BC. BURTON, the president of the Riverside National Bank, was a widower, and led an existence that can be described as calmly and good-naturedly detached. He was a younger son of a father long since dead, who had established the Burton, Corley & Co. bank, which had prospered, and finally taken a national banking charter. Corley had furnished the capital for the original bank, and the Burton family had run the business. B. C.—he was usually called by his initials—had married Corley's only daughter, and had thus acquired the Corley money. After his wife's death his wealth was estimated as a hundred thousand dollars; the truth was that old Corley had invested badly, and left his daughter no more than twenty-five thousand. At the time of his marriage B. C. owned nothing but his share of the bank stock, worth about twenty thousand.
In spite of his reputation as a banker, B. C. was a poor business man where his own affairs were concerned. During his wife's life his own bank stock increased in value to about twenty-five thousand dollars, but he managed to lose all of the twenty-five thousand his wife had brought him, and when she died he had nothing but his house and his bank stock. In the four or five years since his wife's death he had continued his misfortunes, and had pledged fifteen thousand dollars' worth of his bank stock to old Peter Grimsby, one of the bank's directors. Thus, while Riverbank counted B. C. Burton a wealthy man, the bank president was worth a scant ten thousand dollars, plus a house worth five or six thousand. The bank stock brought him six per cent, and his salary was two thousand; he had an income of about twenty-six hundred dollars which the town imagined to be ten or fifteen thousand.
Being a childless widower he could live well enough on his income in Riverbank, but, had it not been for his placidity of temper, he would have been a discontented and disappointed man. Even so his first half hour after awaking in the morning was a bad half hour. He opened his eyes feeling depressed and weary, with his life an empty hull. For half an hour he felt miserable and hopeless; but he had a sound body, and a cup of coffee and solid breakfast set him up for the day; he became a good-natured machine for the transaction of routine banking business.
Some twist of humor or bit of carelessness had marked the choice of the names of the two Burton boys. The elder had been named Andrew D., which in itself was nothing odd; neither was there anything odd that the younger should have been given the name of the father's partner, Benjamin Corley; but the town was quick to adopt the initials—A. D. and B. C.—and to see the humor in them, and the two men were ever after known by them. When they were boys they were nicknamed Anna (for Anno Domini) and Beef (for Before Christ), and the names were not ill-chosen. The elder boy was as nervous as a girl, and Ben was as stolid as an ox. They never got along well together and, soon after B. C. entered the bank, A. D.—who had been cashier—left it and went into retail trade.
A. D. was the type of man that seems smeared all over with whatever he undertakes. Had he been a baker he would have been covered with flour and dough from head to foot—dough would have been in his hair. Had B. C. been a baker he would have emerged from his day's work without a fleck of flour upon him. A. D. blundered into things, and became saturated with them; B. C.'s affairs were like the skin of a ripe tangerine—they clothed him but were hardly an integral part of him. Life's rind fitted him loosely.
When David Dean entered the bank, B. C. was closeted with a borrower, and the dominie was obliged to wait a few minutes. He stood at the window, his hands clasped behind him, gazing into the street, and trying to arrange the words in which he would ask the banker-trustee for the advance he desired. The door to the banker's private office opened, the customer came out, and the door closed again. A minute later the cashier told David he might enter.
B. C. was sitting at his desk, coatless but immaculate. He turned and smiled.
“Good morning, Mr. Dean,” he said. “Another good com day. You and I don't get much pleasure out of this hot weather, I am afraid, but it is money in the farmers' pockets.”
He did nothing to make David's way easy. His very smiling good nature made it more difficult. David plunged headlong into his business.
“Mr. Burton, could you—do you think the trustees would—grant me a further advance on my salary!”
The banker showed no surprise, no resentment. “I dislike to ask it,” David continued. “I feel that the trustees have already done all that they should. It is my place to keep within my income—that I know—but I seem to have fallen behind in the last few years. I have had to run into debt to some extent. There is one debt that should be paid; it should be paid immediately; otherwise—”
“Don't stand,” said B. C., touching a vacant chair with his finger. “Of course you know I am only one of the trustees, Mr. Dean. I should not pretend to give you an answer without consulting the others, but I suppose I was made a trustee because I know something of business. They seem to have left the finances of the church rather completely in my hands; I think I have brought order out of chaos. Here is the balance sheet, brought down to the first of the month.” David took the paper and stared at it, but the figures meant nothing to him. He felt already that Burton meant to refuse his request “Let me see it,” B. C. said, and his very method of handing the statement to David and then taking it again for examination was characteristic. “Why, we are in better shape than I thought! This is very good indeed! We are really quite ahead of ourselves; you see here we have paid five hundred dollars on the mortgage a full six months before the time the payment was due. And here is payment made for roofing the church, and paid promptly. Usually we keep our bills waiting. Then here is the advance made you. This is a very good statement, Mr. Dean. And now let me see; cash on hand! Well, that item is low; very low! Twenty-eight dollars and forty cents. You understand that, do you! That is the cash we have available for all purposes.”
He had not refused David; he had shown him that his request could not be granted.
“Of course, then,” said David, “the trustees have nothing to advance, even were they so inclined. I thank you quite as much.”
“Now, don't hurry,” said B. C. “You don't come in here often, and when you do I ought to be able to spare you a few minutes. Sit down. At our last meeting the trustees were speaking of your salary. We think you should receive more than you are getting; if the church could afford it we would arrange it at once, but you know how closely we have to figure to make ends meet.”
“I have not complained,” said David.
“Indeed not! But we think of these things; we don't forget you, you see. I dare say we know almost as much about your affairs as you know. I believe I can tell you the name of the creditor you spoke of. It's old Herwig, isn't it!”
“Yes.”
“I thought so,” said B. C. “Of course I knew you traded there, and it is a good thing to patronize our own church members, but it is a pity we haven't a live grocer in the church. I had to leave Herwig; my housekeeper couldn't get what she wanted there. Now, just let me tell you something, and put your mind at rest: if you paid Herwig whatever you owe him you might as well take the money down to the river and throw it in! Herwig is busted right now, and he knows it. If he collected every cent due him he would be just as insolvent. He is dead of dry rot; it is all over but the funeral. The only reason his creditors haven't closed him up is that it is not worth their while; I don't suppose they'll get a cent on the dollar. So don't worry about him—he's hopeless.”
“But what I owe him—”
“Wouldn't be a drop in the bucket!” said B. C. “Don't worry about it. Don't think about it. And now, about a possible increase in your salary; I think we may be able to manage that before long. Lucille Hardcome seems to be taking a great interest in your outside church work.”
“She seems eager to give all the help she can.”
“That's good! She is a wealthy woman, Mr. Dean; wealthier than you imagine, I believe. Do what you reasonably can to keep up her interest. She has done very little for the church yet in a money way. She can easily afford to do as much as Mary Derling is doing. Of course we understand she has had great expense in all these things she is doing; that house done over and all; she has probably used more than her income, but she can't get much more into the house without building an addition. She is thoroughly Riverbank now, and we have let her take a prominent part in the church and the Sunday school; she owes it to us to give liberally. I think she could give a thousand dollars a year, if she chose, and not feel it. The hundred she gives now is nothing; suppose we say five hundred dollars. If we can get her to give five hundred we can safely add two hundred and fifty of it to your salary. And you deserve it, and ought to have it. If we can add that two hundred and fifty dollars to your salary during my trusteeship I shall be delighted. We all feel that way—all the trustees.”
“That is more than I ever dared hope,” said David. “It is kind of you to think of it.”
“I wish we could make it a thousand,” said B. C. sincerely. “Well, I don't want to keep you all day in this hot office. Just humor Lucille Hardcome a little; she's high-handed but I think she means all right.”
David went out. The sun was hotter than ever, but for a block or two he did not notice it. Two hundred and fifty dollars increase! It would mean that in a few years he could be even with the world again! Then, as he toiled up the hot hill, his immediate needs returned to his mind, and he thought of Herwig. Whether the old grocer must inevitably fail in business or not the debt David owed him was an honestly contracted debt, and the old man had a right to expect payment; all David's creditors had a right to expect payment. His horror of debt returned in full force. There was not a place where he could look for a dollar; he felt bound and constrained, guilty, shamed.
Before the manse Lucille Hardcome's low-hung carriage stood. He entered the house.
“David!” called 'Thusia from the sitting room, and he hung his hat on the rack and went in to her.
“Lucille is waiting in the study,” said 'Thusia. “She has been waiting an hour; Alice is with her.”
“'Thusia, what has happened!” he cried, for his wife's face showed she had received a blow.
“Oh, David! David!” she exclaimed. “It is Alice! She is engaged!”
“Not Alice! Not our Alice!” cried David. “But—”
'Thusia burst into tears. She reached for his hand, and clung to it.
“Oh, David! To Lanny Welsh—do you know anything about him!” she wept. “I don't know anything about him at all, except he was a bartender, and Roger knows him.”
“Our Alice! Lanny Welsh!” said David, “But nothing of the sort can be allowed, 'Thusia. It cannot be!”
“Oh, I hoped you would say that!” said 'Thusia. “But don't wait now. Go to Lucille at once!”
So David bent and kissed his wife, and walked across the hall to his study.
THE shock of his wife's news regarding Alice had the effect of a slap with a cold towel, and momentarily surprised David Dean out of the weary depression into which the heat of the day, his inability to secure an advance on his salary and the delay in his midday meal had dragged him. A blow of a whip could not have aroused him more. Like many men who live an active mental life, he was accustomed to digging spurs into his jaded brain when and where necessity arose, forcing himself to attack unexpected problems with a vigor that, a moment before, seemed impossible. Neither he nor 'Thusia had had the slightest intimation that Alice was in love, or in any way in danger of engaging herself to Lanny Welsh. The event, as David saw it, would be most unfortunate. He had heard Roger mention the young fellow's name now and then, and perhaps Alice had discussed Lanny's ball playing with Roger in the presence of her parents; David could not remember. He entered his study briskly. The matters in hand were simple enough; he would get through with Lucille Hardcome as quickly as possible, remembering Burton's suggestion that some attention should be paid her. This would release Alice for the moment, and she could get the dinner on the table, for the dominie was thoroughly hungry. After dinner he would have a talk with Alice, and he had no doubt she would explain her engagement, and that he would find it less serious than 'Thusia imagined.
When David entered the study Alice, who had been curled up in his easy-chair, unwound herself and prepared for flight. She was in a happy mood, and kissed Lucille and then her father.
“No doubt you know that Dominie Dean is about starved, Alice,” her father said. “I'll be ready for dinner when dinner is ready for me. If Mrs. Hardcome and I are not through when you are ready for me perhaps she will take a bite with us.”
“I shan't be long,” said Lucille. “I waited because—”
Alice slipped from the room and closed the door and Lucille, as if Alice's going had rendered unnecessary the giving of a reason, left her sentence unfinished. She was sitting in the dominie's desk chair with one braceleted arm resting on the desk, her hand on a sheet of sermon paper that lay there. She picked it up now.
“I couldn't help seeing this, Mr. Dean,” she said. “'Thusia was asleep when I came, and Alice brought me in here and left me when she went about her dinner-getting. I saw it without intending to.”
David colored. The paper contained a schedule of his debts, scribbled down that morning. He held out his hand.
“It was not meant to be seen,” he said. “I should have put it in the drawer.”
Lucille ignored the hand.
“It was because I saw it I waited,” she said. “This is what has been worrying you.”
“Worrying me?”
“Of course I have noticed it,” she said. “You have been so different the last month or two; I knew you had something on your mind, and I knew dear 'Thusia was no worse. You must not worry. You are too important; we all depend on you too much to have you worrying about such things. Please wait! I know how stingy the church is with you—yes, stingy is the word!—and Mr. Burton with no thought but to pay the church debt, whether you starve or not. These financier-trustees—”
“But the church is not stingy, Mrs. Hardcome—indeed it is not. I have been careless—”
“Nonsense! On your salary? With a sick wife and two children and all the expenses of a house? Well, you shall not worry about it any longer. I'll take care of this, Mr. Dean.”
She folded the paper and put it in her purse. “But I can't let you do this,” said David. “I—do you mean you intend to pay for me? I can't permit that, of course. I know how kind you are to suggest it, but I certainly cannot allow any such thing.”
Lucille laughed.
“Please listen, Mr. Dean! Do you think I haven't seen Mr. Burton looking at me with his thousand-dollar eyes! I know what he expects of me; I've heard hints, you may be sure. And no doubt he is right; I ought to give more to the church than I do. And I mean to give more; I meant to give a thousand dollars—subscribe that much annually—and I have been waiting for the trustees to come to me. So you see, don't you, I am doing no more than I intended? Only I choose to give it direct to you.”
David dropped into his easy-chair and leaned his head against his slender hand, as was his unconscious habit when he thought. To get his debts paid would mean everything to him, and, as Lucille explained it, she would be merely giving what she had intended to give. But had he a right to take the sum when she had meant to give it to the church! If she gave it to the church the trustees, as Burton had said, would set aside a part for him as an increase of his salary, but Burton was clear enough in suggesting that two hundred and fifty dollars a year more was what they thought Dean should receive out of whatever Lucille might give. If he took the entire thousand would he not be breaking a tacit agreement made with the banker! One thing was certain, he would not accept charity from Lucille or from anyone; it would be disgraceful. And if the thousand dollars went through the proper channel the most he could expect was a quarter of the sum. If he took it all he would be robbing the church. He raised his head.
“No,” he said firmly, “I can't take it. I can't permit it.”
“Then I give not a cent more to the church than I am giving now!” said Lucille. “You see I have made up my mind. This year I want you to have the thousand, Mr. Dean: Next year, and other years, the trustees can do as they please.”
There could be no doubt that Lucille meant it. She was headstrong and accustomed to overriding opposition: to having her own way. The horns of the dominie's dilemma were two: he must sacrifice his proper pride and take her money—which he could not bring himself to do—or he must lose the church the additional income he had been urged by Burton to try to secure. His duty to his manhood demanded that he refuse Lucille's offer; his duty to his church demanded that he secure her increased monetary support if possible.
“You are kind, and I know your suggestion is kindly meant, Mrs. Hardcome,” he said. “I admit that my debts do worry me—they worry me more than I dare say—but, if your generosity is such as I believe it to be, my case is not hopeless.” He smiled. “May I speak as frankly as you have spoken? Then, I donotfind my salary quite enough for my needs, but—except for one creditor—no one is pressing me. I, and not they, am doing the worrying. Well, my trustees have promised me an ample increase as soon as the church income warrants it. To be quite frank, if you should give—as you have suggested—a thousand dollars annually, or even half that sum, my stipend will be increased two hundred and fifty dollars. No, wait one moment! With such economies as I can initiate that would permit me to be quite out of debt in a very few years.”
“If I were in your place,” said Lucille frankly, “I would prefer to get out of debt to-day.”
“But I repeat,” said David, “I cannot take the money.”
“Very well,” said Lucille haughtily, and she opened her purse and placed the schedule of debts on the dominie's desk. She arose and David also. “I'll tell you plainly, Mr. Dean, that I think you are foolish.”
“Not foolish but, perhaps, reluctant to accept personal charity,” said Dean.
Lucille was not stupid, but she looked into his eyes some time before she spoke.
“Oh, it is that way, is it!” she said cheerfully, “Yes, I understand! But that is quite beside the point I had in mind. I did not want you to feel that at all! Of course you would feel that! It is quite right. But we can arrange all that very easily, Mr. Dean; we can make it a loan—there is no reason why you should not accept a loan as well as any other man. I'll lend you the money—temporarily—and when your increase of salary comes you can pay it back. With interest, if you wish.”
“If I could make the payments quarterly, on my salary days—” hesitated David.
“Certainly!” cooed Lucille, delighted to have won her point. “It can be that way.”
“I should like the transaction to be regular; a note with interest. Seven per cent is usual, I believe.”
“Certainly. You see,” she beamed, “how easy it is for reasonable people to arrange things when they understand what they are trying to get at! And now I must go; you are starved. I will come again this afternoon; I will bring you the money and the note. You see we are quite businesslike, Mr. Dean. Well, I have to be; I manage my own affairs. I'll just run in a moment to see 'Thusia before I go. And—I almost forgot it—congratulations!”
“Congratulations?”
“Alice! She told me! I am so glad!”
David did not know, on the spur of the moment, what to say. Before he could formulate words Lucille, jingling her bracelets and rustling her silks, had swept voluminously from the room.
ON those days when 'Thusia was able to be downstairs Alice set a small dinner table in the sitting room so that she might enjoy the company of her husband and children. When David entered the sitting room Lucille had departed, and Roger was there, waiting for his belated dinner. Luckily his labors were not of sufficient importance to require prompt hours—his dinner hour sometimes lasted the best half of the afternoon. As David entered the room Alice ran to him, and threw her arms around him; he could do no less than embrace her, for anything else would have been like a slap in the face. He kissed her, but his face was grave.
“Father! Mother told you?” Alice said, still holding him. “Aren't you surprised! Why,” she pouted, “you don't look a bit happy! But I know why—you don't know Lanny. They don't know him, do they, pop?”
Her brother, who had already taken his place at the small table, fidgeted. He was hungry.
“He's all right!” he said. “Lanny's fine.” Somehow the young Roger's approval did not carry far with David.
“I think,” he said, “we are all hungry. We will have our food, and discuss Alice's affairs later. I know I am too hungry to want to talk.”
“And you aren't even going to congratulate me!” pouted Alice playfully.
The dominie cut short further talk by saying grace, following it by the operation of serving food from the dishes that were grouped around his plate, and then:
“How is your grandfather, Roger?”
“Fine as a fiddle, father. And, I say! we are going to play Derlingport this Saturday. We've arranged a series of three games, unless one or the other of us wins the first two. We play the first here, and the second in Derlingport. Honestly, I am glad to play a nine I'm a bit afraid of; this licking the spots off the grangers is getting monotonous. Derlingport has a pitcher that knows his business—Watts. But I'll chance Lanny against him any day.”
“I should think so!” said Alice.
“Oh, you!” said Roger. “Because he has curly hair? A lot you know about pitchers.”
“Well, I'm going to learn,” said Alice.
David broke the thread of the conversation. “'Thusia,” he said, “I have arranged to clear up the bills we owe.”
“David!” his wife exclaimed, her pale cheeks coloring with pleasure. “Did the trustees grant the advance on your salary?”
“No, hardly that,” he answered. “I saw Burton, but there is no money available. He was very kind. The trustees are going to give me an increase of salary—two hundred and fifty dollars more. It will be a great help. You see, with the increase, I can pay off the loan I am contracting in two or three years.”
'Thusia looked frightened.
“A loan? Are you borrowing money, David?”
“Lucille Hardcome offered it; she practically forced me to accept it, 'Thusia. It was all I could do to keep her from forcing it on me as a gift. That I would not hear of, of course.”
“How much are you borrowing?” asked 'Thusia, with an intake of breath.
“It will be about a thousand dollars; a thousand, I think.”
“She could hand you ten thousand and not feel it, from what I hear,” said Roger.
“'Thusia, you don't approve?” asked David. “Oh, I wish it could have been anyone but Lucille!” said 'Thusia. “It seems so—But I know so little of money matters. You would do what was best, of course, David. It will be a great blessing to feel we are not making the tradesmen wait for what is honestly theirs.”
“I should have consulted you,” David said, entirely without irony, for he did consult her on most matters of importance. “It is not too late to decline even now. I have not signed the note. She is to bring the money this afternoon. But, if I refuse—”
He related his conversation with Lucille, as well as he could recall it.
“I hardly see how you could refuse,” 'Thusia admitted. “If she was angered she would do something to show her displeasure. Deep as she is in the church affairs I hardly feel that she is with us heart and soul yet. She always seems like an outsider taking an interest because—I shouldn't say it—she likes the prominence. That is why I wish you could have had the money from another. I'm sure Mary would have lent it.”
“And of all the women I know,” said David, “Mary is the last I should wish to borrow from. Had I my choice I would choose an entire outsider; the more completely it is a business transaction the more pleased I am.”
No more was said then. Roger hurried away, not because his job called him, but because, as catcher of his nine, it was his duty to keep in practice; and some members of the nine might be on the levee willing to pitch to him. Alice still waited.
“Will you let me speak with your mother awhile, daughter!” David said. “Then we will call you.”
“Shall I take the dishes out first!” asked Alice.
“Yes.”
'Thusia raised herself a little on her pillows when Alice had quitted the room, and David drew a chair to the side of her couch. For a few moments they were silent.
“How did it happen!” David asked finally.
“David, you must not think unkindly of her; Alice is such a child—such a dear girl! She has no worldliness; how should she have with you and me for her parents! I think I am to blame if she has chosen wrongly. I am afraid I have neglected her, David.”
“What an idea, 'Thusia! That is preposterous. Of course, I do not think unkindly of her; but I do think she has chosen foolishly, as girls sometimes will.”
“Yes, but I mean what I say, David. I am tied here, of course, but I have given her so much freedom. I have trusted to her instinct to choose suitable companions, when I should have remembered how careless and foolish I was when I was her age.”
“What nonsense, dear!” said David. “If anyone is to blame it is myself. How could you do any more than you have done, kept close here as you are? How serious is it, 'Thusia?”
“I have hardly had time to decide; I am afraid it is very serious. She was all ecstasy and happiness until she saw I was not as happy as she was. I am afraid I let her see it too plainly. We must not let her think we are angry with her, David; she is very much in love with him. Oh, she praised him as a girl will praise a lover—her first lover!”
“I suppose she met him through Roger,” said David thoughtfully.
“No,” 'Thusia said. “I imagine Alice rather scorns Roger's ball-playing friends. I think Lanny Welsh called something after her one evening when she was passing theEagleoffice—passing the alley there. He thought she was some other girl, I suppose. She was furious; she thought it was the rudest thing she had ever known, but the next time she passed he stopped her and apologized. She thinks it was noble of him. After that he tipped his hat whenever she passed, and she nodded to him. Then Roger introduced them. Lanny Welsh asked him to, I suppose. Now they are engaged.”
David rested his head on his hand, and was silent. 'Thusia watched his face.
“It is unfortunate; most unfortunate,” he said wearily.
“David, do you know anything about him!” 'Thusia asked.
“Only hearsay,” he answered.
“Has he been a bartender!”
“I have heard that. You know what his father is—little better than a blackmailer.”
“David, what can we do?” asked 'Thusia.
“I don't know,” he answered. “No doubt she would give him up if we asked it.”
“I'm not so sure of that,” said 'Thusia. “She is a good girl, but you do not realize how she loves the boy—or thinks she loves him. She might think we were unjust to him.”
What she implied David knew. Alice was, above all else, loyal. The very intimation that Lanny Welsh lacked friends might strengthen her partisanship, for she was like her father in having always a kindly feeling for the under dog. The most uncompromised earthly happiness is not the portion of those who feel for the under dog, for some dog is always under. If a person is to take any interest in the world's dog fights, and seek enjoyment therefrom, he must be thoroughly callous, and not care a snap of his fingers what happens to the under dog. This hard-hearted placidity must yield those who possess it a fund of unvexed joy; most of us find our joy alloyed by our pity for Fortune's unfavorites. A fair amount of carelessness regarding the under dog is necessary for the most complete worldly success; and our dominie, seeking to know himself, felt that if he had desired to prosper greatly in a worldly way he should have been born without his keen desire to see the under dog on top for a while, or at least without his inclination to prevent all dog fights.
On the whole he did not think, however, that the callous-hearted got the best out of life. The tough tympanum of a bass drum yields one sound, and the tom-tom may be a fine instrument for war or joy dances, but a delicately attuned violin quivers with more varied vibrations, and even the minor chords must satisfy some of its fibers. In the museum of eternity the tom-tom may have a place as a curiosity—as the musical instrument of a crude people—but even a child can imagine its one note; the fingers of the virtuoso tingle to touch the glass-enclosed violin, and the imagination pleasures in the thought of the notes of joy and sorrow it has given forth in its day.
Youth—as Alice—when born and brought up with a pity for the despised is apt to carry the good quality over the line so far that it becomes unreasonable. There is such a thing as innate devilishness that deserves chastisement; some of the things other men scorn deserve our scorn also; some men and women, too. But a girl in love, as Alice was, or thought she was, is not a very reasonable being. With her love as a certainty, she scorns the past and sees perfection in the future. Young lovers are all egotists to the extent of thinking: “If I chose him he must be good at heart and, no doubt, his past weakness was because he had not known me.” In herself she sees his needed opportunity, and her loyalty to her ideal of herself and to him resents the interference of those who would interpose obstacles. Alice, being by nature loyal, and by nature and training inclined to pity, might easily be driven to a blind and gently berserk, but none the less everlasting, battle for Lanny Welsh by the very opposition that sought to win her away from him.
David was the less inclined to do anything instantly because his sense of justice was so strong. He knew too little about Lanny Welsh to condemn the young man in his own mind without further facts. Had he had the giving he would not have presented Alice to anyone like Lanny, for he would have chosen some youth he knew better—and that meant Mary Derling's boy Ben—but, having his innate desire to do justice to all men, and as Alice had already chosen Lanny, David felt he should learn more about Lanny before he made an absolute decision to oppose his daughter's choice. He knew enough of men and life to believe the tags the world put on young fellows were not always the proper tags. If the match was to be opposed the method of opposition to be adopted would depend on his knowledge of Lanny's character and circumstances, and as yet he knew little—too little to base an active opposition upon.
“What have you said to her, 'Thusia!” he asked.
“I told her I was surprised, and that I must speak to you before I could be sure what to say.”
This was close enough to the fact. The saying had taken an hour or more and had been flavored by affectionate weepings and embraces, but in what she told David 'Thusia did not miss the fact far.
“I'm glad of that,” he said. “I'll ask Alice to come in.”
She came, rosy-cheeked and tremulously happy, and the interview left her happy and less tremulous. Of her father's affection she was sure, and of his justice she never had a doubt. She was not surprised that he should wish to know more of Lanny before he ventured to feel enthusiastic about the engagement, and she was so sure Lanny was the best of men that she had no fear of the final result of her father's gentle investigations. From an interview so kindly, and permeated with affection, she went back to the kitchen happily.
“I imagine you'll have very little trouble in finding out all about him,” 'Thusia said, and then, her bravery shattering itself a little against her motherly ambition: “David, I'm sure it is a mistake! I'm sure she should not marry him!”
“I am afraid Alice has been too hasty,” said David.
They both meant the same thing: nothing more unfortunate could have happened. 'Thusia gave words to one of the reasons when she added: “Mary will be so disappointed!”
Not a word had ever been said on the subject, but the tacit hope had long been existent in the hearts of Mary and the two Deans that Alice and Ben Derling might become lifemates. Until Alice had dropped the bombshell of her engagement into the placidly intrenched hope everything had seemed trending that way. There was no question that Ben admired Alice, and Alice had seemed fond enough of Ben.
Although David had never allowed the filmy intuition to become an actual thought, the gossamer suggestion had floated across his mind more than once that it would be a good thing if Alice and Ben married. He thought, boldly enough, that it would be a suitable match in some ways—marrying in the same faith; marrying one who would be a good husband; marrying one whose social position in Riverbank would increase rather than lower David's own capacity for good in the community. Of the marriage as a financial matter beneficial to himself and 'Thusia he refused to think, but that gossamer ghost of thought would come floating by at times: an alliance with the Derling wealth would make old age less to be dreaded; somewhere there would be food and winter warmth and a nook by the fireside, where he and 'Thusia might end their days without dire penury in case, as is so often the case with ministers, he outlived his usefulness. He felt the thought, gossamer light as it was, to be unworthy, but it came unbidden, and there was comfort in it. And no man is a worse man for not wishing to end his life in an almshouse. Certainly no man is a better man for wishing to end his days on the Riverbank Poor Farm. The youth, Roger, unluckily, seemed little likely to be able to support himself; if Alice married into poverty, or worse, the state of the family in days to come threatened to be sad indeed.
But David went back to his study in hopefulness, for all that. Lanny Welsh might be better than he feared, and if Lucille Hardcome subscribed even half what she had suggested David might be able to keep even with the world or even save a little. He had hardly entered his study before Lanny Welsh and Alice came tapping on his door.
IN a small town men find themselves tagged far sooner and far more permanently than in the large cities. Let a young fellow attend church for a few weeks, behave decently for a year, and get a job as soon as one offers, and he is tagged as a “good” young man; thereafter it requires quite a little rascality to convince people he is otherwise. The small town is like a pack of cards; the rank of the components being once established, it is vain for them to attempt other values. Let young Bud Smith start out as a Jack-of-all-trades, and he is expected to remain one; and when he attempts steady work of one kind, his efforts are talked about as something phenomenal. If Bill Jones, the contractor, gives Bud a job it is considered a bit of eccentricity on Jones' part; what reason can a man have for taking on a Jack-of-all-trades as a steady carpenter! It might be just as well to be a little careful in making contracts with Jones; it looks as if he was a little too easy-going! Thus Jones gets his tag, and Bud Smith does not lose his. They cling.
Something of this sort had happened to Lanny Welsh. His father, old P. K. Welsh, was an oldtime character in Riverbank. For years he had been a familiar figure, trudging about town with his stooped shoulders, his long and greasy black coat and his long and pointed beard. His head was a little too large for his body, and his eyes, seen through his spectacles, were apparently too large for his face. They were blue. His hair often hung down upon his collar. Once a year or so he had it cut, and when he had it cut he had it cut short enough to last awhile. The change was as noticeable as if a large building had been tom down from one of the prominent Main Street comers.
In the side pockets of old P. K. Welsh's coat were always bundles of folded newspapers—his pockets bulged with them. He was a newspaper man. Day after day and year after year, old P. K. Welsh trudged up and down the two business streets of Riverbank, from eight in the morning until four or five in the afternoon, and so he had trudged for years. Thursday was an exception, for on Thursday he “published,” running off the one or two hundred copies of theDeclaratorthat constituted his edition. The paper was a weekly, five cents a copy, one dollar a year, and the total income from subscriptions was probably never more than one hundred dollars. This did not pay for his paper and ink, and he tried to make up the difference in advertising income; but as an advertising medium theDeclaratorwas not worth the paper on which it was printed, and everyone knew it. He spent his life nagging the merchants into throwing him crumbs of petty patronage. His credit was nil, he never had any cash, he gave all his advertising in exchange for trade. When he sallied forth in the morning he carried a list of the groceries his wife needed; getting them for her meant nagging some grocer until he agreed to send up the groceries in exchange for a few inches of unwanted advertising space in theDeclarator. Old P. K. grew wise in wiles. He knew the hour when Beemer's drivers came back to the store with their orders for the day, when Beemer and all his clerks would be madly measuring and tying and filling baskets. That was when old P. K. would appear. To get rid of him the grocer would often scribble down his order, and figure the bill as sufficiently repaid by the time saved through getting rid of old P. K. so easily.
TheDeclaratoritself was an example of a good idea gone wrong through stress of necessity. The sheet was small, four pages, often filled with plate matter, and the original matter was set in the most amateurish manner. The old type from which it was set was worn until some of the letters were mere smudges of black. From time to time old P. K., being in funds, would buy a few pounds of cast-off type from theEagle, and this mixed with his worn supply, gave the paper a bizarre, hit-and-miss appearance. Old P. K. did not bother about reading proof. The paper came out with all the errors, with letters of one font mixed with letters of another font, and with some paragraphs set in large type and some in small. It was the column headed “Briefs,” however, that tagged theDeclarator.
It was known that old P. K. had come from somewhere in Kansas, and it was understood that he had known John Brown, the famous John Brown, whose soul goes marching on in the ballad. Welsh came to Riverbank in the years following the war, and started his little paper in opposition to theEagle, which was then scarcely larger. Riverbank was once more Democratic. TheDeclaratorwas violently Republican and violently pro-negro. Across the first page, just under the title, P. K. ran the motto “All men—white or black—are equal.” He knew his Bible by heart and scattered Biblical quotations through his pages, each chosen because of its sting. There were but a dozen or twenty negroes in the town, and the negro question did not worry anyone, and P. K. Welsh's loyalty was an asset. Although the Republicans were in a helpless minority they were glad to have an organ, and theDeclaratordid fairly well.
Time passed and theEagleblossomed from a weekly into a daily. It contracted for telegraph news of the outside world. A group of Republicans started theDaily Star, staunchly but sanely Republican, and theDeclaratorslumped into the position of an unneeded, unwanted sheet. A few of the old-time, grit-incrusted Republicans, who believed every Democrat was destined for hell fire, still took theDeclarator; the other subscribers dropped it. Old P. K. grew bitter; his subscription book became his list of friends and enemies. Those whose names once appeared on the list, or had ever appeared on it, and who canceled their subscriptions, became the recipients of his hatred. Welsh brooded over them and waited. Sooner or later he spat venom at them in the column headed “Briefs.”
To anyone not acquainted with Welsh theDeclaratorappeared to be a blackmail sheet. It was not. Old P. K. was firm in the belief that he was doing God's work and that theDeclaratorwas meant to be God's instrument. He quoted Scripture in his columns to declare that those who were not with him were against him, and that those who were against him were against God. One by one he took up propaganda that he believed righteous, and took them up with all the violence of a fanatic. He was the first man in Riverbank to cry aloud for prohibition, but he was also the first to shriek anti-Catholicism. He held up good, old Father Moran as an Antichrist, and pleaded that he be driven from town. He was continually advocating violence in words that to-day would have landed him in prison. With his abusive “Briefs” and his inflammatory editorials he became, in a small way, a nuisance to the town; with his nagging for advertisements he became a nuisance to the merchants. His wife was a simple-minded, easy-going creature, wrinkled and with a brown wig inclosed in a hair net. The wig looked less like a head covering than some sort of brown-hair pudding. On the whole, ridiculous as the wig was, it was better than nothing, for Mrs. Welsh was as bald as a billiard ball.
These were the parents of Lanny Welsh; they might well have served as an excuse for worthlessness in the boy, but this may be said for Riverbank—it does not damn the child because of the parents. Lanny Welsh won his own tag; at any rate it was given him through what the town knew of the boy, and not through what it knew of old P. K. and Lanny's mother.
You may imagine Lanny Welsh with bright, blue eyes and curly, brown hair, slender, lithe and a little taller than the average. He had a smile that would charm the heart out of a misanthrope. When he smiled his eyes brightened, the corners of his lips seemed to become alight with good nature, and a dimple flickered in his left cheek. As a boy he was needlessly cruel, but perhaps no more than the average boy, and charmingly sweet in his ways and words when he was not cruel. His mother let him tread on her in everything; old P. K. seemed hardly to know the boy was alive except when he arose in Biblical wrath over some escapade, and beat the boy outrageously with a leathern strap. Lanny howled when he was being beaten, and forgot the admonitions that accompanied them as soon as he was safe outside the woodshed.
He smiled his way through school, graduated, and went into his father's printing office as a matter of course. He worked there six or eight months, and left because he could not earn anything either for himself or for his father. The old man hardly missed him until, some months later, he learned that Lanny was working in a billiard room. He took the boy to the woodshed and Lanny knocked him down, not unkindly but firmly, and the old man cursed him in good, round, Old Testament phrases, and disowned him then and there. It did not worry Lanny in the least. He simply declined to take any stock in the curse or the casting off, and probably old P. K. himself soon forgot it. Lanny continued to live at home.
He worked in Dan Reilly's saloon. All told he worked for Dan Reilly three weeks. Two weeks he swept out the place, polished brasses and glasses and did odd jobs. One week he stood behind the bar. One week was enough of it. The week was in August, and Dan Reilly's saloon was on the sunny side of the street; there was no hotter place in Riverbank on a sunny August afternoon, and Lanny simply threw up the job on account of the discomfort. The one week, however, was enough; he was tagged. He was “old crank Welsh's son, the bartender fellow.”
Lanny loafed awhile, and then theEagleplanned and put to press the first town directory of Riverbank, and during the preparation of the book Lanny found a place in theEaglerooms setting type. There he remained. The typesetters were an easy-going lot; the side door of the composing room opened on an alley, and Dan Reilly's saloon was just across the alley. The little printer's devil was kept busy on hot days running back and forth with a tin beer pail. TheEaglewas a morning paper, and between the blowing of the shrill six o'clock whistle and the time when the reporters turned in their late copy the printers were in the habit of sitting in the alley near the street, eating a snack, sipping beer and teasing the girls who passed. It was nothing particularly bad, but it was sufficiently different from what the bank clerks and counter-jumpers did to impress some Riverbankers with the idea that the printers were a bad lot. Thus Lanny grew up.
The town had a baseball craze just then, and theEagleboys formed a nine. Van Dusen, the owner of theEagle, gave them suits—red, with Eagle Nine in white letters on the shirts—and Lanny, tall, slim and quick-witted, was the pitcher. And he could pitch! It was not long before he was gathered into the Riverbank Grays when critical games were to be played, and he was the first man in Riverbank to receive money for playing ball; the Grays gave him five dollars for each game he pitched for them. It was when he began pitching for the Grays that Lanny became well acquainted with Roger Dean, who was generally known among the ball players as “Old Pop Dean,” a compliment to his ball-playing ability, since “Old Pop” Anson was then king of the game, and the baseball hero.
Young Roger had been meant for the church, and David and 'Thusia had dreamed of seeing him fill a pulpit, but he seemed destined to be an idler. The money David had saved with infinite pains to provide a college education was thrown away. The boy departed for college with blessings enough to carry him through, but he was a born idler—good-natured and lovable, but an idler—and long before his course was completed it was known that he had come home and, before long, it was known he was not going back. The more kindly people said he preferred a business career to the ministry; others said he was too lazy. He was not a bad boy and had never been; as a young man he had no bad habits or desires; he had no ambition.
Had David been a farmer Roger would have been a model son; on a farm he would have milked the cows for his father, cut the grain for his father, done a man's work for his father. Had David been a merchant Roger would have sold goods behind the counter for his father, as well as any other man could have sold them, and would have stood in the sun at the door in his shirt sleeves when idle, making friends that would have meant custom. But in a minister's work there are no cows to milk for father, and no goods to sell for father; a minister's son must be bitten by ambition or his place in the world is hard to find. He cannot learn his father's trade by working at it; and Roger was the sort of youth who does only what is easily at hand to do. When he had been home a few weeks he was most often to be found on the back lot playing ball with smaller and far younger boys, and he was always the first taken when sides were being chosen. He was big, and a natural ball player, as Lanny was. His place was behind the bat, catching, but he was equally good when at the bat. The “curve” and “down shoot” and “up shoot” were just coming into the game, but they held no mysteries for Roger. He hit them all.
Henry Fragg, 'Thusia's father, now an old man, had given up the agency for the packet company he had long held, and now had a small coal office on the levee. He took Roger in with him, giving him the utmost the business could afford, a meager four dollars weekly—more than Roger was worth in the business, which was dead in the summer—and Roger transferred his ball playing to the levee, where bigger youths played a more spirited game. Before the end of that season Roger was wearing a baseball suit, one of the dozen presented by Jacob Cohen, the clothier, in consideration of permission to have the shirts bear the words Jacob Cohen Riverbank Grays, and Roger was a member of the nine, and its catcher. Thereafter, he gave more time than usual to baseball. In the rather puritanical community a minister's son playing ball was at first something of a shock, but Roger did not play on Sunday and the Grays would not play without Roger when the game promised to be close, so the result was less Sunday ball. Roger received the credit and baseball came to be less frowned on. David himself attended one or two of the Saturday games, but some of his church members felt he should not, and, as he cared nothing for the game, he went no more. Alice went occasionally when the game was important enough to draw large crowds and other nice girls were sure to be present.
It is remarkable how easily mortals accept genial incapacity as normal. In a year Roger was accepted as a satisfactorily conducted young man, permanently dropped into his proper place, and even David and 'Thusia no longer fretted about him. He was always present at meals; he was no different one day than another; he was cheerful and happy and contented. Henry Fragg said he did his work well, which was true enough, but there was very little work; once a day or so Roger came in from the sandy ball ground, weighed a load of coal, jotted down the figures and went back to his “tippy-up” game. There was always the hope that the business would grow, and that Roger would eventually succeed his grandfather in the coal business and prosper. Neither was there any reason why he should not.
But Lanny and Alice are still tapping on David Dean's door.
“Father, this is Lanny,” Alice said, and fled. The dominie looked up to see a tall, slender, curly-haired youth with eyes as dear and bright as stars. There was no bashfulness in him, and no overconfident forwardness. David liked him, and he was sorry to like him so well. He had a halfformed hope that Lanny would show himself at first glance to be impossible. He was not that so far as his exterior was concerned.
“I don't think we have ever met, Mr. Dean,” he said, extending his hand, “but of course I feel as if I knew you—everyone does. Alice told you I want to marry her. Well, I do. I suppose I should have spoken to you before I spoke to her—that's the right way, isn't it?—but I didn't think of that until afterward. I asked her sooner than I meant. I made up my mind I'd wait a year—in another year I'll have saved enough to begin housekeeping right—but it came out of itself, almost. I liked her so much I just couldn't help it; I guess that's the answer.”
“Yes, Alice told me you had asked her,” said David. “She also told me she had accepted.”
“Yes,” said Lanny, taking the chair David indicated. “I can't tell you, Mr. Dean, how much I think of her—how much—well, I never thought for a minute she would have me. Or, I did and I didn't. I thought she would, but I didn't believe it would be true. Of course she liked me, but a dominie's daughter, and she's such a nice girl—”
“You felt she was not in your class, is that it?” said David.
“That's it,” said Lanny with relief. “You know I tended bar once.”
“So I have heard,” said David.
“That was a mistake,” said Lanny, “and I'm glad I got sick of it when I did. It's no business for a man in a town like this, or any town, if he wants to be anybody. If you can't be a preacher or a lawyer or a doctor you've got to be in business. I'm going to get into business as soon as I can. I think there's room in this town for a good job office—job printing. A live man ought to make good money. That's what I have in mind—an up-to-date job office—as soon as I can raise the money. I'm doing pretty well now,” he added, and he mentioned his wage. “I can support a wife on that.”
David nodded. He had had no idea compositors were so well paid. He was constantly being surprised to learn how many men in the trades were receiving more than he himself was paid.
“Yes,” said Lanny, returning to what seemed uppermost in his mind, “you hit it when you said Alice was not in my class.”
“But I did not say that,” said David. “I only formulated your own thought for you.”
“Yes, that's it,” said Lanny. “I suppose, being a minister, you don't take as much stock in classes as some folks do. You care more whether a man is good or bad. But I figure a man has got to take some stock in such things in this world. I can feel I'm not in Alice's class—yet. My folks are not like you and Mrs. Dean. I don't know, but I guess if I was marrying a girl out of my family I'd want to feel I was marrying her out of the family, not marrying myself into it. That's what worried me, Mr. Dean, when I thought of having to talk to you about Alice. I'm making good wages, and I'm good for a job any time, and since I've been a compo I've been clean enough to be a dominie's son-in-law, but I know I'm not in your class. If I was I wouldn't be wanting to get into it. I'd be in. But I guess you know a man can't be blamed for the kind of parents he has. But, just the same, he is.”
“Have you spoken to your parents!” David asked.
“To mother. Father don't care whether I'm alive or not. Mother—well, I'll tell you: I've been giving her part of my wages. She wasn't any more pleased than she had to be.”
“Alice says you don't think of being married for a year,” said David.
“Well, I thought that was best,” said Lanny. “We talked it over and—I guess you know we've seen some thin picking at our house, Mr. Dean. It makes everything go wrong. I don't like it, and I made up my mind long ago that if ever I married it wouldn't be until I had at least enough in the bank to carry me over the between-jobs times. I've got three hundred in the bank now, but I don't want to chance it on that. Alice and I both think it is safer to wait a year. I don't know what I can save, but it will be every cent I can.”
David appreciated the exclusion of his own home from the example of those that had thin picking, although it was evident enough that the loverly confidences had included Alice's experience with lack of ready money. David arose and gave Lanny his hand again.
“I think the year of waiting is a wise idea, Mr. Welsh,” he said. “Either of you may have a change of mind.”
“If I thought that,” said Lanny with a smile, “I'd want to get married right away,” and he moved to the door. “It's mighty kind of you to talk to me without throwing me out of the door,” he added. “I know how much nerve I have, picking Alice for a wife.”
David was aware of a sudden flood of affection for the boy. He put his hand on Lanny's shoulder.
“Welsh,” he said, “I can say what I must say without offending you, I see.”
Lanny drew his breath sharply, and looked into David's eyes. The hand tightened a little on his shoulder. It stilled the fear that the dominie was about to tell him he could not have Alice, and his eyes smiled, for if Alice was not refused him outright no task would be too difficult to undertake, whatever it might be her father was about to propound.
“We don't know you yet,” said David. “You understand that, of course—it is all so unexpected. I'll say frankly, my boy, that I like you; and that Alice likes you and has chosen you means much. You have not asked me for her out and out, but that is what you meant, of course. Will you let me reserve my word temporarily?”
“Well, that's right,” said Lanny. “You ought to look me up and find out something about me before you give me anything as precious as Alice. If she was mine I wouldn't give her to anyone, no matter how good he was. I'll tell you, Mr. Dean, I don't pretend to be good enough for her; I don't expect you to find that I am; but I hope you don't find that I'm too bad for her.”
“And might it not be as well,” said David, “that the engagement be not widely heralded at present!”
Lanny's face fell.
“I've told mother,” he said. “There is no telling who she has told by now.”
“I cannot object to your having told your mother,” said David. “But let us tell no others for the present. Unless you wish to tell your father,” he added. Then: “Good-by, Mr. Welsh. You understand you will be welcome here any time.”
David hastened the departure because he saw Lucille Hardcome's low-hung carriage at his gate, and Lucille descending from it in state. Outside the door Lanny met Alice and to her query he said:
“He was fine, Alice! He's a fine man. All he wants is time to look me up a little.”
“The idea!” exclaimed Alice. “And when I have looked you up already,” but it was said joyfully and she tempered it with a kiss, quite clearly seen by Lucille Hardcome through the colorless glass of the upper panel of the front door.