WINN HARDY
Winn Hardy, born and reared where the tinkle of the cow bells on the
hillside pastures, or the call of the village church bell on Sunday was
the most exciting incident, and a crossroads schoolhouse the only temple
of learning, reached the age of fourteen as utterly untainted by
knowledge of the world as the birds that annually visited the old farm
orchards. And then came a catastrophe in his life which ended in two
freshly made graves in the village cemetery, and he was thrust into the
whirl of city life, to make his home with a widowed aunt, a Mrs.
Converse, who felt it her duty to complete his education by a two years'
course at a business college.
It was a scant educational outfit with which to carve his way to fame
and fortune, but many a man succeeds who has less, and Winn might have
been worse off.
He had one unfortunate and serious fact to contend with, however, and
that was a mercurial disposition. When the world and his associates
seemed to smile, he soared amid the rosy clouds of optimism, and when
things went wrong, he lost his courage.
His first step in wage-earning (a menial position in a store, with
scanty pay which scarce sufficed to clothe him) soon convinced him how
hard a task earning a livelihood was, and that no one obtained a penny
unless he fought for it. Then through the influence of his aunt, he
obtained an easier berth as copy clerk in the office of Weston & Hill,
whose business was the investing of other people's money, and while his
hours of service were less, his pay was no better. Three years of this
resulted in slow advancement to a junior bookkeeper's desk and better
pay. It also broadened his list of acquaintances, for he joined a club,
the membership of which was decidedly mixed, and not all of the best
kind of associates for Winn.
His aunt, a shallow though well-meaning woman, devoted to church work,
gossip, and her pet poodle, considering Winn an unfortunate addition to
her cares, held but scant influence over him. She furnished him a home
to sleep and eat in without cost, urged him to attend church with her,
cautioned him against evil associates; but beyond that she could not and
did not go. So Winn drifted. He saved a little money, realizing that he
must, or be forever helpless and dependent; he learned the slang of the
town and its ways, and forgot for a time the wholesome lessons of his
early life. He also grew more mercurial, and, worse than that, he grew
cynical.
On all sides, and go where he would, the arrogance of wealth seemed to
hedge him about and force upon him the realization that he was but a
poorly paid bookkeeper, and not likely to become aught else. And then a
worse mishap befell him--he met and became attached to Jack Nickerson.
There is in every club, and in every walk in life, wherever a young
man's feet may stray, some one it were better he never met--a
Mephistopheles in male garb, whose wit and ways of pleasure-taking are
alluring, whose manners are perfect, whose pockets are well filled; and
alas, whose morals are a matter of convenience.
That Winn, honest and wholesome-minded country-born fellow that he was,
should be attracted by this product of fast city life is not strange. It
is the attraction that allures the moth toward the flame, the good
toward evil. Follow Nickerson in that course, Winn would not and did
not; he merely admired him for his wit, felt half tempted to emulate his
vices, absorbed his scepticism--for Jack Nickerson in addition to his
vices was a cynic of the most implacable sort. With him all religion was
hypocrisy, all virtue a folly, and all truth a farce. He had income
sufficient to live well upon, gambled for a pastime, was at the race
tracks whenever chance offered, was cheek by jowl with the sporting
fraternity, a man about town and hail fellow well met with all.
Per contra, he was generous to a fault, laughed most when he uttered his
sharpest sneers, was polished and refined in his tastes and a gentleman
always.
One distinguished novelist has deified such a man, and made him a hero
of her numerous tales.
To Winn he appealed more as a fascinating, world-wise sceptic, whose
shafts of satire were gospel truths, and whose Sybarite sort of
existence was worthy of emulation, if one only had the money to follow
it.
Then, as if to cap the climax and Winn's cynical education, he fell in
love with Ethel Sherman, a beauty and a natural-born flirt, whose ideas
of life and maternal training had convinced her that marriage was a
matter of business, and a means by which to obtain position and wealth.
Her family were people of moderate means, living near neighbors to
Winn's aunt and attending the same church. She had an elder sister,
Grace, who had, in her estimation, wrecked her life by marrying a poor
man. And when Winn Hardy, young, handsome and callow, first met her, she
was just home from boarding-school, ready to spread her social wings,
and ripe for conquest.
Winn's aunt was also somewhat to blame in the matter, for she, like many
good women, loved to dabble in match-making, and in her simple mind
fancied it a wise move to bring one about between Ethel and Winn.
Its results were disastrous to his peace of mind, for, after dancing
attendance for a year and spending half he earned on flowers and theatre
tickets, his suit was laughed at and he was assured that only a rich
young man was eligible to her favor.
Then he went back to Jack Nickerson, and, though he outgrew his folly,
his impulsive nature became more pronounced and he a more bitter cynic
than ever. For two years he was but a cipher in business and social
life, a poorly paid bookkeeper in the office of Weston & Hill, a drop in
the rushing, pushing, strenuous life of the city; and then came a
change.