success. Jenny Wadsworth was teaching a village school. She and James
Carter had been friends. She knew his many good qualities, and whether
he ever cared for her or not she determined that his father’s failure
should not spoil his life if she could help it. Kate could assist the
family, and unbeknown to any one Jenny was saving money for James
Carter’s education. One morning a letter was sent to Hugh, saying:
“James Carter is trying to work his way through college, and we must
help him. Here is one hundred dollars which I have saved, and I will
send more soon. Do not tell anybody living, but use it for him. Mr.
Carter helped you, and I know you will be only too glad to help James.
I see him rarely, but he is a noble fellow, and I long to have him
succeed. In a little while he can be in the office with you. Your
loving sister, Jenny.”
Hugh smiled as he read the letter, and blessed woman for her sweet
self-sacrifice; but a shadow came over his face in a moment. Perhaps he
thought of Isabel, and of his own disappointment.
A letter was sent to James the next morning with a check from Hugh and
a hundred dollars from “a friend.” “Come to me,” wrote Hugh, “as soon
as you are through college, and let me help to repay a little of the
debt I shall always owe your father.”
When his course was finished James Carter, manly in physique and
refined in face, stood in the doorway of a New York office. He was
warmly welcomed by Hugh, who had not seen him for years.
“The debt is more than paid to my father,” said James. “I have had
your example always before me to surmount obstacles and make a man of
myself, and now in turn I hope to help you by faithful labor. I have
been curious to learn of the ‘friend’ who has sent me money. I have
thought over all my father’s acquaintances and cannot decide who it can
be.”
“Oh, never mind, James; you will learn sometime perhaps, and it is
of no consequence if you do not! The act of giving is what broadens
hearts, whether the giver ever be known or not. I promised to keep it a
secret.”
The two young men went to live in quiet bachelor quarters together.
Work, earnest and absorbing, filled the days and often the evenings.
“I have asked mother and Jenny to spend a few days with us,” said Hugh
one evening. “Jenny teaches in a town not far from here, and my good
mother has been visiting her, and will stay here a little on her way to
West Beverly.”
“That will do us good. I have had so little time to see ladies that it
will seem quite a home touch to our bachelor life,” responded James.
Mrs. Wadsworth and her daughter came, and a week passed happily. Jenny
was intelligent and charming—how could she be other than lovely with
such a mother? The four walked in the evenings, Jenny seeming naturally
to be left in the care of James, while Hugh delighted in showing
attention to his mother. When mother and daughter had gone home the
quiet room seemed desolate. Hugh missed them, but James was absolutely
homesick. New York, great and fascinating, had lost its attraction.
With the departure of one face the sun seemed to fade out of the sky.
“You seem sad, James,” said Hugh, as they sat together one evening,—he
wondered if Jenny’s visit did not have something to do with it,—“and
perhaps you better take a few days’ vacation and go home.”
“I am restless and unhappy; I scarcely know why. I think a change would
do me good.”
James started the next day for West Beverly, but easily persuaded
himself that a call on Jenny Wadsworth at the place where she was
teaching, if only for a few hours, would make the journey pleasanter.
As he surmised, he felt lighter-hearted after his visit with her,
especially as he obtained from her a promise that she would correspond
with him.
Mrs. Carter, who idolized her son, was made very happy by his coming.
When he returned to the city, work seemed less irksome, letters grew
singularly interesting and comforting, till one day James said:
“Hugh, there’s no use in trying to hide from you the fact that I love
your sister Jenny, and wish to marry her as soon as I can support her.”
“She loved you long ago, James, but I was not allowed to tell you of
it. Are you engaged?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’ve found out who the ‘friend’ is, then?”
James Carter turned pale.
“You don’t mean that Jenny earned money to help take me through
college?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will pay her back compound interest, the noble girl.”
Years have passed. Hugh, now very wealthy, has never married, but finds
a happy home with James and Jenny Carter and their little son Hugh. The
Hon. William Carter learned that it pays a thousand-fold to help a boy
on in the world, and Jenny rejoices that she, too, helped a young man
to success.
THE UNOPENED LETTER.
THERE was a carriage waiting at the door, and the servant had just
announced to Miss Hamilton that a gentleman had called to see her.
“I will be down in a moment,” answered a cheery, blue-eyed girl, as
she slipped an unopened letter into her pocket. She had recognized
the handwriting as the postman handed it to her. The letter was from
a young college senior in the quiet New England town, at home for his
summer vacation,—Arthur Ellsworth, a manly fellow, whom she had known
and admired from childhood. And now Arthur’s brother, Elmer Ellsworth,
was waiting to take her for a drive. The latter was the handsomer of
the two possibly, with his fine form and dark eyes. He, also, was in
the last year of college life.
After pleasant greetings the young people started, in the bright
September morning, for the proposed ride. Who that has driven through
Lexington and Woburn, past Mystic pond, will ever forget the quiet
country roads, the historic associations, the variety of wooded hills
and pretty valleys? Now the two schoolfriends talked of the present
with its joy and the future with its hopes, of the books they had
studied and the plans they had made. Now they gathered golden-rod, and
listened to the song of the birds in the bracing air. It was a fitting
time to say what had long been in Elmer’s heart—that sometime, when
his profession had been entered upon, she would be the woman whom he
wished to make his wife.
It was a hard matter for her to decide. Both brothers had been dear
to her, perhaps Arthur especially,—and both were noble and worthy.
Arthur had never spoken to her of marriage; and now Elmer had told her
his love, and that she could make him happy. Had Arthur spoken first,
perhaps her heart would have more warmly responded; but in the beauty
of that autumn morning, with the hopeful, earnest young man by her
side, she gave her promise to be his wife.
As soon as she reached her home she ran upstairs, hastily threw off
her wraps, and remembered the letter from Arthur, in her pocket.
Opening it, she read:
“How many times I have wanted to tell you that I loved you! How often
have the words died on my lips! But now, before I go back to college, I
must ask you if you can return that love, and sometime be mine.”
Alas, that she had not opened the letter sooner! She could not tell
Arthur that she had preferred him to Elmer; that were disloyalty to
the man whom she had promised to wed. She could only say that she
was already betrothed to his brother. She married him whom she had
promised. Both men became prominent in the history of New England—this
little story is true. One went through life unmarried. His letter was
opened too late.
THREE COLLEGE STUDENTS.
“WHAT’S the work for vacation, boys?”
The speaker was a tall, dark-haired, open-faced young man, who sat
with his two companions on the sloping ground of Amherst College,
looking away to silent Mount Tom and the fertile meadows of the
Connecticut-river valley.
“It’s something downright earnest for me,” said James Wellman, a
broad-shouldered, big-hearted youth from the neighboring county, who in
spite of poverty and many obstacles had fought his way by the hardest
work. “I’m in debt for board, books unpaid for; but I’ve seen worse
times than these. I’m used to standing alone, so I’m ready for the
battle. I shall take an agency—books, or maybe clothes-wringers, to
sell.”
“That will be fun, I’ll warrant,” said the first speaker, Grant
Reynolds, whose father, a rich manufacturer, had spared no pains to
make his son’s life a bed of roses, altogether different from what his
own had been.
“Not much fun,” said James. “You wouldn’t like contemptuous looks from
women who know less than you, and whose hearts had become hardened
because their husbands, once poor, very likely, had become the
possessors of houses on aristocratic streets. Why, a woman—I will not
call her a lady—whose husband used to be a stable boy, but who has
become a rich government official, ordered me out of the house when
I was selling chromos. She said ‘agents were tramps and a nuisance;’
and when I explained that I was working my way through college, she
answered, remembering the former occupation of her lord, perhaps, ‘Be
somebody’s coachman, then, and earn an honorable living.’ I wanted
to add, ‘And run away with your pretty daughter;’ but I only replied
politely, ‘Nobody would hire an inexperienced man for two months, which
is as long as our vacation lasts.’”
“But these must be rare cases,” said Grant. “Most well-to-do ladies are
very courteous.”
“Yes, when you meet them on an equality in drawing-rooms; but not
always when you are a workingman.”
“Well, I’ll try it for once. It’ll be a fine lark anyway, and I shall
learn something of human nature.”
“That you will,” answered Wellman. “I’ll take the country round that
aristocratic town down the river, and you may take the stylish avenues.
You’ll find blue blood in plenty—blue because the fathers owned land
there a little before the present generation. Of course, you’ll find
many well-bred people who are proud of their heads rather than of their
purses; but even these are often very ‘select.’ We profess equality,
and are probably more democratic than any other country; but a little
extra amount of front lawn, or the fact that our great-grandfather
was a governor, or that one woman has ‘William Morris’ chintz in her
chambers, of which, perhaps, her neighbor never heard,—these make
various degrees of rank. If our ancestor came over in the ‘Mayflower,’
or was even a sutler in the Revolutionary war, our fame is unalterably
fixed.”
“I should like to sell books in so high-toned a town,” said Grant.
“Maybe I might fall in love with some dainty daughter of a lineal
descendant of a governor, or of a stable-boy!”
“Precious little good it would do a book-agent, for you would be
classed among poor people if you worked, no matter how rich your father
might be.”
The conversation had been listened to by a light-haired, blue-eyed
student, a poet in temperament and by heredity. He was the only child
of a devoted minister of the Gospel, now dead, and of a refined and
intellectual mother. She would have shielded him from every rough wind
had it been possible, but at best she could only pray for him, and send
him now and then a little box of comforts, with her fond and beautiful
letters. He worked late at night over his books, and his delicately
curved mouth had come to bear an expression of sadness as he looked
out upon the struggle before him. Heretofore the little money of the
household had sufficed; but now he must earn his bread like James
Wellman.
“Cheer up!” said the latter, who had noticed the tell-tale face of the
minister’s son, Kent Raymond. “Blue eyes and polished manners will
win kindness. We all have to get a trifle mellowed. We, who know how
to earn our support, get a little extra schooling more than the other
boys, that’s all. Life is good or bad, just as you look out upon it.
It’s full of sunshine to me, for I won’t look at the shadows.”
Vacation days came. Kent and Grant took the book-agency, and James the
clothes-wringer, among the country folk, who usually have a kindly
interest in a boy who means to be somebody in the world.
* * * * *
One bright day soon after, satchels in hand, the two college boys
started out along one of the broad avenues of the staid old city.
“Don’t get discouraged!” said Grant to his boyish companion, who shrank
from his task. “Remember you’re doing missionary work every time you
get a book into a house. We’ll report three hours from now at the end
of the street.”
The first house was of gray stone, set back in the grounds; not
belonging to one of the old families, who prefer an old mansion,
lest they be counted among the _nouveaux riche_. Great bunches of
varied-colored coleus and red geranium mingled with the greensward like
a piece of mosaic. Vines were beginning to grow over the stone porch,
and the whole bespoke comfort, even luxury. Kent pulled the bell with
a sinking at heart, as he wondered who would appear and what she would
say. A servant, not cleanly in apparel, opened the door after long
waiting. The true position of a family can generally be seen through
its domestics.
“Are the ladies of the house in?” asked the college boy.
“What do you want of ’em?”
“I am selling a valuable book about the ‘Home.’”
“No, the missus don’t want it. She told me as how she niver let a
book-agent inside the door, and she’d scold me if I called her. She
niver reads nothin’ but a novel—niver,” volunteered the loquacious,
but kind-hearted girl, despite her torn apron and soiled hands.
At the next mansion Kent was told that the “missus” had gone to the
seashore; but the knowing look in the servant’s face showed that she
had been instructed to make this reply to all callers. It sounded
aristocratic to be at Narragansett Pier or on the Atlantic coast, even
though finances would not permit of this refreshing journey.
At the next house a kind-faced woman, who really belonged to one of
the old families, and felt none too proud to open her own door, bade
the young man a pleasant “Good-morning,” and though she did not wish
to purchase the book, which, though tastefully made, was commonplace
in subject, she thanked him for seeing it, and hoped he would sell
elsewhere. His heart was a trifle lighter after this kindly greeting,
though his purse grew no heavier. At the next house, and the next, he
met with the same refusals. Finally, near the end of the street, the
colored man who opened the door was also striving to earn money for a
college course. He had been two years in Harvard University already.
Both father and mother were dead, but from love for a girl who taught
a colored school he had become ambitious, and determined to work his
way through some institution. The subject of the book touched his
heart. Katie, his school-teacher, would like it; the suggestions
about husbands and wives, and the words about neatness, culture, and
tenderness, would do both good.
“How much is it?” said the colored youth.
“Two dollars.”
A disappointed look came into the face of the would-be purchaser.
“I receive seventy-five cents commission,” said Kent, “and I will
let you have the book for one dollar and a half; that will leave
twenty-five cents for my dinner.”
“I hate to ask you to take less, sir, but I can’t pay two dollars,
because I haven’t so much. But here’s the one-fifty;” and he added,
as he held the book tenderly, “Katie will so like it!” When a man is
really in love he can’t help telling somebody, even though it be a
book-agent.
Meanwhile Grant Reynolds had been learning his first experience of work
in the broad world, which has too little care for and sympathy with
toilers. He soon found that selling books from house to house was no
“lark,” as he had anticipated. His lips curled in disdain as he was
several times addressed rudely by servants, or by women whom he knew
were far below him in social position. Did so many fashionable people,
then, have two methods of action—one for the rich and the other for
the poor?
As he was thus musing, he opened a gate and walked up to a beautiful
mansion, Elizabethan in style, that one would imagine to have been just
transported from England, with its ivies and great beds of roses. He
stopped suddenly, for just before him a fair-haired girl, in simple
blue, with broad sun-hat wreathed with daisies, was clipping a bunch
of deep-red roses. She looked up half inquiringly, as the young
man approached and lifted his hat. He was not abashed—he had seen
attractive girls too often for that; but her kind look had an unusual
effect after the sharp refusals of the morning.
The frank face of Grant could scarcely help showing its appreciation
of both girl and flower, as he said, “I am canvassing for a book: ‘The
Past, Present, and Future of America.’”
Perhaps the girl did not care much for the book, but she liked the
looks of the tall, manly youth before her, and in her heart admired a
man who had energy and will enough to earn a living for himself. Most
young men whom she had met had leaned upon their fathers; and it was
seldom difficult to tell what laurels they would win in the jostle
which we call life.
“May I see the book?” she asked, holding out one white hand, while the
other clasped the roses.
“Can I hold the flowers while you look?” said Grant, while a satisfied
expression stole about his mouth and large brown eyes.
“It is beautifully illustrated! I like pictures of people greatly. I am
always wondering what they have accomplished, or will in the future.”
“Ah! then you are ambitious?”
“Yes; mamma thinks too much so for a girl. I have wanted to go to
college,” said the natural young woman, “but she thinks it is useless
compared with my music.”
Grant hoped she would go on artlessly talking about herself, but she
suddenly changed the line of thought, as she said: “I am glad to see
a book about America—I love our country! I have been with mamma to
England and the south of Europe, but I saw nothing so dear as our own
country and people. I think our men the noblest in the world.”
There was no thought of compliment, for she did not even look toward
the young man to whom she was apparently talking. At this moment a
woman, handsomely attired, stood in the doorway, and with clouded brow
bade her come in.
“I was looking at a beautiful book, mamma,” said Marion.
“We want no books of an agent,” said the stern, proud woman. “If we
need books we buy them at Hamerton’s” (one of the largest dealers in
the East).
“I am in college,” said the young man, piqued at the woman’s rudeness,
and half angered that the lovely girl should be found fault with. “I am
earning some money in this way,” he added, not wishing to lie about the
matter, and yet rather enjoying this study of human nature.
“I am glad to help poor young men,”—she remembered when the shrewd
Mr. Colwell, her husband, made his first dollars in common work at
railroading,—“but I never buy of agents! Why, we should be bored to
death if we did! Besides, I think our country is running to education.
Men who should be West on farms are striving to go through college,
and then will starve as poor doctors or lawyers in the busy cities. We
need men to build our railroads; Mr. Colwell says men are so scarce
and labor so dear that he has to import rough foreigners. Education is
the bane of common folks. It spoils our girls. Look at those in our
high schools!—they’re too good to be servants. While their mothers
are toiling over the wash-tub these young misses fit themselves to be
teachers. They’d better go West and become farmers’ wives. They’ve got
to marry common people, for they can’t get rich men.”
Grant thought to himself how these educated poor girls were to be the
great moral force of our country in its grand future; but he made no
answer as self-sufficient Mrs. Colwell went on:
“If Marion were to teach, why, all this education would be good for
her, perhaps; but my daughter will never be obliged to.”
“But you didn’t see the book, mamma,” pleaded the girl, whose cheeks
had become as red as the roses which Grant had handed back to her.
“No; and I’ve no time for it. Your father is waiting to take you to
drive. Besides, I was surprised to see you conversing with a stranger.”
The young man lifted his hat to Marion as he passed out of the gate,
but not till he had said a word of thanks for her kindness to an
unknown student. He thought he saw the blue eyes moisten as they looked
up to his, showing that she felt her mother’s harshness to a youth who
appeared to be working his way alone in the world.
Marion Colwell was not given to sentiment, but she wondered a thousand
times what would become of the handsome college boy, and she could
not help taking a bud from the flowers which he held for her and
pressing it between the leaves of a book, with some tender yet painful
recollections. Marion seemed unusually quiet during the ride with her
father, but no word was spoken about the book-agent; for Mr. and Mrs.
Colwell lived so independently of each other that the daughter never
thought of confiding her troubles to either.
At the end of the three hours the two college students met to recount
their experiences and successes. Grant had not sold a single book, but
he drew from his pocket a red rosebud, and showing it to Kent said:
“I’m foolish, I do believe; but I’ve seen a girl to-day who has paid me
a thousand times for all the annoyance of being a book-agent. Perhaps I
shall never see her again, but I shall keep in memory one lovely face,
and I know she has a noble soul. I took this bud, unbeknown to her,
from a bunch I held for her while she looked over that book. I’ll not
part with the book either, since she has looked at its pictures.”
Kent did not make fun of him, for he had a warm heart, and enjoyed the
picture which Grant drew of the fair young face. The vacation came to
its close. Some money had been made by each of the three students,
Grant dividing his equally between James and Kent.
* * * * *
Eight years had come and gone. James Wellman was in business, and had
become successful. Kent had graduated with honor, but gone home to
his widowed mother to die. Grant had studied theology, and for three
years had been settled in a Western city, whither he had been drawn
by his friend Wellman. A July morning came like that on which he had
passed from house to house along the city streets to sell books. The
young minister stood in his accustomed place, about to preach from
the well-known text, “Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt
find it after many days.” A lady, dressed in blue, who was a stranger
to the congregation, entered, and was shown to a seat well in front.
She looked long and earnestly at the speaker, as though she was aware
whom she had come to hear. For a moment, as the minister caught a
glimpse of the face, he changed color, but immediately regained his
self-possession.
After the service he stepped directly down to the pew, and the
parishioners said to one another: “Why, we didn’t know that the new
school-teacher, Miss Colwell, was a friend of our pastor!”
He said, as he shook her hand, “I am glad once more to thank you for
your kindness of years ago.” He spoke slowly, as one who has had hopes
and conquered them. “Is your mother with you?” involuntarily rose to
his lips.
“No; I am alone, and teaching in your city.”
“I have been to your Eastern home, but was told that you had gone West;
and further than that I could learn nothing.”
And then the past years were gone over. Mr. Colwell had failed, not
with honor, and had been glad to go West, as his wife had recommended
Grant to do years before, and had become lost in the whirl of a great
city. Mrs. Colwell allowed it to be reported that Marion was to marry
a rich widower. A wealthy family came to occupy the Colwell mansion,
and society interested itself in the new and forgot the old. And now
Marion, poor and unmarried, had come to the public school as a teacher.
The minister called often at the school, and finally the gossips
suspected that the cause of education was not the only motive for
his visits. Once when he called he laid down a pressed and faded red
bud. “Do you remember those flowers I held so many years ago?” And,
blushing, she told him of a similar one which she treasured.
A look of joy and half surprise came into his face. “Did you, then,
think of one whom you supposed a poor boy, Marion?”
“And do you think of one who is in reality a poor girl now?”
The wedding was a quiet one, Marion wearing, at Grant’s request, a
simple blue dress, with red roses in her hand. What were Mrs. Colwell’s
thoughts as she looked at the book-agent, now her son, no one could
know, for poverty had not made her less proud, but it had doubtless
made her more considerate and courteous.