+-------------------------------------------------+
|Transcriber’s note: |
| |
|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. |
| |
+-------------------------------------------------+
[Illustration]
HARRY FENIMORE’S PRINCIPLES.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
“A SUMMER IN THE FOREST,” “FLOY LINDSLEY
AND HER FRIENDS,” ETC.
[Illustration: Logo]
_American Tract Society_,
150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK.
COPYRIGHT, 1877,
BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.
HARRY FENIMORE’S
PRINCIPLES.
CHAPTER I.
Outside the city limits the country was glowing with garnet and gold,
but within the boundary of walls and pavements, only here and there a
solitary tree, or a vine trailing over a balcony, showed what October
had been doing, and now the short autumn twilight was drawing its gray
veil over even those. But nothing daunted, and as if determined to
keep up for itself, the city began to sparkle here and there with an
illumination of its own, and gas-lights began to gleam from one window
after another, giving for the moment before the blinds were drawn, a
free chance for a peep at the evening just beginning inside.
The light flashed from the windows of two houses at the same instant.
One stood quite toward the outer limits of the city, and though its
inmates and its furnishings were poor enough, it had a broad outlook
over all the brilliant glory of the country round about, while a great
old butternut-tree, knotted and gnarled by many a year, scattered its
leaves in a golden shower over the roof and down the long yard leading
to the road. The other fronted on one of the fashionable avenues of
the city, where the square of grass before each door was only large
enough for a single shrub, or a garden vase but inside, ivies twining
fresh and green upon the walls, a conservatory window full of flowers,
and the pleasant warmth of the crackling fire in the grate, seemed to
balance the gayety of life outside, and make things very nearly equal
again.
Whether the advantage was really on the side of the queer rambling old
house under the butternut-tree, or belonged to himself, sitting in the
ivied library of the brown stone front, Hal Fenimore was quite too busy
to decide, as the servant reached his torch up to the chandelier, and
with one burst after another the gas rushed to meet it, and the room
flashed into a sudden burst of light.
“That’s good,” he exclaimed, as it flooded down upon the table where
with elbows firmly planted, and his hands pushed through his hair, he
had been impatiently waiting for his companion, Tom Haggarty, to make
the next move in their game.
“I don’t know about it, though,” he added to himself, under his breath,
as he discovered something to which he had been quite blind before, but
which stood out so plainly now that he did not see how Tom could fail
to see it for another moment. Everything had been going on swimmingly
on his side, up to that moment; but there stood his queen in the very
line of march of one of Tom’s bishops, and not a piece of any size to
interfere! If Tom would only continue blind to his opportunity for one
move more, till there should be time for a masterly retreat!
Poor little Tom! He did not look like an antagonist much to be dreaded,
as he sat vis-a-vis to Hal, with not only an anxious, but a bewildered
expression upon his face, first lifting a hand towards one of his
pieces, and then withdrawing it, as if his uncertainty had only doubled
by the movement. At last, in a sort of desperation, he made a plunge at
his only remaining knight and moved it into a worse position than it
occupied before. Then, still more hopelessly perplexed by Hal’s chuckle
of triumph at the escape of his queen, and his taunting, “A’n’t you
a bright fellow to play with!” he made two or three aimless moves,
and Hal cried “Checkmate!” in a tone that completed his humiliation.
It was very unpleasant somehow; he wondered if the player who did not
checkmate always felt so. If he did, Tom certainly thought chess a very
disagreeable game. So he slipped down from his chair and told Hal, who
was still rejoicing in the conclusion of things, that he thought he
must go.
“Don’t go,” said Hal, “let’s play another.”
“I guess I can’t; I guess I _must_ go,” said Tom; and finding his hat,
he got out of the front door, and heard it close behind him with a
miserable feeling that seemed to run down to the very depths of his
pockets, to the effect that Hal and himself had a clear understanding
between them that he was a stupid little fellow, and that a good player
was more than a match for him.
When Hal came back to the library, rubbing his hands with renewed
triumph as he glanced at the chess-board, he also saw through the open
door of the dining-room, that dinner had been brought in, and that his
was the only vacant seat at the table.
So scrambling the pieces into their box, he made haste to take his
place, apologizing for his tardiness by saying that he had been to the
door with Tom.
“But, Hal,” said Mrs. Fenimore, as if a sudden thought struck her, “why
don’t you sometimes invite one of the boys who know the game better?
you seem always to have some little atom of a fellow who has not played
three games in his life, and you have nothing to do but beat him.”
“That’s the very fun of it,” replied Hal; “I beat Tom all out just now,
and sent him home feeling meaner than the fag end of nothing. That’s
the way of course if you ever come across a fellow that isn’t smart
enough to defend himself.”
“Why, Hal Fenimore! Do you say such a thing as that? You certainly
never learned such principles at home, and I should be very sorry to
think you had gathered them up since you came to be with your uncle and
me.”
“I didn’t know it was principles,” said Hal, coming down a little from
his high horse of complacency; “I never thought anything about it,
in any way, only a fellow always likes to make another feel a little
shabby if he can, because then he feels finer himself.”
“Why, Hal!” was all the lady could exclaim, as she turned to look
closely in his face to see if he was really in earnest. “I wonder
how you would have liked chess-playing if your uncle had taken that
way to ‘feel fine’ as you call it, when he taught you? As far as I
can recollect, he found his pleasure entirely in encouraging you, and
helping you on over the rough places till you were able to stand by
yourself.”
“Oh, that’s different,” said Hal. “Men don’t feel like boys. I suppose
when I am a man, I shall teach my small nephews and nieces, and never
see a mistake they make.”
“I don’t know about that,” said his uncle; “you’ll be pretty likely to
find yourself a grown-up Hal Fenimore when that day comes, and your
friends Tom Haggartys still, and nothing more or less. I give you fair
warning. A good deal depends upon how you strike out with your pawns,
in real life as well as in chess, my boy.”
“But men try to get ahead of each other, and they fight battles and get
victories,” persisted Hal.
“I beg your pardon,” said his uncle, “high-minded men don’t like to
fight battles with adversaries much weaker than themselves; and as for
‘getting ahead,’ that is a very different thing from standing still and
crowing over some poor little companion that you have managed to push
down.”
“Well,” said Hal, who found the discussion did not seem to turn very
decidedly in his favor, “I only know how boys do; but one thing they
have to look sharp for is having their lessons, and I must get to mine
in a great hurry now, if you will excuse me.”
The library fire crackled and glowed in the grate until it almost
seemed a pleasant thing that the evenings were getting frosty, and Hal
soon forgot all questions of mutual rights, in the more pressing one
of division of fractions, which took such complete possession of him
that he started as if out of a dream, at the sound of his aunt’s voice
saying, “I declare, Hal, I think I’ll invite Tom Haggarty here, and
give him lessons every evening for a week. He’s a bright little fellow,
and would be a match for you, if he didn’t beat you, in a very short
time.”
Poor little Tom! If he could only have heard her say it, what a comfort
it would have been! The miserable feeling that had come over him as he
said Good-night to Hal, had stuck fast ever since, till he had fairly
gone to bed to get rid of it, and was lying at that moment, with his
little cold nose tucked away under the blankets, trying to smother the
conviction that he was the stupidest and most insignificant fellow in
the world, and that Hal would be sure to remind him of it at school the
next day.
“Now, Aunt Melanie!” exclaimed Hal, “I can’t understand how you make so
much of that game of chess. Tom will find a boy smaller than himself
stumbling at his lesson to-morrow, and he’ll crow over him, as uncle
calls it, and then that little one will find another pushed out at a
game of ball and have his crow, and so they will all take their turns
and come out even.”
“Take their turns at what?” said his uncle, looking up from his
newspaper. “At putting on all manner of airs with themselves, when they
have really done something contemptible, and then at being made to feel
contemptible when perhaps they have done the best they could. It hurts
either way, my boy, and it isn’t starting with your pieces in good
range, let me tell you once more.”
“Well,” said Hal, growing a little uncomfortable again, “I wish I
could get these figures into range, at all events. I believe there’s
no battleground where things go quite so hard as they do on a fellow’s
slate;” and plunging in again amid rules and examples, he thought
little more of poor Tom or his woes, until he went to join him in the
land of dreams.