"ARTY! Arty!" called Mrs. Mayflower, from the window, one bright
June morning. "Arty, darling! What is the child after? Just look at
him, Mr. Mayflower!"
I leaned from the window, in pleasant excitement, to see what new
and wonderful performance had been attempted by my little prodigy--my
first born--my year old bud of beauty, the folded leaves in whose
bosom were just beginning to loosen themselves, and send out upon
the air sweet intimations of an abounding fragrance. He had escaped
from his nurse, and was running off in the clear sunshine, the slant
rays of which threw a long shadow before him.
"Arty, darling!" His mother's voice flew along and past his ear,
kissing it in gentle remonstrance as it went by. But baby was in
eager pursuit of something, and the call, if heard, was unheeded.
His eyes were opening world-ward, and every new
phenomenon--commonplace and unheeded by us--that addressed itself to
his senses, became a wonder and a delight. Some new object was
drawing him away from the loving heart and protecting arm.
"Run after him, Mr. Mayflower!" said my wife, with a touch of
anxiety in her voice. "He might fall and hurt himself."
I did not require a second intimation as to my duty in the case.
Only a moment or two elapsed before I was on the pavement, and
making rapid approaches towards my truant boy.
"What is it, darling? What is Arty running after?" I said, as I laid
my hand on his arm, and checked his eager speed. He struggled a
moment, and then stood still, stooping forward for something on the
ground.
"O, papa see!" There was a disappointed and puzzled look in his face
as he lifted his eyes to mine. He failed to secure the object of his
pursuit.
"What is it, sweet?" My eyes followed his as they turned upon the
ground.
He stooped again, and caught at something; and again looked up in a
perplexed, half-wondering way.
"Why, Arty!" I exclaimed, catching him up in my arms. "It's only
your shadow! Foolish child!" And I ran back to Mrs. Mayflower, with
my baby-boy held close against my heart.
"After a shadow!" said I, shaking my head, a little soberly, as I
resigned Arty to his mother. "So life begins--and so it ends! Poor
Arty!"
Mrs. Mayflower laughed out right merrily.
"After a shadow! Why, darling!" And she kissed and hugged him in
overflowing tenderness.
"So life begins--so it ends," I repeated to myself, as I left the
house, and walked towards my store. "Always in pursuit of shadows!
We lose to-day's substantial good for shadowy phantoms that keep our
eyes ever in advance, and our feet ever hurrying forward. No
pause--no ease--no full enjoyment of _now_. O, deluded heart!--ever
bartering away substance for shadow!"
I grow philosophic sometimes. Thought will, now and then, take up a
passing incident, and extract the moral. But how little the wiser
are we for moralizing! we look into the mirror of truth, and see
ourselves--then turn away, and forget what manner of men we are.
Better for us if it were not so; if we remembered the image that
held our vision.
The shadow lesson was forgotten by the time I reached my store, and
thought entered into business with its usual ardor. I buried myself,
amid letters, invoices, accounts, samples, schemes for gain, and
calculations of profit. The regular, orderly progression of a fair
and well-established business was too slow for my outreaching
desires. I must drive onward at a higher speed, and reach the goal
of wealth by a quicker way. So my daily routine was disturbed by
impatient aspirations. Instead of entering, in a calm
self-possession of every faculty, into the day's appropriate work,
and finding, in its right performance, the tranquil state that ever
comes as the reward of right-doing in the right place, I spent the
larger part of this day in the perpetration of a plan for increasing
my gains beyond, anything heretofore achieved.
"Mr. Mayflower," said one of the clerks, coming back to where I sat
at my private desk, busy over my plan, "we have a new man in from
the West; a Mr. B----, from Alton. He wants to make a bill of a
thousand dollars. Do you know anything about him?"
Now, even this interruption annoyed me. What was a new customer and
a bill of a thousand dollars to me just at that moment of time? I
saw tens of thousands in prospective.
"Mr. B----, of Alton?" said I, affecting an effort of memory. "Does he
look like a fair man?"
"I don't recall him. Mr. B----? Hum-m-m. He impresses you favorably,
Edward?"
"Yes, sir; but it may be prudent to send and get a report."
"I'll see to that, Edward," said I. "Sell him what he wants. If
everything is not on the square, I'll give you the word in time.
It's all right, I've no doubt."
"He's made a bill at Kline & Co.'s, and wants his goods sent there
to be packed," said my clerk.
"Ah, indeed! Let him have what he wants, Edward. If Kline & Co. sell
him, we needn't hesitate."
And turning to my desk, my plans, and my calculations, I forgot all
about Mr. B----, and the trifling bill of a thousand dollars that he
proposed buying. How clear the way looked ahead! As thought created
the means of successful adventure, and I saw myself moving forward
and grasping results, the whole circle of life took a quicker
motion, and my mind rose into a pleasant enthusiasm. Then I grew
impatient for the initiatory steps that were to come, and felt as if
the to-morrow, in which they must be taken, would never appear. A
day seemed like a week or a month.
Six o'clock found me in not a very satisfactory state of mind. The
ardor of my calculations had commenced abating. Certain elements,
not seen and considered in the outset, were beginning to assume
shape and consequence, and to modify, in many essential particulars,
the grand result towards which I had been looking with so much
pleasure. Shadowy and indistinct became the landscape, which seemed
a little while before so fair and inviting. A cloud settled down
upon it here, and a cloud there, breaking up its unity, and
destroying much of its fair proportion. I was no longer mounting up,
and moving forwards on the light wing of a castle-building
imagination, but down upon the hard, rough ground, coming back into
the consciousness that all progression, to be sure, must be slow and
toilsome.
I had the afternoon paper in my hands, and was running my eyes up
and down the columns, not reading, but, in a half-absent way, trying
to find something of sufficient interest to claim attention, when,
among the money and business items, I came upon a paragraph that
sent the declining thermometer of my feelings away down towards the
chill of zero. It touched, in the most vital part, my scheme of
gain; and the shrinking bubble burst.
"Have the goods sold to that new customer from Alton been
delivered?" I asked, as the real interest of my wasted day loomed up
into sudden importance.
"Yes, sir," was answered by one of my clerks; "they were sent to
Kline & Co.'s immediately. Mr. B----said they were packing up his
goods, which were to be shipped to-day."
"He's a safe man, I should think. Kline & Co. sell him." My voice
betrayed the doubt that came stealing over me like a chilly air.
"They sell him only for cash," said my clerk. "I saw one of their
young men this afternoon, and asked after Mr. B----'s standing. He
didn't know anything about him; said B----was a new man, who bought a
moderate cash bill, but was sending in large quantities of goods to
be packed--five or six times beyond the amount of his purchases with
them."
"Is that so!" I exclaimed, rising to my feet, all awake now to the
real things which I had permitted a shadow to obscure.
"Just what he told me," answered my clerk.
"It has a bad look," said I. "How large a bill did he make with us?"
The sales book was referred to. "Seventeen hundred dollars," replied
the clerk.
"What! I thought he was to buy only to the amount of a thousand
dollars?" I returned, in surprise and dismay.
"You seemed so easy about him, sir," replied the clerk, "that I
encouraged him to buy; and the bill ran up more heavily than I was
aware until the footing gave exact figures."