the little girl. He was always on hand to
do anything for her, and the child would take her medicine more readily
from him than from anybody else.
This still more won Mrs. Laurison’s heart, and there was keen sympathy
between her and the boy who had never known a mother’s love. He often
thought: “If Aunt Emeline had been like this!” Minna got well quickly,
but from that day on Brydell’s affection for the mother and child became
intense. Mrs. Laurison knew that Brydell was preparing for his
examination another year, but as she said to him sometimes:
“The farm won’t be the same for any of us after you go away. I never had
any boys of my own; I always wanted them and it seems to me now I feel
the want of them more than ever, because I see how nice a nice boy
really is.”
“I never was accused of being a nice boy by my best friends,” cried
Brydell, laughing but pleased. “Ask Aunt Emeline what she thinks of me.”
As for Minna, every mention of Brydell’s leaving was met by her throwing
her arms around his neck and pleading, “You won’t go away and leave me?”
Brydell partially gained her consent to go, on promising that he would
send her chests full of magnificent things and a dolly as big as
herself.
Toward the last of the summer he got a letter from his father. It was
very kind and affectionate, and almost humble in tone.
“I feel that I have erred through my tenderness for you,” he wrote; “but
I hope that you have experienced the worst you will have to undergo of
the effects of my fondness. I do not know what you are doing now, and
shall wait eagerly to hear, but I rely upon your manliness and
uprightness to carry you through.”
Brydell’s reply to this letter was a very cheerful one.
One day in the autumn, as Brydell in his blue overalls was driving an
ox-wagon loaded with fodder down the lane, he suddenly caught sight of a
trim military old figure standing at the gate, with another rather
slouchy one, and the next minute he recognized Admiral Beaumont’s hearty
laugh.
The admiral was highly amused at the spectacle his young friend
presented, mounted on a load of hay, while Billy Bowline grinned
appreciatively at the sight. Brydell was delighted to see his old friend
and, noticing that his employment as teamster seemed to afford the
admiral great diversion, he cried out:—
“Delighted to see you, admiral! Just let me get my team through this
gate and I’ll jump down and shake hands with you. Gee, buck!”
“Ha, ha!” roared the admiral. “You haven’t sea room enough, my young
friend, in which to manœuvre that craft. You’ll foul that gatepost as
sure as a gun.”
“No, I won’t; whoa!” shouted Brydell in reply. The oxen made a sudden
turn that really did threaten to foul the gatepost.
“Keep your luff,” called out the admiral, waving his stick excitedly,
“and keep your head to the wind.”
“Can’t,” replied Brydell, who was not an expert ox-driver by any means;
“you see she yaws about so there’s no keeping her head to the wind.”
At last, after the expenditure of much lung power, both by Brydell and
the admiral, the wagon got through, and Brydell, jumping down, shook
hands heartily with his old friends.
“Bless my soul!” cried the admiral, “I never saw a fellow grow like you.
Why, you are about a foot taller and two feet broader than you were last
year—eh, Bowline?”
“He do grow amazin’ fast,” said Billy solemnly, “and I reckon as how
he’ll be the finest-lookin’ feller in the sarvice when he gits there.
But, Mr. Brydell, beg your parding, sir, you ought not to risk your
life, sir, in no sich a craft as that. Horses is bad enough, but oxen is
the most dangersome thing alive. Like as not they run away with you or
kick your head off, sir. Now, sir, aboard ship you ain’t never in no
danger. That’s the beauty of the sarvice, sir, ain’t no horses for to
kick you, nor no oxen for to run away with you; jist nothin’ to hurt
you; and when the wind blows, all you’ve got to do, sir, is to make
everything snug and git to sea, and there you is, sir, safe and sound.”
“The old dunderhead is right,” chuckled the admiral highly pleased,
while Brydell in his heart really thought a ship was the safest thing
under heaven, particularly a United States ship.
Brydell took his two old friends up to the house, where Mrs. Laurison
received them, as she did everybody, kindly and graciously. The admiral,
struck by her gentle and refined manner, bowed over the hand of the
farmer’s wife as if she were the greatest lady in the land, while Billy
Bowline stood just outside the door, twiddling his cap, and could not be
induced to sit down even in the hall.
“For ’tain’t for the likes o’ me to be sittin’ down afore ladies,” said
Billy. “But I’d like mightily to have a word with that little ’un as
looks like a angel.”
Minna, after having made friends with the admiral, was quite willing to
make friends with the old sailor. Presently they saw her put her chubby
hand in his and lead him out under a tree, where they both sat down on
the grass, and through the window floated in scraps of a thrilling
narrative that Billy was telling her: “The prin-_cess_, she then give
orders, ‘Bring up my palankeen,’ and she climbed over the side and then
she trimmed the palankeen, and it’s a mighty onhandy thing to trim, my
dear”—
Mrs. Laurison invited the admiral to stay to dinner, and he accepted
frankly. Brydell slipped upstairs and washed and changed his clothes;
then the admiral went upstairs, too, and had a long talk with him. He
took Brydell’s books and gave him a pretty sharp examination, which
Brydell stood remarkably well; he had not wasted his time.
When dinner was ready they found Mr. Laurison dressed in his best
clothes, and Mrs. Laurison had put on a pretty gown for the admiral. The
dinner was very jolly, and Brydell was glad that the admiral saw what
excellent quarters he had fallen into.
After dinner, when it was time for the train, Mr. Laurison wanted to
send the admiral to the station in the old carriage that was used on
great occasions, but the admiral preferred to walk. He and Brydell
started off, therefore, in the autumn evening to walk, with Billy
Bowline rolling along after them.
“I have waited to write to your father until I should see you,” said the
admiral; “but now I can write with a cheerful heart. Zounds, sir, you
are in luck; a year of hard study, hard work, and independence will make
a man of you. I thought your failure in your examination the worst thing
that could befall you. But don’t you see, youngster, that what seems to
be the worst may sometimes be wrested to make the very best?”
Brydell was not quite prepared to admit that his two mortifying failures
were the best things that could have happened to him; but he rightly
considered himself a fortunate fellow in the way his resolve to earn his
living had turned out. He told the admiral of the letter he had received
from his father, and what he had replied. And then he spoke of Grubb and
Esdaile.
“I have heard of that Esdaile fellow, and mark my words, he’s a scamp.
It’s well enough to elevate himself; poor Grubb is an honest, sensible
fellow, though uneducated; but I hear that his boy would have nothing to
do with him, except on the sly, and actually has been heard to deny that
Grubb is his father. I say that fellow is a pernicious, unqualified, and
unmitigated scamp and scalawag; and I don’t care if he passes No. 1 in
his class, I’d fire him out of the navy in short order, if I had my
way.”
Presently out of the darkness came the roar and thunder of the train,
the admiral wrung Brydell’s hand as did Billy Bowline, Billy saying,
“Good-by, Mr. Brydell, I hopes as how you’ll git through and be a
ornament to the sarvice, sir, afore I trips my anchor and sets out for
the other coast.”
Brydell went back wonderfully encouraged. The admiral believed in him,
and that belief of others in us does wonders. Even Billy Bowline’s
appreciation was not lost on Brydell.
The autumn and winter passed rapidly. Lieutenant Brydell’s ship was
still cruising in the Pacific, stopping occasionally for letters that
were months in reaching their destination. Brydell received several
letters from his father, all encouraging in tone, especially after
Admiral Beaumont’s letter.
The spring came on apace, and at last one day in May, exactly a year
from the time Brydell had gone to Annapolis before, he was notified to
present himself before the examining board.
Brydell felt reasonably confident. Not only had he worked hard, but,
forced to depend upon himself and to solve his own difficulties, he felt
that he stood a better chance of making a four years’ course than if he
had been crammed by a tutor to get through his examinations and then
make a flat failure afterward.
It was hard on him to say good-by to the Laurisons, and Minna was so
distressed at the idea of parting from him that Mrs. Laurison and he
agreed that it would be better for him to slip off early in the morning
before sunrise, so that the child would be spared the pain of parting.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Laurison were up to give him his breakfast and see him
off. Mrs. Laurison said to him:—
“If ever your Aunt Emeline said you were a disagreeable boy, I think she
must have been a very disagreeable woman, for in the year you have lived
with us I don’t think I could have found fault with you if I had tried.”
“Dear Mrs. Laurison, it was because you were all so good to me,”
answered Brydell with tears in his eyes.
The farewells were said, and Brydell struck off in the path that led
through the field to the little roadside station. Just as he shut the
gate that led from the path to the farm enclosures a childish figure,
topped by a ruffled dimity sunbonnet, rose from beside the gate.
“I heard you get up,” said Minna, “and I knew you were going to-day, so
I slipped out of bed and dressed myself, for I heard mamma say something
to you about not telling me good-by because I would cry so; and I’m not
a cry-baby, and I want to say good-by too.”
Brydell kissed her and promised to write to her, and although she
evidently wanted to cry she did not shed a tear. Brydell started her
back to the house and Minna trotted off obediently, but he saw her stop
once or twice and put her apron to her eyes.
In a few hours he was at Annapolis and in a few days he had passed a
splendid examination and was formally notified that he was a naval cadet
at last.