A BRAVE HEART.
“There,” said the widow, when Ben finished eating and sat back,
flushing as he realized he had left not a morsel before him, “now I
know y’u feel better. It jest done me good to see you eat. It sort of
reminded me of the way Joel used to stow victuals away. He was a
marster hand to eat, but it never seemed to do him no good. Even when
he was in purty good health, which was seldom, he never could eat all
he wanted to without feelin’ oppressed arterwards an’ havin’ to lay
down and rest. He was a good one at restin’,” she added, with a slight
whimsical touch.
Once more Ben tried to find words to express his thanks, and once more
Mrs. Jones checked him.
“It ain’t been no trouble,” was her declaration, “an’ it was wuth a
good deal to me to see you enjoy it so. What’re y’u doin’ with your
trunk pulled out this way?”
This question reminded him again of his determination to leave Oakdale
directly; and, knowing the good woman had regarded the room as engaged
by him for the time of the fall term of school, and also feeling that
to leave her thus and so deprive her of the rent money she expected to
receive for weeks to come would be a poor return for her kindness, he
hesitated in confusion and reluctance to tell her the truth.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, noting his manner. “Has anything
happened? I noticed you was pale, an’ didn’t look jest well, when you
come in. Is there anything wrong?”
“Yes, Mrs. Jones,” he forced himself to say; “everything is wrong with
me.”
“At the academy? Why,” she exclaimed, as he nodded in answer to her
question, “I thought y’u passed the exammernation all right? Didn’t
y’u?”
“It’s not that; but I must leave school just the same.”
“Land of goodness! Do tell! It can’t be possible!” Mrs. Jones was
completely astounded and quite shocked.
“It is not because I have failed in any of the requirements of the
school,” Ben hastened to say. “I can’t explain just why it is, Mrs.
Jones. It’s a long story, and I don’t wish to tell it. But I have an
enemy in the school. I didn’t know he was here; I saw him for the first
time to-day.”
This explanation did not satisfy her. “Why,” she said, “I was thinkin’
y’u told me when y’u took this room that you didn’t know a livin’ soul
in this place.”
“I did tell you so, and I thought at the time that it was the truth;
but since then I have found out I was mistaken. There is one fellow in
the school whom I know—and he knows me! He will make it impossible for
me to attend school here.”
“I don’t see how,” said the widow, greatly puzzled. “How can anybody
make y’u leave the school if y’u don’t want to?”
“He hates me—he and his father, too. I am sure his father is a man of
influence here.”
“Now I don’t want to be curi’s an’ pry inter nobody’s affairs,”
declared the widow; “but I do think you’d better trust me an’ tell me
about this business. I don’t b’lieve you ever done no great wrong or
bad thing to make y’u afraid of nobody. Anybody that can be good an’
kind to a little lame boy, same as you’ve been to my Jimmy, ain’t bad.”
“Perhaps if you knew all about it you would change your opinion of me,”
said the boy a trifle huskily, for he was affected by her confidence in
him.
She shook her head. “No I wouldn’t. I b’lieve you’re makin’ a mountain
out of er molehill. You’re deescouraged, that’s what’s the matter. But
somehow you don’t look like a boy that’s easy deescouraged an’ quick to
give up. Now, you jest tell me who your enemy is. You ain’t got no
mother here to advise y’u, an’ perhaps I can help y’u some.”
Her insistent kindness prevailed upon him, and he yielded.
“My enemy’s name is Bernard Hayden,” he said.
“Land! You don’t tell! Why, he’s the son of Lemuel Hayden, who come
here an’ bought the limestone quarries over south of th’ lake. He ain’t
been here a year yet, but he’s built buildin’s an’ run a branch
railroad from the main road to the quarries, an’ set things hummin’ in
great shape. Next to Urian Eliot, who owns ’most all the mill business
in the place, he’s said to be the richest man in town.”
“I knew it!” cried Ben; “I knew he would be a man of influence here. I
knew him in Farmington, the place where I was born. Mrs. Jones, if I do
not leave the school and Oakdale at once, Lemuel Hayden will try to
make me do so.”
He could not bring himself to disclose to her his fear that Mr. Hayden
might again seek to commit him to the State Reformatory. That secret
was the shame of his soul, and when he was gone from Oakdale he was
certain it would be a secret no longer. Already Bern Hayden had told
the boys on the football field, and in a small place gossip of such
nature flies quickly.
“Now let me talk to you a little,” said Mrs. Jones, sitting down on the
trunk, which threatened to collapse beneath her weight. “I stick to it
that I don’t b’lieve you ever done northing very bad, an’ if you’re
poor that ain’t your fault. You’ve got a right to have an eddercation,
jest the same as Lemuel Hayden’s boy has. Jest because, mebbe, you got
inter some foolish boy scrape an’ got this Hayden boy down on you, be
y’u goin’ to let him keep y’u from gittin’ an eddercation, to make a
man of y’u, an’ take you through the world?
“As I said before, you don’t look like a boy to be scart or driv easy,
an’ I shall be disapp’inted in you if y’u are. I ain’t goin’ to pry
inter the affair; if y’u want to tell me about it some time, y’u can.
But I’m goin’ to advise y’u to stay right here in this school an’ hold
your head up. Joel, my late departed, he alwus said it warn’t no
disgrace to be poor. That passage in the Bible that says it’s harder
f’r a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven then f’r a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle, alwus was a great conserlation to Joel.
“An’ there’s rich people in this very town that should be ashamed to
hold their heads up, knowin’, as ev’rybody does, how they come by their
riches; but to-day I’d ruther be a-earnin’ my daily bread by sweatin’
at the wash-tub than to be in their shoes an’ have on my mind what they
must have on their minds. Ev’ry day I live I thank the Lord that he’s
been so good to me an’ let me have so many pleasures an’ enjoyments.”
Here she paused a moment to take breath, having digressed without
intending to do so; and once more Ben found himself wondering at her
splendid courage and the cheerful heart she maintained in spite of
troubles and afflictions that might well have crushed and broken the
spirit of an ordinary woman. She laughed in the face of misfortune, and
she positively refused to be trampled on by bitter fate.
She was right in thinking Ben was not a weak boy nor one to be easily
frightened; but had she known that over him hung the dark, chilling
shadow of the reformatory, she could not have wondered at the course he
had contemplated pursuing, and she might have hesitated about so freely
giving him advice. Knowing nothing of this, however, she continued to
urge him to reconsider his determination to give up school and leave
Oakdale.
“Now promise me that you’ll stay till y’u have to leave school,” she
entreated. “An’ I don’t b’lieve you’ll have to at all.”
“Mrs. Jones, I’ll think it over,” he said. “I have almost decided to
take your advice and stay, no matter what comes.”
“That’s what I like to hear!” she laughed, rising from the trunk.
“Don’t you never back down an’ run f’r nobody nor northin’. If Joel hed
had more of the stand-up-an’-stick-to-it sperrit, I’m sartin it would
‘a’ been better f’r us all—but I ain’t complainin’, I ain’t complainin’.
“Goodness! I’ve been spendin’ a lot of time here when I’ve jest got
loads of things to do before I can git a blessed wink of sleep this
night. I’ve got to go. But you jest make up your mind to stick,
enermies or no enermies. Good night.”
She had gathered up the dishes and was going. Ben held the lamp, to
light her down the stairs, calling a grateful good night after her.
For two hours, at least, he walked the floor of that poor little room,
fighting the inward battle with himself. Finally he paused, his hands
clenched and his head thrown back. His square jaw seemed squarer and
firmer than ever, and the determination on his plain face transfigured
it.
“I am going to stay, Bernard Hayden!” he said quietly, as if speaking
face to face with his enemy. “Whatever happens, I’ll not show the white
feather. Do your worst!” He felt better when he had fully settled on
this resolution.
Opening his window, he looked out on the quiet village that seemed
winking sleepily and dreamily with its twinkling lights. Even as he
lifted his eyes toward the overcast sky, the pure white moon burst
through a widening rift and poured its light like a benediction upon
the silent world. Still with his face upturned, his lips moving
slightly, the boy knelt at the window, and the hush and peace of the
night filled his heart.
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