HIS FATHER'S FRIENDS
It is the good fortune of some fatherless or motherless children to be
adopted into good families where the natural love and care that have
been denied them are supplied, as it were, by proxy. With young Quincy
it was so, only much more so. It fell to his lot to be adopted by an
entire town. Its residents had been, with few exceptions, his father's
friends. The sad story of his father's loss at sea was known to all,
and the town's heart warmed towards him; the town's arms were open to
embrace him, and care for him.
To his Aunt Huldah Pettingill he seemed as though sent from another
world. He was her husband's nephew, and hers--but there was a closer tie
acknowledged within her own heart, and kept there as a precious secret.
He was Quincy Adams Sawyer's son--the son of the man who had taught
her what love was. It had been a bitter lesson, for when her heart
was awakened, it was but to find that the one who had played upon its
sensitive strings did not love her, and that her duty was to another who
did love her. She had been a true and loving wife with no unsatisfied
heart-longings, but--
“You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.”
So Huldah Mason still kept within a secret corner of her heart a fond
remembrance of happy days gone by. And now Quincy's son was one of her
family; she could be a mother to him and no one would have a right to
question her manifestations of affection. It is often that the human
heart thus finds solace for past sad experiences or suffering.
It was only natural that Huldah, after her father's death, should take
her mother to her own home. The old Deacon had acquired enough of this
world's goods to avoid the necessity of hard labour during the last
years of his life. Good books had been his constant companions, and an
old-fashioned cane-bottomed rocking chair his favourite seat upon the
piazza or by the kitchen fire. Abner Stiles had done the necessary farm
work and the household chores. When the Deacon passed away, the town
lost one of its broadest-minded, most honest, most helpful citizens.
Mrs. Mason, still hale and hearty, assisted her daughter in her
household duties, but allowed Abner to put up the clothes line and take
it in.
“And this is his son, and his poor father--” The Deacon's good wife
could say no more, but clasped little Quincy close to her motherly
breast.
“You told me how it happened, Huldy, and I told father, but it don't
seem real even now. His father was such a fine man.”
She stopped, for her daughter had turned her head away, and her mother
knew that it was to brush away some tears that could not be kept back.
To 'Zekiel Pettingill, the boy was Alice's child. His only sister had
been the apple of his eye, and his great, honest heart welcomed the boy
as if he were his own.
His own son, Quincy Adams Pettingill, was in his fourteenth year and
upon him devolved the outdoor education of his young cousin. In this
pleasant task he was aided by his sister Sophie who was a year younger
than the newcomer.
There was a scene of wild excitement when young Quincy paid his first
visit to the old Pettingill place where his mother was born. It was
still the home of Hiram Maxwell and his wife, formerly Mandy Skinner.
The two boys, Abraham Mason Maxwell and Obadiah Strout Maxwell had been
told often the story of Mr. Sawyer's visit to Eastborough, and how he
boarded in that house, and little Mandy was glad to see “Kirwinzee.”
The old dog, Swiss, had, with difficulty, been dragged from the grave of
his former master, Uncle Ike, but no force, or persuasion, could induce
him to leave the old house. Probably the name “Quincy” had a familiar
sound and he wagged his tail slowly as an evidence of recognition and
welcome.
The most explosive greeting came from Mrs. Crowley.
“An' it's the foine young man he is, the picter of his feyther.” She
would have taken him in her arms and hugged him but for the presence of
others, but, afterwards, when alone with him she patted his curly head
and told him that he would have to be a fine man to be as good as his
father. Everywhere he went his father was talked about and praised, and
his mother had taught him to love his father's memory. Thus early
the ambition to be like his father was instilled in the boy's mind.
Confident as Alice was that her husband was still living, Aunt Ella
had protested effectually against her implanting any such hope in the
child's mind, and he had been brought up with the belief that his father
had died before he was born. There was one place where his father's
praises were faint, and that was at the grocery store.
[ILLUSTRATION: “'I S'POSE ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU'LL BE WEIGHIN' SUGAR AND
DRAWIN' 'LASSES.'”]
“Ah, my young man,” said Mr. Obadiah Strout, on his first visit, “your
father's money started this business, but I've worked mighty hard to
build it up to what it is now. I s'pose one of these days you'll be
weighin' sugar and drawin' 'lasses.”
“I guess not,” exclaimed Hiram. “Rich men's sons don't us'ally take to
their father's business.”
“You're right for once, Hiram,” Mr. Strout acknowledged. “They uzally
run through the money, bust the biz'ness and bring up in jail.”
“Well, this young fellow won't,” cried Hiram, hotly. “He's goin' to be a
great man like his father, won't you, Bub?”
“Bub” took a handful of raisins from an open box, and eyed his
questioner wonderingly.
“There's many a slip 'twixt the cow and the churn,” said Mr. Strout as
he took a ten cent cigar from the case and lighted it. Perhaps the
sight of the son recalled a scene in the same shop many years before on
Quincy's first visit to Mason's Corner when a box of cigars had been the
subject of an animated discussion between the boy's father and himself,
followed by a passage-at-arms--or, more correctly speaking--fists. We
humans are only veneered with politeness or good nature; underneath,
man's revengeful nature lies dormant--but not dead.
Mrs. Hawkins was delighted to see him. “Olive, don't you think he's the
likeness of his father?”
Olive agreed, because she had found that agreement with her employer's
opinions made life pleasant, and also led to many desirable additions to
her wardrobe.
Mrs. Hawkins surveyed him again. “I'll never forget what a poor appetite
his father had when he boarded here. He never came to his meals reg'lar.
But he was in love, head over heels an' an extry dip,--an' I don't blame
him, for 'Zeke Pettingill's sister was good enough for any man, even
if he did git to be guv'nor. Have a cookey?” and Quincy's pockets were
filled with cakes that contained raisins and citron.
“Them's seedless raisins, Quincy. I had a boarder once, a reg'lar
hayseed who came down here from Montrose to work hayin' time, an' he
asked me how I got the stuns out of the raisins. Jes' to fool him, I
said I bit 'em out, an' do you know, that old fool never teched another
bit o' cake while he stopped here.”
Mr. Jonas Hawkins took him out to see the hens and chickens, and told
him that he “kalkilated that mos' on 'em eggs that was bein' sot on
would hatch out.” Quincy's great delight was going with Hiram in the
grocery wagon. One day they went over the same road from the Pettingill
farm to Eastborough Centre that his father had travelled so many times.
The old sign board “Three Miles to Mason's Corner” was still there,
but how changed the other conditions. No consumptive uncle in the
Poor House, no philosophical Uncle Ike living in a chicken coop, no
inquisitive Mrs. Putnam, no mysterious Lindy, no battle royal with the
music teacher, no town meeting to engineer, no grocery store to buy,
no Deacon's daughter to go driving with, no singing school, no surprise
party, no blind girl to comfort and aid--and finally marry.
There were none of the incidents that had made his father's life at
Mason's Corner so exciting and interesting. Now, there was only a little
boy riding in a red wagon with yellow wheels, inhaling the pure air
and sweetness of the wild flowers, listening to the songs of birds, and
wishing that Uncle Hiram would make the horse go faster.
It is safe to leave him with his father's friends, for surely his lines
had fallen in a pleasant place.