“Louisa will not mind,” said Hayward. “She is precise, but she has
a fine regard for the rights of the individual, which is most
commendable.” He seated himself in a companion chair to Jim's, lit
his own pipe, and threw the match on the floor. Occasionally, when the
minister was out, Sam, without orders so to do, cleared the floor of
matches.
Hayward smoked and regarded his friend, who looked troubled despite his
comfort. “What is it, Jim?” asked the minister at last.
“I don't know how to do what is right for me to do,” replied the little
man, and his face, turned toward his friend, had the puzzled earnestness
of a child.
Hayward laughed. It was easily seen that his was the keener mind. In
natural endowments there had never been equality, although there was
great similarity of tastes. Jim, despite his education, often lapsed
into the homely vernacular of which he heard so much. An involuntarily
imitative man in externals was Jim, but essentially an original. Jim
proceeded.
“You know, Edward, I have never been one to complain,” he said, with an
almost boyish note of apology.
“Never complained half enough; that's the trouble,” returned the other.
“Well, I overheard something Mis' Adkins said to Mis' Amos Trimmer the
other afternoon. Mis' Trimmer was calling on Mis' Adkins. I couldn't
help overhearing unless I went outdoors, and it was snowing and I had a
cold. I wasn't listening.”
“Had a right to listen if you wanted to,” declared Hayward, irascibly.
“Well, I couldn't help it unless I went outdoors. Mis' Adkins she was in
the kitchen making lightbread for supper, and Mis' Trimmer had sat right
down there with her. Mis' Adkins's kitchen is as clean as a parlor,
anyway. Mis' Adkins said to Mis' Trimmer, speaking of me--because Mis'
Trimmer had just asked where I was and Mis' Adkins had said I was out in
the woodshed sitting with the cats and smoking--Mis' Adkins said, 'He's
just a doormat, that's what he is.' Then Mis' Trimmer says, 'The way he
lets folks ride over him beats me.' Then Mis' Adkins says again: 'He's
nothing but a door-mat. He lets everybody that wants to just trample
on him and grind their dust into him, and he acts real pleased and
grateful.'”
Hayward's face flushed. “Did Mrs. Adkins mention that she was one of the
people who used you for a door-mat?” he demanded.
Jim threw back his head and laughed like a child, with the sweetest
sense of unresentful humor. “Lord bless my soul, Edward,” replied Jim,
“I don't believe she ever thought of that.”
“And at that very minute you, with a hard cold, were sitting out in that
draughty shed smoking because she wouldn't allow you to smoke in your
own house!”
“I don't mind that, Edward,” said Jim, and laughed again.
“Could you see to read your paper out there, with only that little shed
window? And don't you like to read your paper while you smoke?”
“Oh yes,” admitted Jim; “but my! I don't mind little things like that!
Mis' Adkins is only a poor widow woman, and keeping my house nice and
not having it smell of tobacco is all she's got. They can talk about
women's rights--I feel as if they ought to have them fast enough, if
they want them, poor things; a woman has a hard row to hoe, and will
have, if she gets all the rights in creation. But I guess the rights
they'd find it hardest to give up would be the rights to have men look
after them just a little more than they look after other men, just
because they are women. When I think of Annie Berry--the girl I was
going to marry, you know, if she hadn't died--I feel as if I couldn't do
enough for another woman. Lord! I'm glad to sit out in the woodshed and
smoke. Mis' Adkins is pretty good-natured to stand all the cats.”
Then the coffee boiled, and Hayward poured out some for Jim and himself.
He had a little silver service at hand, and willow-ware cups and
saucers. Presently Sam appeared, and Hayward gave orders concerning
luncheon.
“Tell Miss Louisa we are to have it served here,” said he, “and mind,
Sam, the chops are to be thick and cooked the way we like them; and
don't forget the East India chutney, Sam.”
“It does seem rather a pity that you cannot have chutney at home with
your chops, when you are so fond of it,” remarked Hayward when Sam had
gone.
“Mis' Adkins says it will give me liver trouble, and she isn't strong
enough to nurse.”
“So you have to eat her ketchup?”
“Well, she doesn't put seasoning in it,” admitted Jim. “But Mis' Adkins
doesn't like seasoning herself, and I don't mind.”
“And I know the chops are never cut thick, the way we like them.”
“Mis' Adkins likes her meat well done, and she can't get such thick
chops well done. I suppose our chops are rather thin, but I don't mind.”
“Beefsteak and chops, both cut thin, and fried up like sole-leather.
I know!” said Dr. Hayward, and he stamped his foot with unregenerate
force.
“I don't mind a bit, Edward.”
“You ought to mind, when it is your own house, and you buy the food and
pay your housekeeper. It is an outrage!”
“I don't mind, really, Edward.”
Dr. Hayward regarded Jim with a curious expression compounded of love,
anger, and contempt. “Any more talk of legal proceedings?” he asked,
brusquely.
Jim flushed. “Tom ought not to tell of that.”
“Yes, he ought; he ought to tell it all over town. He doesn't, but he
ought. It is an outrage! Here you have been all these years supporting
your nieces, and they are working away like field-mice, burrowing under
your generosity, trying to get a chance to take action and appropriate
your property and have you put under a guardian.”
“I don't mind a bit,” said Jim; “but--”
The other man looked inquiringly at him, and, seeing a pitiful working
of his friend's face, he jumped up and got a little jar from a shelf.
“We will drop the whole thing until we have had our chops and chutney,”
said he. “You are right; it is not worth minding. Here is a new brand of
tobacco I want you to try. I don't half like it, myself, but you may.”
Jim, with a pleased smile, reached out for the tobacco, and the two
men smoked until Sam brought the luncheon. It was well cooked and well
served on an antique table. Jim was thoroughly happy. It was not
until the luncheon was over and another pipe smoked that the troubled,
perplexed expression returned to his face.
“Now,” said Hayward, “out with it!”
“It is only the old affair about Alma and Amanda, but now it has taken
on a sort of new aspect.”
“What do you mean by a new aspect?”
“It seems,” said Jim, slowly, “as if they were making it so I couldn't
do for them.”
Hayward stamped his foot. “That does sound new,” he said, dryly. “I
never thought Alma Beecher or Amanda Bennet ever objected to have you do
for them.”
“Well,” said Jim, “perhaps they don't now, but they want me to do it
in their own way. They don't want to feel as if I was giving and they
taking; they want it to seem the other way round. You see, if I were to
deed over my property to them, and then they allowance me, they would
feel as if they were doing the giving.”
“Jim, you wouldn't be such a fool as that?”
“No, I wouldn't,” replied Jim, simply. “They wouldn't know how to take
care of it, and Mis' Adkins would be left to shift for herself. Joe
Beecher is real good-hearted, but he always lost every dollar he
touched. No, there wouldn't be any sense in that. I don't mean to give
in, but I do feel pretty well worked up over it.”
“What have they said to you?”
Jim hesitated.
“Out with it, now. One thing you may be sure of: nothing that you can
tell me will alter my opinion of your two nieces for the worse. As for
poor Joe Beecher, there is no opinion, one way or the other. What did
they say?”
Jim regarded his friend with a curiously sweet, far-off expression.
“Edward,” he said, “sometimes I believe that the greatest thing a man's
friends can do for him is to drive him into a corner with God; to be so
unjust to him that they make him understand that God is all that mortal
man is meant to have, and that is why he finds out that most people,
especially the ones he does for, don't care for him.”
Hayward looked solemnly and tenderly at the other's almost rapt face.
“You are right, I suppose, old man,” said he; “but what did they do?”
“They called me in there about a week ago and gave me an awful talking
to.”
“About what?”
Jim looked at his friend with dignity. “They were two women talking,
and they went into little matters not worth repeating,” said he. “All
is-they seemed to blame me for everything I had ever done for them,
and for everything I had ever done, anyway. They seemed to blame me for
being born and living, and, most of all, for doing anything for them.”
“It is an outrage!” declared Hayward. “Can't you see it?”
“I can't seem to see anything plain about it,” returned Jim, in a
bewildered way. “I always supposed a man had to do something bad to
be given a talking to; but it isn't so much that, and I don't bear any
malice against them. They are only two women, and they are nervous.
What worries me is, they do need things, and they can't get on and be
comfortable unless I do for them; but if they are going to feel that
way about it, it seems to cut me off from doing, and that does worry me,
Edward.”
The other man stamped. “Jim Bennet,” he said, “they have talked, and now
I am going to.”
“You, Edward?”
“Yes, I am. It is entirely true what those two women, Susan Adkins and
Mrs. Trimmer, said about you. You ARE a door-mat, and you ought to be
ashamed of yourself for it. A man should be a man, and not a door-mat.
It is the worst thing in the world for people to walk over him and
trample him. It does them much more harm than it does him. In the end
the trampler is much worse off than the trampled upon. Jim Bennet, your
being a doormat may cost other people their souls' salvation. You are
selfish in the grain to be a door-mat.”
Jim turned pale. His child-like face looked suddenly old with his mental
effort to grasp the other's meaning. In fact, he was a child--one of
the little ones of the world--although he had lived the span of a man's
life. Now one of the hardest problems of the elders of the world was
presented to him. “You mean--” he said, faintly.
“I mean, Jim, that for the sake of other people, if not for your own
sake, you ought to stop being a door-mat and be a man in this world of
men.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to go straight to those nieces of yours and tell them the
truth. You know what your wrongs are as well as I do. You know what
those two women are as well as I do. They keep the letter of the Ten
Commandments--that is right. They attend my church--that is right. They
scour the outside of the platter until it is bright enough to blind
those people who don't understand them; but inwardly they are petty,
ravening wolves of greed and ingratitude. Go and tell them; they don't
know themselves. Show them what they are. It is your Christian duty.”
“You don't mean for me to stop doing for them?”
“I certainly do mean just that--for a while, anyway.”
“They can't possibly get along, Edward; they will suffer.”
“They have a little money, haven't they?”
“Only a little in savings-bank. The interest pays their taxes.”
“And you gave them that?”
Jim colored.
“Very well, their taxes are paid for this year; let them use that money.
They will not suffer, except in their feelings, and that is where they
ought to suffer. Man, you would spoil all the work of the Lord by your
selfish tenderness toward sinners!”
“They aren't sinners.”
“Yes, they are--spiritual sinners, the worst kind in the world. Now--”
“You don't mean for me to go now?”
“Yes, I do--now. If you don't go now you never will. Then, afterward, I
want you to go home and sit in your best parlor and smoke, and have all
your cats in there, too.”
Jim gasped. “But, Edward! Mis' Adkins--”
“I don't care about Mrs. Adkins. She isn't as bad as the rest, but she
needs her little lesson, too.”
“Edward, the way that poor woman works to keep the house nice--and she
don't like the smell of tobacco smoke.”
“Never mind whether she likes it or not. You smoke.”
“And she don't like cats.”
“Never mind. Now you go.”
Jim stood up. There was a curious change in his rosy, child-like face.
There was a species of quickening. He looked at once older and more
alert. His friend's words had charged him as with electricity. When he
went down the street he looked taller.
Amanda Bennet and Alma Beecher, sitting sewing at their street windows,
made this mistake.
“That isn't Uncle Jim,” said Amanda. “That man is a head taller, but he
looks a little like him.”
“It can't be Uncle Jim,” agreed Alma. Then both started.
“It is Uncle Jim, and he is coming here,” said Amanda.
Jim entered. Nobody except himself, his nieces, and Joe Beecher ever
knew exactly what happened, what was the aspect of the door-mat erected
to human life, of the worm turned to menace. It must have savored of
horror, as do all meek and downtrodden things when they gain, driven to
bay, the strength to do battle. It must have savored of the god-like,
when the man who had borne with patience, dignity, and sorrow for them
the stings of lesser things because they were lesser things, at last
arose and revealed himself superior, with a great height of the spirit,
with the power to crush.
When Jim stopped talking and went home, two pale, shocked faces of women
gazed after him from the windows. Joe Beecher was sobbing like a child.
Finally his wife turned her frightened face upon him, glad to have still
some one to intimidate.
“For goodness' sake, Joe Beecher, stop crying like a baby,” said she,
but she spoke in a queer whisper, for her lips were stiff.
Joe stood up and made for the door.
“Where are you going?” asked his wife.
“Going to get a job somewhere,” replied Joe, and went. Soon the women
saw him driving a neighbor's cart up the street.
“He's going to cart gravel for John Leach's new sidewalk!” gasped Alma.
“Why don't you stop him?” cried her sister. “You can't have your husband
driving a tip-cart for John Leach. Stop him, Alma!”
“I can't stop him,” moaned Alma. “I don't feel as if I could stop
anything.”
Her sister gazed at her, and the same expression was on both faces,
making them more than sisters of the flesh. Both saw before them a stern
boundary wall against which they might press in vain for the rest of
their lives, and both saw the same sins of their hearts.
Meantime Jim Bennet was seated in his best parlor and Susan Adkins was
whispering to Mrs. Trimmer out in the kitchen.
“I don't know whether he's gone stark, staring mad or not,” whispered
Susan, “but he's in the parlor smoking his worst old pipe, and that big
tiger tommy is sitting in his lap, and he's let in all the other cats,
and they're nosing round, and I don't dare drive 'em out. I took up the
broom, then I put it away again. I never knew Mr. Bennet to act so. I
can't think what's got into him.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No, he didn't say much of anything, but he said it in a way that made
my flesh fairly creep. Says he, 'As long as this is my house and my
furniture and my cats, Mis' Adkins, I think I'll sit down in the parlor,
where I can see to read my paper and smoke at the same time.' Then he
holds the kitchen door open, and he calls, 'Kitty, kitty, kitty!' and
that great tiger tommy comes in with his tail up, rubbing round his
legs, and all the other cats followed after. I shut the door before
these last ones got into the parlor.” Susan Adkins regarded malevolently
the three tortoise-shell cats of three generations and various stages
of growth, one Maltese settled in a purring round of comfort with four
kittens, and one perfectly black cat, which sat glaring at her with
beryl-colored eyes.
“That black cat looks evil,” said Mrs. Trimmer.
“Yes, he does. I don't know why I didn't drown him when he was a
kitten.”
“Why didn't you drown all those Malty kittens?”
“The old cat hid them away until they were too big. Then he wouldn't let
me. What do you suppose has come to him? Just smell that awful pipe!”
“Men do take queer streaks every now and then,” said Mrs. Trimmer. “My
husband used to, and he was as good as they make 'em, poor man. He would
eat sugar on his beefsteak, for one thing. The first time I saw him do
it I was scared. I thought he was plum crazy, but afterward I found out
it was just because he was a man, and his ma hadn't wanted him to eat
sugar when he was a boy. Mr. Bennet will get over it.”
“He don't act as if he would.”
“Oh yes, he will. Jim Bennet never stuck to anything but being Jim
Bennet for very long in his life, and this ain't being Jim Bennet.”
“He is a very good man,” said Susan with a somewhat apologetic tone.
“He's too good.”
“He's too good to cats.”
“Seems to me he's too good to 'most everybody. Think what he has done
for Amanda and Alma, and how they act!”
“Yes, they are ungrateful and real mean to him; and I feel sometimes
as if I would like to tell them just what I think of them,” said Susan
Adkins. “Poor man, there he is, studying all the time what he can do for
people, and he don't get very much himself.”
Mrs. Trimmer arose to take leave. She had a long, sallow face, capable
of a sarcastic smile. “Then,” said she, “if I were you I wouldn't
begrudge him a chair in the parlor and a chance to read and smoke and
hold a pussy-cat.”
“Who said I was begrudging it? I can air out the parlor when he's got
over the notion.”
“Well, he will, so you needn't worry,” said Mrs. Trimmer. As she went
down the street she could see Jim's profile beside the parlor window,
and she smiled her sarcastic smile, which was not altogether unpleasant.
“He's stopped smoking, and he ain't reading,” she told herself. “It
won't be very long before he's Jim Bennet again.”
But it was longer than she anticipated, for Jim's will was propped by
Edward Hayward's. Edward kept Jim to his standpoint for weeks, until a
few days before Christmas. Then came self-assertion, that self-assertion
of negation which was all that Jim possessed in such a crisis. He called
upon Dr. Hayward; the two were together in the little study for nearly
an hour, and talk ran high, then Jim prevailed.
“It's no use, Edward,” he said; “a man can't be made over when he's cut
and dried in one fashion, the way I am. Maybe I'm doing wrong, but to
me it looks like doing right, and there's something in the Bible about
every man having his own right and wrong. If what you say is true, and
I am hindering the Lord Almighty in His work, then it is for Him to stop
me. He can do it. But meantime I've got to go on doing the way I always
have. Joe has been trying to drive that tip-cart, and the horse ran away
with him twice. Then he let the cart fall on his foot and mash one of
his toes, and he can hardly get round, and Amanda and Alma don't dare
touch that money in the bank for fear of not having enough to pay the
taxes next year in case I don't help them. They only had a little money
on hand when I gave them that talking to, and Christmas is 'most here,
and they haven't got things they really need. Amanda's coat that she
wore to meeting last Sunday didn't look very warm to me, and poor Alma
had her furs chewed up by the Leach dog, and she's going without any.
They need lots of things. And poor Mis' Adkins is 'most sick with
tobacco smoke. I can see it, though she doesn't say anything, and the
nice parlor curtains are full of it, and cat hairs are all over things.
I can't hold out any longer, Edward. Maybe I am a door-mat; and if I am,
and it is wicked, may the Lord forgive me, for I've got to keep right on
being a door-mat.”
Hayward sighed and lighted his pipe. However, he had given up and
connived with Jim.
On Christmas eve the two men were in hiding behind a clump of cedars
in the front yard of Jim's nieces' house. They watched the expressman
deliver a great load of boxes and packages. Jim drew a breath of joyous
relief.
“They are taking them in,” he whispered--“they are taking them in,
Edward!”
Hayward looked down at the dim face of the man beside him, and something
akin to fear entered his heart. He saw the face of a lifelong friend,
but he saw something in it which he had never recognized before. He saw
the face of one of the children of heaven, giving only for the sake of
the need of others, and glorifying the gifts with the love and pity of
an angel.
“I was afraid they wouldn't take them!” whispered Jim, and his watching
face was beautiful, although it was only the face of a little, old man
of a little village, with no great gift of intellect. There was a full
moon riding high; the ground was covered with a glistening snow-level,
over which wavered wonderful shadows, as of wings. One great star
prevailed despite the silver might of the moon. To Hayward Jim's face
seemed to prevail, as that star, among all the faces of humanity.
Jim crept noiselessly toward a window, Hayward at his heels. The two
could see the lighted interior plainly.
“See poor Alma trying on her furs,” whispered Jim, in a rapture. “See
Amanda with her coat. They have found the money. See Joe heft the
turkey.” Suddenly he caught Hayward's arm, and the two crept away.
Out on the road, Jim fairly sobbed with pure delight. “Oh, Edward,”
he said, “I am so thankful they took the things! I was so afraid they
wouldn't, and they needed them! Oh, Edward, I am so thankful!” Edward
pressed his friend's arm.
When they reached Jim's house a great tiger-cat leaped to Jim's shoulder
with the silence and swiftness of a shadow. “He's always watching for
me,” said Jim, proudly. “Pussy! Pussy!” The cat began to purr loudly,
and rubbed his splendid head against the man's cheek.
“I suppose,” said Hayward, with something of awe in his tone, “that you
won't smoke in the parlor to-night?”
“Edward, I really can't. Poor woman, she's got it all aired and
beautifully cleaned, and she's so happy over it. There's a good fire in
the shed, and I will sit there with the pussy-cats until I go to bed.
Oh, Edward, I am so thankful that they took the things!”
“Good night, Jim.”
“Good night. You don't blame me, Edward?”
“Who am I to blame you, Jim? Good night.”
Hayward watched the little man pass along the path to the shed door.
Jim's back was slightly bent, but to his friend it seemed bent beneath
a holy burden of love and pity for all humanity, and the inheritance
of the meek seemed to crown that drooping old head. The door-mat, again
spread freely for the trampling feet of all who got comfort thereby,
became a blessed thing. The humble creature, despised and held in
contempt like One greater than he, giving for the sake of the needs of
others, went along the narrow foot-path through the snow. The minister
took off his hat and stood watching until the door was opened and closed
and the little window gleamed with golden light.
THE AMETHYST COMB
MISS JANE CAREW was at the railroad station waiting for the New York
train. She was about to visit her friend, Mrs. Viola Longstreet. With
Miss Carew was her maid, Margaret, a middleaged New England woman,
attired in the stiffest and most correct of maid-uniforms. She carried
an old, large sole-leather bag, and also a rather large sole-leather
jewel-case. The jewel-case, carried openly, was rather an unusual
sight at a New England railroad station, but few knew what it was. They
concluded it to be Margaret's special handbag. Margaret was a very tall,
thin woman, unbending as to carriage and expression. The one thing out
of absolute plumb about Margaret was her little black bonnet. That was
askew. Time had bereft the woman of so much hair that she could fasten
no head-gear with security, especially when the wind blew, and that
morning there was a stiff gale. Margaret's bonnet was cocked over one
eye. Miss Carew noticed it.
“Margaret, your bonnet is crooked,” she said.
Margaret straightened her bonnet, but immediately the bonnet veered
again to the side, weighted by a stiff jet aigrette. Miss Carew observed
the careen of the bonnet, realized that it was inevitable, and did not
mention it again. Inwardly she resolved upon the removal of the jet
aigrette later on. Miss Carew was slightly older than Margaret, and
dressed in a style somewhat beyond her age. Jane Carew had been alert
upon the situation of departing youth. She had eschewed gay colors and
extreme cuts, and had her bonnets made to order, because there were no
longer anything but hats in the millinery shop. The milliner in Wheaton,
where Miss Carew lived, had objected, for Jane Carew inspired reverence.
“A bonnet is too old for you. Miss Carew,” she said. “Women much older
than you wear hats.”