that he understood when an unguarded movement revealed a rent which had
been a mended place in the surplice.
“Poor fellow,” said Harry. He recalled how, as a boy, he had gone to a
fancy-dress ball in Continental smallclothes, so small that he had been
strictly cautioned by his mother and sisters not to bow except with the
greatest care, lest he rend his magnificence and reveal that it was too
tight to allow an inch of underclothing. The stockings, in particular,
had been short, and his sister had providently sewed them on to the
knee-breeches, and to guard against accidents still further, had pinned
as well as sewed, the pins causing Harry much anguish.
“Poor fellow!” said Harry again, “I wonder is HE pinned somewhere? I
feel like giving him a lift; he is so prosy it isn't likely anyone else
will feel moved to help.”
Thus it came about that when the dean announced that the alms this day
would be given to the parish of our friend who had just addressed us;
and the plate paused before the Lossing pew, Harry slipped his hand into
his waistcoat pocket after those two five-dollar notes.
I should explain that Harry being a naturally left-handed boy, who has
laboriously taught himself the use of his right hand, it is a family
joke that he is like the inhabitants of Nineveh, who could not
tell their right hand from their left. But Harry himself has always
maintained that he can tell as well as the next man.
Out drifted the flock of choir-boys singing, “For thee, oh dear, dear
country,” and presently, following them, out drifted the congregation;
among the crowd the girl that Harry loved, not so quickly that he had
not time for a look and a smile (just tinged with rose); and because she
was so sweet, so good, so altogether adorable, and because she had not
only smiled but blushed, and, unobserved, he had touched the fur of her
jacket, the young man walked on air.
He did not remember the Saint Bernards until after the early Sunday
dinner, and during the after-dinner cigar. He was sitting in the
library, before some blazing logs, at peace with all the world. To him,
thus, came his mother and announced that the dean and “that man who
preached this morning, you know,” were waiting in the other room.
“They seem excited,” said she, “and talk about your munificence. What
HAVE you been doing?”
“Appear to make a great deal of fuss over ten dollars,” said Harry,
lightly, as he sauntered out of the door.
The dean greeted him with something almost like confusion in his
cordiality; he introduced his companion as the Rev. Mr. Gilling.
“Mr. Gilling could not feel easy until he had----”
“Made sure about there being no mistake,” interrupted Mr. Gilling;
“I--the sum was so great------”
A ghastly suspicion shot like a fever-flush over Harry's mind. Could it
be possible? There were the two other bills; could he have given one of
them? Given that howling dervish a hundred dollars? The thought was too
awful!
“It was really not enough for you to trouble yourself,” he said; “I dare
say you are thanking the wrong man.” He felt he must say something.
To his surprise the dean colored, while the other clergyman answered, in
all simplicity:
“No, sir, no, sir. I know very well. The only other bill, except
dollars, on the plate, the dean here gave, and the warden remembers that
you put in two notes--I”--he grew quite pale--“I can't help thinking you
maybe intended to put in only ONE!” His voice broke, he tried to control
it. “The sum is so VERY large!” quavered he.
“I have given him BOTH bills, two hundred dollars!” thought Harry. He
sat down. He was accustomed to read men's faces, and plainly as ever
he had read, he could read the signs of distress and conflict on the
prosaic, dull features before him.
“I INTENDED to put in two bills,” said he. Gilling gave a little
gasp--so little, only a quick ear could have caught it; but Harry's
ear is quick. He twisted one leg around the other, a further sign of
deliverance of mind.
“Well, sir, well, Mr. Lossing,” he remarked, clearing his throat,
“I cannot express to you properly the--the appreciation I have of
your--your PRINCELY gift!” (Harry changed a groan into a cough and tried
to smile.) “I would like to ask you, however, HOW you would like it to
be divided. There are a number of worthy causes: the furnishing of the
church, which is in charge of the Ladies' Aid Society; they are very
hard workers, the ladies of our church. And there is the Altar Guild,
which has the keeping of the altar in order. They are mostly young
girls, and they used to wash my things--I mean the vestments”
(blushing)--“but they--they were so young they were not careful, and my
wife thought she had best wash the--vestments herself, but she
allowed them to laundry the other--ah, things.” There was the same
discursiveness in his talk as in his sermon, Harry thought; and the
same uneasy restlessness of manner. “Then, we give to--various causes,
and--and there is, also, my own salary----”
“That is what it was intended for,” said Harry. “I hope the two hundred
dollars will be of some use to you, and then, indirectly, it will help
your church.”
Harry surprised a queer glance from the dean's brown eyes; there was
both humor and a something else that was solemn enough in it. The dean
had believed that there was a mistake.
“All of it! To ME!” cried Gilling.
“All of it. To YOU,” Harry replied, dryly. He was conscious of the
dean's gaze upon him. “I had a sudden impulse,” said he, “and I gave it;
that is all.”
The tears rose to the clergyman's eyes; he tried to wink them away, then
he tried to brush them away with a quick rub of his fingers, then he
sprang up and walked to the window, his back to Harry. Directly he was
facing the young man again, and speaking.
“You must excuse me, Mr. Lossing; since my sickness a little thing
upsets me.”
“Mr. Gilling had diphtheria last spring,” the dean struck in, “there was
an epidemic of diphtheria, in Matin's Junction; Mr. Gilling really saved
the place; but his wife and he both contracted the disease, and his wife
nearly died.”
Harry remembered some story that he had heard at the time--his eyes
began to light up as they do when he is moved.
“Why, YOU are the man that made them disinfect their houses,” cried he,
“and invented a little oven or something to steam mattresses and things.
You are the man that nursed them and buried them when the undertaker
died. You digged graves with your own hands--I say, I should like to
shake hands with you!”
Gilling shook hands, submissively, but looking bewildered.
He cleared his throat. “Would you mind, Mr. Lossing, if I took up your
time so far as to tell you what so overcame me?”
“I should be glad----”
“You see, sir, my wife was the daughter of the Episcopal minister--I
mean the rector, at the town--well, it wasn't a town, it was two or
three towns off in Shelby County where I had my circuit. You may be
surprised, sir, to know that I was once a Methodist minister.”
“Is it possible?” said Harry.
“Yes, sir. Her father--my wife's, I mean--was about as high a churchman
as he could be, and be married. He induced me to join our communion; and
very soon after I was married. I hope, Mr. Lossing, you'll come and see
us some time, and see my wife. She--are you married?”
“I am not so fortunate.”
“A good wife cometh from the Lord, sir, SURE! I thought I appreciated
mine, but I guess I didn't. She had two things she wanted, and one I
did want myself; but the other--I couldn't seem to bring my mind to it,
no--anyhow! We hadn't any children but one that died four years ago,
a little baby. Ever since she died my wife has had a longing to have
a stained-glass window, with the picture, you know, of Christ blessing
little children, put into our little church. In Memoriam, you know.
Seems as if, now we've lost the baby, we think all the more of the
church. Maybe she was a sort of idol to us. Yes, sir, that's one thing
my wife fairly longed for. We've saved our money, what we COULD save;
there are so many calls; during the sickness, last winter, the sick
needed so many things, and it didn't seem right for us to neglect them
just for our baby's window; and--the money went. The other thing was
different. My wife has got it into her head I have a fine voice. And
she's higher church than I am; so she has always wanted me to INTONE. I
told her I'd look like a fool intoning, and there's no mistake about
it, I DO! But she couldn't see it that way. It was 'most the only point
wherein we differed; and last spring, when she was so sick, and I didn't
know but I'd lose her, it was dreadful to me to think how I'd
crossed her. So, Mr. Lossing, when she got well I promised her, for a
thank-offering, I'd intone. And I have ever since. My people know me so
well, and we've been through so much together, that they didn't make any
fuss--though they are not high--fact is, I'm not high myself. But they
were kind and considerate, and I got on pretty well at home; but when
I came to rise up in that great edifice, before that cultured and
intellectual audience, so finely dressed, it did seem to me I could NOT
do it! I was sorely tempted to break my promise. I was, for a fact.” He
drew a long breath. “I just had to pray for grace, or I never would have
pulled through. I had the sermon my wife likes best with me; but I know
it lacks--it lacks--it isn't what you need! I was dreadfully scared and
I felt miserable when I got up to preach it--and then to think that you
were--but it is the Lord's doing and marvellous in our eyes! I don't
know what Maggie will say when I tell her we can get the window. The
best she hoped was I'd bring back enough so the church could pay me
eighteen dollars they owe on my salary. And now--it's wonderful! Why,
Mr. Lossing, I've been thinking so much and wanting so to get that
window for her, that, hearing the dean wanted some car-pentering done, I
thought maybe, as I'm a fair carpenter--that was my trade once, sir--I'd
ask him to let ME do the job. I was aware there is nothing in our
rules--I mean our canons--to prevent me, and nobody need know I was the
rector of Matin's Junction, because I would come just in my overalls.
There is a cheap place where I could lodge, and I could feed myself for
almost nothing, living is so cheap. I was praying about that, too.
Now, your noble generosity will enable me to donate what they owe on my
salary, and get the window too!”
“Take my advice,” said Harry, “donate nothing. Say nothing about this
gift; I will take care of the warden, and I can answer for the dean.”
“Yes,” said the dean, “on the whole, Gilling, you would better say
nothing, I think; Mr. Lossing is more afraid of a reputation for
generosity than of the small-pox.”
The older man looked at Harry with glistening eyes of admiration; with
what Christian virtues of humility he was endowing that embarrassed
young man, it is painful to imagine.
The dean's eyes twinkled above his handkerchief, which hid his mouth, as
he rose to make his farewells. He shook hands, warmly. “God bless you,
Harry,” said he. Gilling, too, wrung Harry's hands; he was seeking some
parting word of gratitude, but he could only choke out, “I hope you will
get MARRIED some time, Mr. Lossing, then you'll understand.”
“Well,” said Harry, as the door closed, and he flung out his arms and
his chest in a huge sigh, “I do believe it was better than the puppies!”
HARRY LOSSING
THE note-book of Mr. Horatio Armorer, president of our street railways,
contained a page of interest to some people in our town, on the occasion
of his last visit.
He wrote it while the train creaked over the river, and the porter of
his Pullman car was brushing all the dust that had been distributed on
the passengers' clothing, into the main aisle.
If you had seen him writing it (with a stubby little pencil that he
occasionally brightened with the tip of his tongue), you would not have
dreamed him to be more profoundly disturbed than he had been in years.
Nor would the page itself have much enlightened you.
“_See abt road M-- D-- See L
See E & M tea-set
See abt L_.”
Translated into long-hand, this reads: “See about the street-car road,
Marston (the superintendent) and Dane (the lawyer). See Lossing, see
Esther and Maggie, and remember about tea-set. See about Lossing.”
His memoranda written, he slipped the book in his pocket, reflecting
cynically, “There's habit! I've no need of writing that. It's not
pleasant enough to forget!”
Thirty odd years ago, Horatio Armorer--they called him 'Raish, then--had
left the town to seek his fortune in Chicago. It was his daydream to
wrestle a hundred thousand dollars out of the world's tight fists, and
return to live in pomp on Brady Street hill! He should drive a buggy
with two horses, and his wife should keep two girls. Long ago, the
hundred thousand limit had been reached and passed, next the million;
and still he did not return. His father, the Presbyterian minister, left
his parish, or, to be exact, was gently propelled out of his parish by
the disaffected; the family had a new home; and the son, struggling to
help them out of his scanty resources, went to the new parish and not
to the old. He grew rich, he established his brothers and sisters in
prosperity, he erected costly monuments and a memorial church to his
parents (they were beyond any other gifts from him); he married, and
lavished his money on three daughters; but the home of his youth neither
saw him nor his money until Margaret Ellis bought a house on Brady
Street, far up town, where she could have all the grass that she wanted.
Mrs. Ellis was a widow and rich. Not a millionaire like her brother, but
the possessor of a handsome property.
She was the best-natured woman in the world, and never guessed how hard
her neighbors found it to forgive her for always calling their town of
thirty thousand souls, “the country.” She said that she had pined for
years to live in the country, and have horses, and a Jersey cow and
chickens, and “a neat pig.” All of which modest cravings she gratified
on her little estate; and the gardener was often seen with a scowl and
the garden hose, keeping the pig neat.
It was later that Mr. Armorer had bought the street railways, they
having had a troublous history and being for sale cheap. Nobody that
knows Armorer as a business man would back his sentiment by so much
as an old shoe; yet it was sentiment, and not a good bargain, that had
enticed the financier. Once engaged, the instincts of a shrewd trader
prompted him to turn it into a good bargain, anyhow. His fancy was
pleased by a vision of a return to the home of his childhood and his
struggling youth, as a greater personage than his hopes had ever dared
promise.
But, in the event, there was little enough gratification for his vanity.
Not since his wife's death had he been so harassed and anxious; for he
came not in order to view his new property, but because his sister
had written him her suspicions that Harry Lossing wanted to marry his
youngest daughter.
Armorer arrived in the early dawn. Early as it was, a handsome victoria,
with horses sleeker of skin and harness heavier and brighter than one
is used to meet outside the great cities, had been in waiting for twenty
minutes; while for that space of time a pretty girl had paced up and
down the platform. The keenest observer among the crowd, airing its meek
impatience on the platform, did not detect any sign of anxiety in her
behavior. She walked erect, with a step that left a clean-cut footprint
in the dust, as girls are trained to walk nowadays. Her tailor-made
gown of fine blue serge had not a wrinkle. It was so simple that only
a fashionable woman could guess anywhere near the awful sum total which
that plain skirt, that short jacket, and that severe waistcoat had once
made on a ruled sheet of paper. When she turned her face toward the low,
red station-house and the people, it looked gentle, and the least in the
world sad. She had one of those clear olive skins that easily grow pale;
it was pale to-day. Her black hair was fine as spun silk; the coil under
her hat-brim shone as she moved. The fine hair, the soft, transparent
skin, and the beautiful marking of her brows were responsible for an air
of fragile daintiness in her person, just as her almond-shaped,
liquid dark eyes and unsmiling mouth made her look sad. It was a most
attractive face, in all its moods; sometimes it was a beautiful face;
yet it did not have a single perfect feature except the mouth, which--at
least so Harry Lossing told his mother--might have been stolen from the
Venus of Milo. Even the mouth, some critics called too small for her
nose; but it is as easy to call her nose too large for her mouth.
The instant she turned her back on the bustle of the station, all the
lines in her face seemed to waver and the eyes to brighten. Finally,
when the train rolled up to the platform and a young-looking elderly man
swung himself nimbly off the steps, the color flared up in her cheeks,
only to sink as suddenly; like a candle flame in a gust of wind.
Mr. Armorer put his two arms and his umbrella and travelling-bag about
the charming shape in blue, at the same time exclaiming, “You're a good
girl to come out so early, Essie! How's Aunt Meg?”
“Oh, very well. She would have come too, but she hasn't come back from
training.”
“Training?”
“Yes, dear, she has a regular trainer, like John L. Sullivan, you know.
She drives out to the park with Eliza and me, and walks and runs races,
and does gymnastics. She has lost ten pounds.”
Armorer wagged his head with a grin: “I dare say. I thought so when you
began. Meg is always moaning and groaning because she isn't a sylph!
She will make her cook's life a burden for about two months and lose ten
pounds, and then she will revel in ice-cream! Last time, she was raving
about Dr. Salisbury and living on beefsteak sausages, spending a fortune
starving herself.”
“She had Dr. Salisbury's pamphlet; but Cardigan told her it was a long
way out; so she said she hated to have it do no one any good, and she
gave it to Maria, one of the maids, who is always fretting because she
is so thin.”
“But the thing was to cure fat people!”
“Precisely.” Esther laughed a little low laugh, at which her father's
eyes shone; “but you see she told Maria to exactly reverse the advice
and eat everything that was injurious to stout people, and it would be
just right for her.”
“I perceive,” said Armorer, dryly; “very ingenious and feminine scheme.
But who is Cardigan?”
“Shuey Cardigan? He is the trainer. He is a fireman in a furniture shop,
now; but he used to be the boxing teacher for some Harvard men; and he
was a distinguished pugilist, once. He said to me, modestly, 'I don't
suppose you will have seen my name in the _Police Gazette_, miss?' But
he really is a very sober, decent man, notwithstanding.”
“Your Aunt Meg always was picking up queer birds! Pray, who introduced
this decent pugilist?”
Esther was getting into the carriage; her face was turned from him, but
he could see the pink deepen in her ear and the oval of her cheek. She
answered that it was a friend of theirs, Mr. Lossing. As if the name had
struck them both dumb, neither spoke for a few moments. Armorer bit a
sigh in two. “Essie,” said he, “I guess it is no use to side-track the
subject. You know why I came here, don't you?”
“Aunt Meg told me what she wrote to you.”
“I knew she would. She had compunctions of conscience letting him hang
round you, until she told me; and then she had awful gripes because she
had told, and had to confess to YOU!”
He continued in a different tone: “Essie, I have missed your mother
a long while, and nobody knows how that kind of missing hurts; but it
seems to me I never missed her as I do to-day. I need her to advise me
about you, Essie. It is like this: I don't want to be a stern parent
any more than you want to elope on a rope ladder. We have got to look
at this thing together, my dear little girl, and try to--to trust each
other.”
“Don't you think, papa,” said Esther, smiling rather tremulously, “that
we would better wait, before we have all these solemn preparations,
until we know surely whether Mr. Lossing wants me?”
“Don't you know surely?”
“He has never said anything of--of that--kind.”
“Oh, he is in love with you fast enough,” growled Armorer; but a smile
of intense relief brightened his face. “Now, you see, my dear, all I
know about this young man, except that he wants my daughter--which you
will admit is not likely to prejudice me in his favor--is that he is
mayor of this town and has a furniture store----”
“A manufactory; it is a very large business!”
“All right, manufactory, then; all the same he is not a brilliant match
for my daughter, not such a husband as your sisters have.” Esther's lip
quivered and her color rose again; but she did not speak. “Still I will
say that I think a fellow who can make his own fortune is better than
a man with twice that fortune made for him. My dear, if Lossing has the
right stuff in him and he is a real good fellow, I shan't make you go
into a decline by objecting; but you see it is a big shock to me, and
you must let me get used to it, and let me size the young man up in my
own way. There is another thing, Esther; I am going to Europe Thursday,
that will give me just a day in Chicago if I go to-morrow, and I wish
you would come with me. Will you mind?”
Either she changed her seat or she started at the proposal. But how
could she say that she wanted to stay in America with a man who had not
said a formal word of love to her? “I can get ready, I think, papa,”
said Esther.
They drove on. He felt a crawling pain in his heart, for he loved his
daughter Esther as he had loved no other child of his; and he knew that
he had hurt her. Naturally, he grew the more angry at the impertinent
young man who was the cause of the flitting; for the whole European plan
had been cooked up since the receipt of Mrs. Ellis's letter. They were
on the very street down which he used to walk (for it takes the line of
the hills) when he was a poor boy, a struggling, ferociously ambitious
young man. He looked at the changed rows of buildings, and other
thoughts came uppermost for a moment. “It was here father's church used
to stand; it's gone, now,” he said. “It was a wood church, painted a
kind of gray; mother had a bonnet the same color, and she used to say
she matched the church. I bought it with the very first money I earned.
Part of it came from weeding, and the weather was warm, and I can feel
the way my back would sting and creak, now! I would want to stop, often,
but I thought of mother in church with that bonnet, and I kept on!
There's the place where Seeds, the grocer that used to trust us, had
his store; it was his children had the scarlet fever, and mother went
to nurse them. My! but how dismal it was at home! We always got more
whippings when mother was away. Your grandfather was a good man, too
honest for this world, and he loved every one of his seven children;
but he brought us up to fear him and the Lord. We feared him the most,
because the Lord couldn't whip us! He never whipped us when we did
anything, but waited until next day, that he might not punish in anger;
so we had all the night to anticipate it. Did I ever tell you of the
time he caught me in a lie? I was lame for a week after it. He never
caught me in another lie.”
“I think he was cruel; I can't help it, papa,” cried Esther, with whom
this was an old argument, “still it did good, that time!”
“Oh, no, he wasn't cruel, my dear,” said Armorer, with a queer smile
that seemed to take only one-half of his face, not answering the last
words; “he was too sure of his interpretation of the Scripture, that was
all. Why, that man just slaved to educate us children; he'd have gone
to the stake rejoicing to have made sure that we should be saved. And of
the whole seven only one is a church member. Is that the road?”
They could see a car swinging past, on a parallel street, its bent pole
hitching along the trolley-wire.
“Pretty scrubby-looking cars,” commented Armorer; “but get our new
ordinance through the council, we can save enough to afford some fine
new cars. Has Lossing said anything to you about the ordinance and our
petition to be allowed to leave off the conductors?”
“He hasn't said anything, but I read about it in the papers. Is it so
very important that it should be passed?”
“Saving money is always important, my dear,” said Armorer, seriously.