Mr. Martin fetch me over to you. I told him not to say my name, because
I wanted a good plain talk with you. Well, I've had it. Things are
just about where I thought they were, and I told Mr. Lossing so. But I
couldn't be sure. You must have thought me a funny kind of woman to be
telling you all those things about myself.”
Nelson, who had changed color half a dozen times in the darkness, sighed
before he said: “No, ma'am; I only thought how good you were to tell me.
I hoped maybe you were impressed to trust me as I was to trust you.”
Being so dark Nelson could not see the queer expression on her face as
she slowly shook her head. She was thinking: “If I ever saw a babe in
arms trying to do business! How did HE ever pay for a farm?” She said:
“Well, I did it on purpose; I wanted you to know I wasn't a cruel
aristocrat, but a woman that had worked as hard as yourself. Now, why
shouldn't you help me and yourself instead of helping Richards? You have
confidence in me, you say. Well, show it. I'll give you your mortgage
for your mortgage on Richards's farm. Come, can't you trust Richards to
me? You think it over.”
The hiss of a rocket hurled her words into space. The fireworks had
begun. Miss Brown looked at them and watched Nelson at the same time.
As a good business woman who was also a good citizen, having subscribed
five dollars to the carnival, she did not propose to lose the worth
of her money; neither did she intend to lose a chance to do business.
Perhaps there was an obscurer and more complex motive lurking in some
stray corner of that queer garret, a woman's mind. Such motives--aimless
softenings of the heart, unprofitable diversions of the fancy--will seep
unconsciously through the toughest business principles of woman.
She was puzzled by the look of exaltation on Nelson's features,
illumined as they were by the uncanny light. If the fool man had not
forgotten all his troubles just to see a few fireworks! No, he was not
that kind of a fool; maybe--and she almost laughed aloud in her pleasure
over her own insight--maybe it all made him think of the war, where
he had been so brave. “He was a regular hero in the war,” Miss Brown
concluded, “and he certainly is a perfect gentleman; what a pity he
hasn't got any sense!”
She had guessed aright, although she had not guessed deep enough in
regard to Nelson. He watched the great wheels of light, he watched the
river aflame with Greek fire, then, with a shiver, he watched the bombs
bursting into myriads of flowers, into fizzing snakes, into fields of
burning gold, into showers of jewels that made the night splendid for
a second and faded. They were not fireworks to him; they were a magical
phantasmagoria that renewed the incoherent and violent emotions of his
youth; again he was in the chaos of the battle, or he was dreaming by
his camp-fire, or he was pacing his lonely round on guard. His heart
leaped again with the old glow, the wonderful, beautiful worship of
Liberty that can do no wrong. He seemed to hear a thousand voices
chanting:
“In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, As He died
to make men holy, let us die to make men free!”
His turbid musings cleared--or they seemed to him to clear--under the
strong reaction of his imagination and his memories. It was all over,
the dream and the glory thereof. The splendid young soldier was an
elderly, ruined man. But one thing was left: he could be true to his
flag.
“A poor soldier, but enlisted for the war,” says Nelson, squaring his
shoulders, with a lump in his throat and his eyes brimming. “I know by
the way it hurts me to think of refusing her that it's a temptation to
wrong-doing. No, I can't save myself by sacrificing a brother soldier
for humanity. She is just as kind as she can be, but women don't
understand business; she wouldn't make allowance for Richards.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder; it was Martin apologizing for hurrying
Miss Brown; but the baby was fretting and----
“I'm sorry--yes--well, I wish you didn't have to go!” Nelson began; but
a hoarse treble rose from under his elbows: “Say, Mr. Martin, Uncle and
me can take Miss Brown home.”
“If you will allow me the pleasure,” said Nelson, with the touch of
courtliness that showed through his homespun ways.
“Well, I WOULD like to see the hundred bombs bursting at once and Vulcan
at his forge!” said Miss Brown.
Thus the matter arranged itself. Tim waited with the lady while Nelson
went for the horse, nor was it until afterward that Miss Brown wondered
why the lad did not go instead of the man. But Tim had his own reasons.
No sooner was Nelson out of earshot than he began: “Say, Miss Brown, I
can tell you something.”
“Yes?”
“That Richards is no good; but you can't get Uncle to see it. At least
it will take time. If you'll help me we can get him round in time. Won't
you please not sell us out for six months and give me a show? I'll see
you get your interest and your money, too.”
“You?” Miss Brown involuntarily took a business attitude, with her arms
akimbo, and eyed the boy.
“Yes, ma'am, me. I ain't so very old, but I know all about the business.
I got all the figures down--how much we raise and what we got last year.
I can fetch them to you so you can see. He is a good farmer, and he will
catch on to the melons pretty quick. We'll do better next year, and I'll
try to keep him from belonging to things and spending money; and if he
won't lend to anybody or start in raising a new kind of crop just when
we get the melons going, he will make money sure. He is awful good and
honest. All the trouble with him is he needs somebody to take care
of him. If Aunt Lizzie had been alive he never would have lent that
dead-beat Richards that money. He ought to get married.”
Miss Brown did not feel called on to say anything. Tim continued in a
judicial way: “He is awful good and kind, always gets up in the morning
to make the fire if I have got something else to do; and he'd think
everything his wife did was the best in the world; and if he had
somebody to take care of him he'd make money. I don't suppose YOU would
think of it?” This last in an insinuating tone, with evident anxiety.
“Well, I never!” said Miss Brown.
Whether she was more offended or amused she couldn't tell; and she stood
staring at him by the electric light. To her amazement the hard little
face began to twitch. “I didn't mean to mad you,” Tim grunted, with a
quiver in his rough voice. “I've been listening to every word you
said, and I thought you were so sensible you'd talk over things without
nonsense. Of course I knew he'd have to come and see you Saturday
nights, and take you buggy riding, and take you to the theatre, and
all such things--first. But I thought we could sorter fix it up between
ourselves. I've taken care of him ever since Aunt Lizzie died, and I did
my best he shouldn't lend that money, but I couldn't help it; and I
did keep him from marrying a widow woman with eight children, who kept
telling him how much her poor fatherless children needed a man; and I
never did see anybody I was willing--before--and it's--it's so lonesome
without Aunt Lizzie!” He choked and frowned. Poor Tim, who had sold so
many melons to women and seen so much of back doors and kitchen humors
that he held the sex very cheap, he did not realize how hard he would
find it to talk of the one woman who had been kind to him! He turned red
with shame over his own weakness.
“You poor little chap!” cried Miss Brown; “you poor little sharp,
innocent chap!” The hand she laid on his shoulder patted it as she went
on: “Never mind, if I can't marry your uncle, I can help you take care
of him. You're a real nice boy, and I'm not mad; don't you think it.
There's your uncle now.”
Nelson found her so gentle that he began to have qualms lest his
carefully prepared speech should hurt her feelings. But there was no
help for it now. “I have thought over your kind offer to me, ma'am,”
said he, humbly, “and I got a proposition to make to you. It is your
honest due to have your farm, yes, ma'am. Well, I know a man would like
to buy it; I'll sell it to him, and pay you your money.”
“But that wasn't my proposal.”
“I know it, ma'am. I honor you for your kindness; but I can't risk
what--what might be another person's idea of duty about Richards. Our
consciences ain't all equally enlightened, you know.”
Miss Brown did not answer a word.
They drove along the streets where the lanterns were fading. Tim grew
uneasy, she was silent so long. On the brow of the hill she indicated a
side street and told them to stop the horse before a little brown house.
One of the windows was a dim square of red.
“It isn't quite so lonesome coming home to a light,” said Miss Brown.
As Nelson cramped the wheel to jump out to help her from the vehicle,
the light from the electric arc fell full on his handsome face and
showed her the look of compassion and admiration, there.
“Wait one moment,” she said, detaining him with one firm hand. “I've got
something to say to you. Let Richards go for the present; all I ask of
you about him is that you will do nothing until we can find out if he
is so bad off. But, Mr. Forrest, I can do better for you about that
mortgage. Mr. Lossing will take it for three years for a relative of his
and pay me the money. I told him the story.”
“And YOU will get the money all right?”
“Just the same. I was only trying to help you a little by the other way,
and I failed. Never mind.”
“I can't tell you how you make me feel,” said Nelson.
“Please let him bring you some melons to-morrow and make a stagger at
it, though,” said Tim.
“Can I?” Nelson's eyes shone.
“If you want to,” said Miss Brown. She laughed; but in a moment she
smiled.
All the way home Nelson saw the same face of Failure between the old
mare's white ears; but its grim lineaments were softened by a smile, a
smile like Miss Brown's.
TOMMY AND THOMAS
IT was while Harry Lossing was at the High School that Mrs. Carriswood
first saw Tommy Fitzmaurice. He was not much to see, a long lad of
sixteen who had outgrown his jackets and was not yet grown to his ears.
At this period Mrs. Fitzmaurice was his barber, and she, having been too
rash with the shears in one place, had snipped off the rest of his curly
black locks “to match;” until he showed a perfect convict's poll, giving
his ears all the better chance, and bringing out the rather square
contour of his jaws to advantage. He had the true Irish-Norman face; a
skin of fine texture, fair and freckled, high cheekbones, straight nose,
and wide blue eyes that looked to be drawn with ink, because of their
sharply pencilled brows and long, thick, black lashes. But the
feature that Mrs. Carriswood noticed was Tommy's mouth, a flexible and
delicately cut mouth, of which the lips moved lightly in speaking and
seldom were quite in repose.
“The genuine Irish orator's mouth,” thought Mrs. Carriswood.
Tommy, however, was not a finished orator, and Mrs. Carriswood herself
deigned to help him with his graduating oration; Tommy delivering the
aforesaid oration from memory, on the stage of the Grand Opera House,
to a warm-hearted and perspiring audience of his towns-people, amid
tremendous applause and not the slightest prod-dings of conscience.
Really the speech deserved the applause; Mrs. Carriswood, who had heard
half the eloquence of the world, spent three evenings on it; and she has
a good memory.
Her part in the affair always amused her; though, in fact, it came to
pass easily. She had the great fortune of the family. Being a widow with
no children, and the time not being come when philanthropy beckons on
the right hand and on the left to free-handed women, Mrs. Carriswood
travelled. As she expressed it, she was searching the globe for a
perfect climate. “Not that I in the least expect to find it,” said she,
cheerfully, “but I like to vary my disappointments; when I get worn out
being frozen, winters, I go somewhere to be soaked.” She was on her way
to California this time, with her English maid, who gave the Lossing
domestics many a jolly moment by her inextinguishable panic about red
Indians. Mrs. Derry supposed these savages to be lurking on the prairie
outside every Western town; and almost fainted when she did chance
to turn the corner upon three Kickapoo Indians, splendid in paint and
feathers, and peacefully vending the “Famous Kickapoo Sagwa.” She had
others of the artless notions of the travelling English, and I fear that
they were encouraged not only by the cook, the “second girl,” and the
man-of-all-work, but by Harry and his chum, Tommy; I know she used to
tell how she saw tame buffalo “roosting” on the streets, “w'ich they do
look that like common cows a body couldn't tell 'em hapart!”
She had a great opinion of Tommy, a mystery to her mistress for a long
time, until one day it leaked out that Tommy “and Master Harry, too,”
had told her that Tommy's great-grandfather was a lord in the old
country.
“The family seem to have sunk in the world since, Derry,” was Mrs.
Carriswood's single remark, as she smiled to herself. After Derry was
dismissed she picked up a letter, written that day to a friend of hers,
and read some passages about Harry and Tommy, smiling again.
“Harry”--one may look over her pretty shoulder without impertinence, in
a story--“Harry,” she wrote, “is a boy that I long to steal. Just the
kind of boy we have both wanted, Sarah--frank, happy, affectionate. I
must tell you something about him. It came out by accident. He has the
Western business instincts, and what do you suppose he did? He actually
started a wee shop of his own in the corner of the yard (really it is
a surprisingly pretty place, and they are quite civilized in the house,
gas, hot water, steam heat, all most comfortable), and sold 'pop' and
candy and cakes to the boys. He made so much money that he proposed a
partnership to the cook and the setting up a little booth in the 'county
fair,' which is like our rural cattle shows, you know. The cook (a
superior person who borrows books from Mrs. Lossing, but seems very
decent and respectful notwithstanding, and broils game to perfection.
And SUCH game as we have here, Sarah!)--well, the cook made him
cream-cakes, sandwiches, tarts, and candy, and Harry honorably bought
all the provisions with his profits from the first venture. You will
open your eyes at his father permitting such a thing, but Henry Lossing
is a thorough Westerner in some ways, and he looks on it all as a joke.
'Might show the boy how to do business,' he says.
“Well, they had a ravishing display, so Alma, the cook, and William, the
man, assured me--per Derry. All the sadder its fate; for alas! a gang
of rowdy boys fell upon Harry, and while he was busy fighting half of
them--he is as plucky as his uncle, the general--the other half looted
the beautiful stock in trade! They would have despoiled our poor little
merchant entirely but for the opportune arrival of a schoolmate who
is mightily respected by the rowdies. He knocked one of them down and
shouted after the others that he would give every one of them a good
thrashing if they did not bring the plunder back; and as he is known to
be a lad of his word for good or evil, actually the scamps did return
most of the booty, which the two boys brushed off and sold, as far as it
went (!) The consequence of the fray has been that Harry is unboundedly
grateful to this Tommy Fitzmaurice, and is at present coaching him on
his graduating oration. Fitzmaurice has studied hard and won honors, and
wants to make a show with his oration, to please his father. 'You see,'
says Harry, 'Tommy's father has saved money and is spending it all on
Tommy, so's he can be educated. He needs Tommy in the business real
bad, but he won't let him come in; he keeps him at school, and he thinks
everything of his getting the valedictory, and Tommy, he worked nights
studying to get it.' When I asked what was the father's business, Harry
grew a bit confused. 'Well, he kept a saloon; but'--Harry hastened to
explain--'it was a very nice saloon, never any trouble with the police
there; why, Tommy knew every man on the force. And they keep good
liquors, too,' said Harry, earnestly; 'throw away all the beer left in
the glasses.' 'What else would they do with it?' asked innocent I. 'Why,
keep it in a bucket,' said Harry, solemnly, 'and then slip the glass
under the counter and half fill out of the bucket, then hold it under
the keg LOW, so's the foam will come; that's a trick of the trade, you
know. Tommy says his father would SCORN that!' There is a vista opened,
isn't there? I was rather shocked at such associates for Harry, and told
his mother. Did she think it a good idea to have such a boy coming to
the house? a saloon-keeper's son? She did not laugh, as I half expected,
but answered quite seriously that she had been looking up Tommy, that
he was very much attached to Harry, and that she did not think he would
teach him anything bad. He has, I find myself, notions of honor, though
they are rather the code of the street. And he picks up things quickly.
Once he came to tea. It was amusing to see how he glued his eyes on
Harry and kept time with his motions. He used his fork quite properly,
only as Harry is a left-handed little fellow, the right-handed Thomas
had the more difficulty.
“He is taking such vast pains with his 'oration' that I felt moved to
help him. The subject is 'The Triumph of Democracy,' and Tommy civilly
explained that 'democracy' did not mean the Democratic party, but 'just
only a government where all the poor folks can get their rights and can
vote.'
“The oration was the kind of spread-eagle thing you might expect; I
can see that Tommy has formed himself on the orators of his father's
respectable saloon. What he said in comment interested me more. 'Sure, I
guess it is the best government, ma'am, though, of course, I got to make
it out that way, anyhow. But we come from Ireland, and there they got
the other kind, and me granny, she starved in the famine time, she did
that--with the fever. Me father walked twenty mile to the Sackville's
place, where they gave him some meal, though he wasn't one of their
tenants; yes, and the lady told him how he would be cooking it. I never
will forget that lady!'
“I saw a dramatic opportunity: would Tommy be willing to tell that story
in his speech? He looked at me with an odd look--or so I imagined it!
'Why not?' says he; 'I'd as soon as not tell it to anyone of them, and
why not to them all together?' Well, why not, when you come to think
of it? So we have got it into the speech; and I, I myself, Sarah, am
drilling young Demos-thenes, and he is so apt a scholar that I find
myself rather pleasantly employed.” Having read her letter, Mrs.
Carriswood hesitated a second and then added Derry's information at
the bottom of the page. “I suppose the lordly ancestor was one of King
James's creation--see Macaulay, somewhere in the second volume. I dare
say there is a drop or two of good blood in the boy. He has the manners
of a gentleman--but I don't know that I ever saw an Irishman, no matter
how low in the social scale, who hadn't.”
Thus it happened that Tommy's valedictory scored a success that is a
tradition of the High School, and came to be printed in both the city
papers; copies of which journals Tommy's mother has preserved sacredly
to this day; and I have no doubt, could one find them, they would be
found wrapped around a yellow photograph of the “A Class” of 1870: eight
pretty girls in white, smiling among five solemn boys in black, and
Tommy himself, as the valedictorian, occupying the centre of the picture
in his new suit of broadcloth, with a rose in his buttonhole and his
hair cut by a professional barber for the occasion.
It was the story of the famine that really captured the audience; and
Tommy told it well, with the true Irish fire, in a beautiful voice.
In the front seat of the parquette a little old man in a wrinkled black
broadcloth, with a bald head and a fringe of whisker under his long
chin, and a meek little woman, in a red Paisley shawl, wept and laughed
by turns. They had taken the deepest interest in every essay and every
speech. The old man clapped his large hands (which were encased in
loose, black kid gloves) with unflagging vigor. He wore a pair of heavy
boots, the soles of which made a noble thud on the floor.
“Ain't it wonderful the like of them young craters can talk like that!”
he cried; “shure, Molly, that young lady who'd the essay--where is
it?”--a huge black forefinger travelled down the page--“'_Music, The
Turkish Patrol_,' No--though that's grand, that piece; I'll be spakin'
wid Professor Von Keinmitz to bring it when we've the opening. Here
'tis, Molly: '_Tin, Essay. The Darkest Night Brings Out the Stars,
Miss Mamie Odenheimer_.' Thrue for you, mavourneen! And the sintiments,
wasn't they illigant? and the lan-gwidge was as foine as Pat Ronan's
speeches or Father--whist! will ye look at the flowers that shlip of a
gyirl's gitting! Count 'em, will ye?”
“Fourteen bouquets and wan basket,” says the little woman, “and Mamie
Odenheimer, she got seventeen bouquets and two baskets and a sign.
Well,” she looked anxious, but smiled, “I know of siven bouquets Tommy
will git for sure. And that's not countin' what Harry Lossing will do
for him. Hiven bless the good heart of him!”
“Well, I kin count four for him on wan seat,” says the man, with a nod
of his head toward the gay heap in the woman's lap, “barrin' I ain't
on-vaygled into flinging some of thim to the young ladies!”
Harry Lossing, in the seat behind with his mother and Mrs. Carriswood,
giggled at this and whispered in the latter lady's ear, “That's Tommy's
father and mother. My, aren't they excited, though! And Tommy's white's
a sheet--for fear he'll disappoint them, you know. He has said his piece
over twice to me, to-day, he's so scared lest he'll forget. I've got it
in my pocket, and I'm going behind when it's his turn, to prompt him.
Did you see me winking at him? it sort of cheers him up.”
He was almost as keen over the floral procession as the Fitzmaurices
themselves. The Lossing garden had been stripped to the last bud, and
levies made on the asparagus-bed, into the bargain, and Mrs. Lossing and
Alma and Mrs. Carriswood and Derry and Susy Lossing had made bouquets
and baskets and wreaths, and Harry had distributed them among friends
in different parts of the house. I say Harry, but, complimented by Mrs.
Carriswood, he admitted ingenuously that it was Tommy's idea.
“Tommy thought they would make more show that way,” says Harry, “and
they are all on the middle aisle, so his father and mother can see them;
Tim O'Halloran has got one for him, too, and Mrs. Macillarney, and she's
got some splendid pinies. Picked every last one. They'll make a show!”
But Harry knew nothing of the most magnificent of his friend's trophies
until it undulated gloriously down the aisle, above the heads of two
men, white satin ribbons flying, tinfoil shining--an enormous horseshoe
of roses and mignonette!
The parents were both on their feet to crane their necks after it, as it
passed them amid the plaudits.
“Oh, it was YOU, Cousin Margaret; I know it was you,” cried Harry.
He took the ladies over to the Fitzmaurices the minute that the diplomas
were given; and, directly, Tommy joined them, attended by two admiring
followers laden with the trophies. Mrs. O'Halloran and Mrs. Macillarney
and divers of the friends, both male and female, joined the circle.
Tommy held quite a little court. He shook hands with all the ladies,
beginning with Mrs. Carriswood (who certainly never had found herself
before in such a company, jammed between Alderman McGinnis's resplendent
new tweeds and Mrs. Macillarney's calico); he affectionately embraced
his mother, and he allowed himself to be embraced by Mrs. Macillarney
and Mrs. O'Halloran, while Patrick Fitzmaurice shook hands with the
alderman.
“Here's the lady that helped me on me piece, father; she's the lady
that sent me the horseshoe, mother. Like to make you acquainted with me
father and me mother. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzmaurice, Mrs. Carriswood.”
In these words, Tommy, blushing and happy, presented his happy parents.
“Sure, I'm proud to meet you, ma'am,” said Fitzmaurice, bowing, while
his wife courtesied and wiped her eyes.