"If he wasn't that way, he'd be a darned sight better off than he is,"
said a thirty-year-old helper, from a far corner of the room.
"What makes you say that?" I queried. "Isn't it better to be
kind-hearted and generous than not?"
"It's all right to be kind-hearted and generous, but that ain't sayin'
that you've got to give your last cent away and let your family go
hungry."
"Is that what Charlie Potter does?"
"Well, no, maybe he don't, but he comes mighty near to it at times. He
and his wife and his adopted children have been pretty close to it at
times."
You see, this was the center, nearly, for all village gossip and
philosophic speculation, and many of the most important local problems,
morally and intellectually speaking, were here thrashed put.
"There's no doubt but that's where Charlie is wrong," put in old Mr.
Main a little later. "He don't always stop to think of his family."
"What did he ever do that struck you as being over-generous?" I asked of
the young man who had spoken from the corner.
"That's all right," he replied in a rather irritated and peevish tone;
"I ain't going to go into details now, but there's people around here
that hang on him, and that he's give to, that he hadn't orter."
"I believe in lookin' out for Number One, that's what I believe in,"
interrupted the boat-maker, laying down his rule and line. "This givin'
up everything and goin' without yourself may be all right, but I don't
believe it. A man's first duty is to his wife and children, that's what
I say."
"That's the way it looks to me," put in Mr. Main.
"Well, does Potter give up everything and go without things?" I asked
the boat-maker.
"Purty blamed near it at times," he returned definitely, then addressing
the company in general he added, "Look at the time he worked over there
on Fisher's Island, at the Ellersbie farm--the time they were packing
the ice there. You remember that, Henry, don't you?"
Mr. Main nodded.
"What about it?"
"What about it! Why, he give his rubber boots away, like a darned fool,
to old drunken Jimmy Harper, and him loafin' around half the year drunk,
and worked around on the ice without any shoes himself. He might 'a'
took cold and died."
"Why did he do it?" I queried, very much interested by now.
"Oh, Charlie's naturally big-hearted," put in the little old man who
sold cunners. "He believes in the Lord and the Bible. Stands right
square on it, only he don't belong to no church like. He's got the
biggest heart I ever saw in a livin' being."
"Course the other fellow didn't have any shoes for to wear," put in the
boat-maker explanatorily, "but he never would work, anyhow."
They lapsed into silence while the latter returned to his measuring, and
then out of the drift of thought came this from the helper in the
corner:
"Yes, and look at the way Bailey used to sponge on him. Get his money
Saturday night and drink it all up, and then Sunday morning, when his
wife and children were hungry, go cryin' around Potter. Dinged if I'd
'a' helped him. But Potter'd take the food right off his breakfast table
and give it to him. I saw him do it! I don't think that's right. Not
when he's got four or five orphans of his own to care for."
"His own children?" I interrupted, trying to get the thing straight.
"No, sir; just children he picked up around, here and there."
Here is a curious character, sure enough, I thought--one well worth
looking into.
Another lull, and then as I was leaving the room to give the matter a
little quiet attention, I remarked to the boat-maker:
"Outside of his foolish giving, you haven't anything against Charlie
Potter, have you?"
"Not a thing," he replied, in apparent astonishment. "Charlie Potter's
one of the best men that ever lived. He's a good man."