The same evening that Penfield’s fate was hanging in the balance, Uncle
Ralph sat cosily by the library fire, newspaper in hand, and waiting
for Aleck to come home. Everything was so sure to go well with his two
faithful clerks, and the new luxury of home was so tempting, that he
was getting into the way of leaving business early, and for the first
time in his life enjoying his own fireside for an hour or two in the
evening. But the newspaper was upside down this time, and his own
thoughts seemed to be uppermost and so engrossing that he started when
he heard Aleck’s key in the door.
“Well, sir,” he said, as Aleck came in with as light a step and as
glowing a face as if such a thing as work had never been heard of,
“I’ve been making a discovery, sitting here all alone; and that is,
that I’ve been a poor fool not to have made a home for myself, in
some shape or other, thirty years ago! Don’t you follow my example,
old fellow. You must get a wife all in good time, but still it is
possible there are some other things to be thought of first. What day
is to-morrow?”
“Tuesday, I believe,” said Aleck.
“Humph! Yes. Anything else?”
“Only my birthday, so far as I know. I shall be twenty-one, I suppose,
if I live to see it.”
“Ah! Well that is what I was thinking about half an hour ago, I
believe; and I was only waiting for you to come home to ask you how you
would like to have ‘Halliday’s’ known as ‘Halliday & Co.’ in future.”
Aleck started.
“O uncle, I don’t deserve that! That is too much!”
“We wont go as far as to talk of deserts,” said his uncle. “If I could
tell you how my life came to be a lonely one, and how lonely it has
been, you could understand better what you have been to me the last few
years. If you had refused me when I asked you to come, I don’t know
what I should have done, and it would be ten times worse to part with
you now; and as one never knows what notion a young man may take, you
see I’m only casting an anchor to windward for myself, if I can pin you
a little closer. There aren’t many men lucky enough to have two such
right-hands as you and Thorndyke; and if I can get one of them for a
partner, why, we’ll divide the other between us, that is all. Thorndyke
is a genius! If he keeps on at this rate, we old men may have to step
aside and let him come in as number one some day, yet. But you are my
brother’s son, Aleck, and I want you in my sight and by my side as long
as I live; you have been the greatest comfort of my life; you have made
a green spot in it the last few years, and it would be like going back
to Sahara to give you up.”
Aleck did not sleep much that night; not for worlds would he have told
his uncle that he had been fighting away with college studies all these
years; and as he had watched Thorndyke coming on, a faint hope had
grown stronger and stronger that he might take his place some day, and
so much more than fill it that he could slip away without being really
missed. But that was all gone now; he would never leave his uncle!
And as for himself! Well, he had been happy in the store, even while
dreaming all the time of getting away, and if he could once settle
that question, and be done with fidgeting about it, he might be _very_
happy. And he was quite sincere in all his gratitude to his uncle. He
was giving him a position to be envied by any business man, and there
was no better place than Halliday’s for making a fortune, at all events.
So it was all settled, and no one was more proud of the new arrangement
than the senior clerk, as Thorndyke now became.
“And a lucky fellow you are, Thorndyke, to get your foot on that round
in the ladder,” said Tom, who had come in to see how Aleck carried
his new dignity, and stopped, as he always did, for a few words with
Thorndyke. “If I thought I should ever get to that I should take
courage, but it seems as if I never should; and I don’t know that I
shall be any better off, after all, when the day comes at last.”
Thorndyke glanced quickly in Tom’s face. It had seemed to him looking
rather wobegone for some time past, and he wondered if Tom was having
any trouble. He could give a faint guess, for he had been sent over to
Fenimore & Co.’s a good many times since he had been in the store, and
though the thought of Hal was so inseparably connected with the one
terrible memory of his life, that he had avoided even the sight of him
when possible, he had heard him speak to Tom with those same taunting
tones that brought the whole thing up with a rush, and made him tingle
to his fingers’ ends for Tom. Never since that dreadful day could he
hear an unkind word spoken to any human being without a shiver through
his own heart; and when it came in Hal’s own voice, he could only look
at Tom and wonder how he could bear it, and wish he were a strong man
and a rich one, that he might somehow get hold of him and pull him out
of the reach of it.
“It wont be very long, will it?” he asked; “isn’t Hal going in as
partner soon?”
“Yes,” said Tom, “in two or three months; but there’s Gray between
us, you know; and, after all, I don’t know that it makes any great
difference. It will be the same old mill, whatever wheel in it I turn,
and the same ugly grind. Some day before I know it I shall find it has
ground whatever soul I ever had into such small dust I cannot find it.”
“If you think there is any danger of that, why don’t you get out of
it?” asked Thorndyke, more earnestly than he dared to show Tom, and the
next moment he was almost frightened at the look that came into Tom’s
face.
“I tell you,” said Tom, “it’s all very fine to ask a drowning man why
he don’t catch at some straw, when there are half a dozen other people
hanging on him at the same time. If it wasn’t that they’re depending
on me at home, and have been waiting for me all these years, the world
isn’t so wide but I’d put half of it between me and Fenimore’s before
many days had passed. But, as things are, of course there’s nothing for
it but to stick by. I’ll hold on as long as I can, but if I go down,
and the rest with me, I can’t help it.”
Tom’s eyes met Thorndyke’s with an almost desperate look, and then he
turned suddenly away. “Pshaw, Thorndyke, I tell you again you don’t
know what a lucky dog you are. Shut up here with a fellow like Aleck I
should not think you had a trouble left in the world!”
So it was all out! It was Hal, as Thorndyke had thought! And with Tom’s
forlorn face turning away as if ashamed of what he had said, Thorndyke
felt more troubled than ever. What could he do about it?--as he had
asked himself many times before.
But after Tom had gone the consciousness of another pain came over him;
he had felt it like a stab, at Tom’s last words, but he was too much
engrossed by anxiety for him, to dwell upon them at the moment; now
they came echoing back: “I shouldn’t think you’d feel you had a trouble
in the world.”
And was that all Tom knew, all he realized after all these years and
with his memory of that terrible day long ago? Well, that was just as
Thorndyke had meant it should be, just as he was trying to have it all
the time; and why should he feel this strange pain when he found it was
so? He had been so bent on being a brave soldier.
He had let every one look at him, and heard whisperings now and then,
and had done his work, and gone home with a smile for the doctor and
Nellie, and the thought of the great Captain had kept him strong
through it all. It had been hard enough sometimes, and some of the
hardest had been when the other boys came in to tell Aleck about their
games or their excursions, or to beg him off to join them.
“All but me!” always came quickly up with its old ring, and brought
with it the echo of what the doctor had said when he nodded good-by to
him at the school-room.
“Remember you don’t run too hard till you are used to it; but I wont be
afraid to match you with the fleetest of them, in a few months’ time.”
He thought no one had ever guessed a word; the pale face and great
dark eyes looked quietly over the counter, or went about their work,
or smiled good-by as Aleck went off, as if they had no thought of
anything else; but Aleck and the doctor knew it all; and the doctor
used to tramp up and down the room now and then, until Nelly would
glance up wonderingly from her work.
“The very same! The very same look he gave me the first time he opened
his eyes at me, after it began to seem as if he might pull through
after all! Nothing in the world for him, and it’s all right there
shouldn’t be, and he’s glad there’s such a good time for you and me;
that’s what there is in that smile of his.”
“I don’t see how he can quite feel that there’s nothing in the world
for him when he has us all,” said Nelly gently. “He surely can’t forget
that.”
“No,” said the doctor, “he does not forget that, and I don’t believe
the thought of us is out of his mind a moment from the time he leaves
the house in the morning, and he hangs upon it till he comes back at
night; but still, life has something outside of us, or ought to have,
to a fellow like him. And it would have had, if it hadn’t been for a
set of miserable----”
The doctor’s book was very near taking another fly out of the window;
but he only added quietly, “However, he’ll find out that he’s somebody
yet, and make his fortune, if nothing more. Halliday says he’s a
genius, and he’ll be known as the first chemist in the state, some day.”
The doctor was right about Thorndyke’s “hanging on.” It seemed as if,
aside from the thought of the Prince Royal, he lived and moved in the
doctor and Aleck; and as for Nelly, she had never come to seem quite
like a real person yet, always the beautiful vision of the flower
window. The doctor was first of all, of course; Thorndyke watched his
every movement as if it were food for his eyes, no matter how engrossed
they might be with any work. But still, it only seemed wonderful
that he had them all; he could not make it seem anything that really
belonged to him; only a grace from day to day.
But poor Tom! He was sure he was having trouble somehow, and to see
any one in trouble was always trouble itself to Thorndyke; what could
he do? How could he make things seem any better? If he could only get
Tom over to Halliday’s, with Aleck! But that would be throwing away the
years he had been working and waiting for promotion at Fenimore’s.