MISPLACED CONFIDENCE.
Kate came within a day or two to enjoy the society of Lieutenant Jermyn
so much that she did not hesitate to say so plainly to Fenie. True, she
said it half as a test, to be applied to Fenie's own feelings, but as
the girl listened without a sign of jealousy, and even looked pleased,
Kate was so well satisfied with the situation that she wanted to talk
farther on the subject, and with some one more competent to estimate a
mature man and gentleman at his true value.
She therefore began to discuss Jermyn with Trif, who was so happy over
the change in Fenie's manner that she was quite willing to rejoice and
sympathize with any one about anything. Like any other good woman who
had been compelled to disappoint a good man, she wished she might see
the man made happy by some other good woman, so she wondered whether a
match between Jermyn and Kate might not be possible. Her own married
life was so happy that she profoundly pitied any other woman who was
unmarried yet old enough to know her own mind.
How Trif did long for Phil! If she could see him, only for an hour, to
consult with him about this new and delightful idea that had taken
possession of her.
Undoubtedly he would agree with her, for he always came to her way of
thinking, or she to his, she was not sure which. She had half a mind
to telegraph him to run down to the fort for a day or two; she was
sure his horrid old firm would not miss him greatly during so short an
absence. Then she thought it would be better to write him and ask his
advice.
Half wondering which course would be the better, she began a letter,
but was interrupted again and again, so at night she was but little
further advanced than in the morning. Besides, a series of showers had
descended upon Old Point, and Trixy was obliged to remain indoors,
and a little girl away from home on a showery day is as restless as a
guilty conscience, so Trif finally called herself a heartless mother,
and tried to devote herself entirely to her child. Trixy asked only
that mamma would write a good long letter for her to papa, and Trif
began it, and got well under way, when a waiter came to the room with a
message from Fenie, begging Trif to come down at once to see some old
friends who had unexpectedly arrived, so poor little Trixy was hurried
to bed, where she thought dismally of life's disappointments until she
fell asleep.
A little matter like a night's sleep could not make Trixy forget
anything upon which she had set her heart. Early the next morning the
child begged her mamma to finish that letter to papa, and she reverted
to the subject several times during the day. Finally she searched
her mother's portfolio for the unfinished letter, and endeavored to
complete it herself, in imitation of print, which was the only sort of
writing she knew well. She had not learned to use a pen, and the only
pencil she could find had a very bad point, so she put both letter and
pencil into her pocket, and resolved to bide her time until she could
find her mother disengaged.
Once upon the beach, and at her favorite occupation of well-digging,
she forgot the letter for two or three hours, but the subject was
brought back to her mind by overhearing one of the male guests tell
another that he had just received a letter from his little daughter,
and that a man never knew how dear his children were until he was
separated from them for a few days.
Suddenly the inspector of sand-wells, the cheery old Admiral, hove in
view, and Trixy hurried to him and asked:
"You can sharpen lead-pencils, can't you?"
"I could when I was at the Naval Academy," was the modest reply. In
a moment Trixy's hand and eyes and head and tongue were working in
unison, after the manner of beginners at letter-writing, while the
Admiral, standing a little apart, pretended to write something in a
memorandum book, but really made a sketch, to be presented to Trif, of
the little correspondent as she knelt upon the piazza floor and used a
chair as a desk.
"Writin's dreadful hard work," said Trixy, after several moments of
effort. "I do wish that mamma--oh, say, Admiral, you can write, can't
you? Of course you can--I see you doin' it now. Won't you please finish
this letter for me if I tell you what to say? That's the way mamma
writes 'em for me--she begun this one. If you do it you needn't pay me
five cents the next time my well's the best of the lot, and I guess
it's goin' to be the best to-day. Is it a bargain?"
"But, Trixy," replied the Admiral, "I question the propriety of hearing
other peoples' family affairs."
"Oh, I don't write no family affairs. This is only a letter to papa."
"Your logic, my dear, is as faultless as your grammar. Still, I'll be
your clerk for a few moments."
"All right; I'm very much obliged. First, though, you'd better begin
and read what's already wrote, 'cause it's so long since mamma began
this letter for me that I can't remember what I told her to say."
"H'm--let me see," said the Admiral, adjusting his glasses. "'Dear Old
Papa'----"
"Go on."
The Admiral, who, like most men of affairs, had acquired a way of
reading a page at a glance, suddenly looked at Trixy in astonishment.
Then he re-read the letter, and said, with a twinkle of his eyes:
"Aren't you rather young to take so much interest in match-making?"
"What's match-makin'?" asked the child, with wondering eyes.
"Oh, you seem to understand the subject very well. The idea of a child
planning a marriage between a man and a woman--quite suited to each
other though they certainly are--who never met until this week!"
"Who do you mean? Aunt Fee and Harry? Why, they've----"
"No, no--I don't mean them. This is another couple--a lady and an army
officer."
"Oh, you mean Mr. Jermyn and Miss Trewman? Why, I don' remember tellin'
mamma to write anythin' about them. Come to think of it, though, I said
to her, over at guard mount the other day, that 'twould be nice if they
got married; but she said 'Sh--h--,' and that means the same thing as
don't when mamma says it."
"Yes--to be sure; it used to be so in our family, when I was a boy.
But how did this subject get into the letter, if you didn't tell your
mother to write it?"
"I'm sure I don't know, unless mamma put it in just for fun. Sometimes
she helps me with things to say, when I want to write a real long
letter."
"H'm!" The Admiral looked very alert as he recalled customs of his own
family when he was a young father. "Trixy, would you mind telling me
your father's name--his first name?"
"It's Philip."
"Ah, yes. And is that what your mother usually calls him?"
"Goodness, no! When she says 'Philip,' papa pretends to be awfully
scared. Sometimes she calls him Phil, but usually she says 'papa.'"
"Just as I supposed." The Admiral was silent and grave so long that the
child timidly asked:
"You don't think it's improper for her to do it, do you?"
"Improper? No, indeed! I'd give half my pay--yes, all of it--to hear
my wife call me 'papa' again." Tears came into the veteran's eyes,
and Trixy, following home custom regarding such matters, kissed them
away, which operation made the Admiral's face as cheery as a sunburst.
Nevertheless, the old man did some more thinking, and finally he said:
"I'm such a stupid old fellow that I can't easily finish what some
other person has begun. Suppose we destroy this letter, and I begin a
new one for you. I'll write one as long as you like, if you'll come
into the office, where I can find a desk."
"Oh, good!"
"But about this one which your mother began--suppose we have a secret
about it?"
Trixy hesitated; she dearly loved a secret, but of late her secrets had
not been as well kept as she would like. Still, she promised, and the
new letter was soon under way, and at the top was written, "Dictated
to Rear Admiral Allison, retired, by Her Serene Highness the Infanta
Trixy." The Admiral put the original and uncompleted letter into his
pocket, intending to burn it and destroy the ashes, although what might
happen, should there be any enquiries for it, he was sure he did not
know; perhaps it might be well for him to hurry off to Washington, or
somewhere.
When the new letter was completed Trixy and the Admiral took it to
the post-office, and the old man, in endeavoring to impress upon
Trixy the advisability of keeping the matter a secret while both of
them remained at Old Point, exerted his diplomatic faculties to an
extent unparalleled during his entire term of service as an officer.
He loathed the idea of teaching duplicity to a child, but in the
circumstances it seemed entirely justifiable.
As the day waned, most of the ladies retired to dress for dinner, and
Trif, whose conscience had been reproaching her all day for neglect of
her husband, to whom she knew her letters were unspeakably welcome, and
to whom she dearly loved to write when she chanced to be away from him,
determined to finish the letter begun the day before.
"Fenie," she soon said through the door between the rooms, "have you
been to my portfolio?"
"No, dear. I've done no writing."
"How strange. I'd begun a letter to Phil, and now I can't find it."
Fenie said something playful about mislaid affection, but Trif did not
laugh, for she remembered what she had written. Still, why should she
worry? No one but the chambermaid could have been in the room, and
she doubted whether colored chambermaids at the South could read. The
letter would turn up in the course of time; meanwhile she would write
a hasty note to Phil and enclose Trixy's, just as it was, in time for
the mail by the evening boat, which would close in a few minutes,
and Trixy, who never was specially dressed for dinner, could take the
letter down to the office.
The Admiral strolled over to the fort and the club, where he met a
semi-public man who was talking to the Commandant about a promising
gold "placer" on the Pacific coast which had proved so alluring that
he had lost a lot of money in trying to develop it. The Commandant had
known of this same placer, for he had been stationed near it at one
time; the Admiral also had seen it, for he had been taken to it one day
by some men who had hoped to extract some of his savings from him. Lack
of water was the trouble, and the Admiral, who had looked carefully
over the ground, had devised a plan whereby water might be brought by a
tortuous route from a stream several miles distant. When he said this
to the semi-public man that person replied:
"Give me your plan, and if it is practicable you shall have a large
block of stock, for nothing, in the company I'll organize to work it."
The Admiral quickly took a letter from his pocket and drew on the back
of it a plan of the country as he remembered it. Then he consulted
Jermyn, who had dropped into the club.
"Very good," said Jermyn, looking at the sketch, "although it might
be improved a little, I think. I've done some shooting on that very
ground, so I remember it pretty well."
"How fortunate," said the Admiral. "Mr. Blogsham, my friend Jermyn is a
good engineer, so he may be of more service than I."
"Good!" said Blogsham. "The better the plan, the more it will be worth
to us. There's a block of stock for you too, Mr. Jermyn, if you can
make the water within reach."
Jermyn opened the sheet of paper and made another sketch; then he
turned the paper over, supposing it might contain some memoranda on the
subject, but he saw something that so upset his mind that in the next
ten minutes he talked so vaguely about the ground and the water that
his own chance of getting any stock in the proposed mine seemed to him
very small.