When I was a girl of eighteen years old,I was as handsome as handsome could be;I was taught to expect wit, wisdom and gold,And nothing else would do for me—for me.And nothing else would do for me.The first was a youth any girl might adore,And as ardent as lovers should be;But mamma having heard the young man was quite poor,Why, he wouldn't do for me—for me,Why, he wouldn't do for me.
When I was a girl of eighteen years old,I was as handsome as handsome could be;I was taught to expect wit, wisdom and gold,And nothing else would do for me—for me.And nothing else would do for me.
When I was a girl of eighteen years old,
I was as handsome as handsome could be;
I was taught to expect wit, wisdom and gold,
And nothing else would do for me—for me.
And nothing else would do for me.
The first was a youth any girl might adore,And as ardent as lovers should be;But mamma having heard the young man was quite poor,Why, he wouldn't do for me—for me,Why, he wouldn't do for me.
The first was a youth any girl might adore,
And as ardent as lovers should be;
But mamma having heard the young man was quite poor,
Why, he wouldn't do for me—for me,
Why, he wouldn't do for me.
None of the many verses describing the various lovers of the scornful young lady made so deep an impression on the children as the opening lines, in which she was said to be "as handsome as handsome could be;" and Ernest, who was a literal little fellow, said to Kate, when they were out of Miss Chatterwits' hearing:
"Now, do you think that homely people were ever handsome once upon a time?"
Now, Kate could never be made to call Miss Chatterwits homely. Indeed, one day, in a burst of gratitude, when the latter had lent the child her watch to wear for an hour or two, the little girl exclaimed:
"Oh, Miss Chatterwits, you are very handsome!"
"Nobody ever told me that before, Kate," said the old woman.
Then, with the frankness that in later years often caused her to nullify the goodimpression made by some pretty speech, the child added:
"I mean very handsome all but your face."
What could be a clearer case of "handsome is what handsome does."
Mrs. Stuart Digby scarcely approved Kate's fondness for Miss Theodora and her friends. Stuart Digby had married two or three years before John, and was living in Paris when the Civil War brokeout. His own impulse was to return at once and fight; but as his wife would not consent to this, they remained abroad until Ralph was ten years old and Kate four years younger. Both children at this time spoke French better than English, and Ralph for a long time disliked everything American—like his mother, who, not Boston born, professed little interest in things Bostonian. But in Kate Stuart Digby saw the enthusiasm which had marked his own youth, and he encouraged her in having ideals, only wishing that he had been true to his own.
"Perhaps if I hadn't married so early," he would think—then, with a sigh, would wonder if, left to himself, he might possibly have amounted to something. For Stuart Digby was not nearly as self-satisfied as the chance observer supposed.
When he and John were at school he had intended to study medicine, for his scientific tastes were as decided as John's bent for the law. But he had yielded alltoo weakly to his love for the prettiest girl in his set, and an heiress, too. By the death of his father and mother he had already come into possession of his own large fortune. When these two independent and rich young people were married, therefore, a month after he was graduated from Harvard, it was hardly strange that Stuart put aside his medical course until he should have made the tour of Europe. Then, when once domiciled in their own hotel in Paris, what wonder that they let all thoughts of Boston disappear in the background? Just before the war what could the United States offer pleasure-seekers comparable with the delights of Paris under the Second Empire? They stayed in Europe until the beginning of the Franco-Prussian war, and managed to leave Paris just before the siege.
Not only the upsetting of things in France, but a crisis in Stuart Digby's business affairs, hastened him home atlast. Besides, he felt a little remorse about his children. He did not wish them to grow up thorough Parisians; already, young as they were, they began to show symptoms of regarding France as their country rather than America. Disregarding, therefore, his wife's remonstrances, he broke up their Paris establishment, despatched his foreign furniture and bric-a-brac to Boston, and, following soon afterward with his family, bought a house in the new part of Beacon Street, a region which, when he went to Europe, had been submerged in water.
Though some people fancied that Stuart Digby could afford whatever he wished, he himself thought otherwise. After his return to Boston he found that there had been a shrinkage both in his own and his wife's income. There was little danger that they or their children should ever want, and yet the fact that they had a few thousands a year less than they had expected bred in them anunwonted spirit of economy. This spirit of economy showed itself chiefly in their dealings with other people. Stuart, for example, had always intended to settle a sum of money on Miss Theodora and Ernest, but now he decided to wait. He would help the boy somewhat in his education, and he would remember him in his will.
Faultless though he was in his address, elegant though he was in his personal appearance, Stuart Digby was by no means satisfied with the reflection that his mirror showed him. He had never expected at forty-five to find himself so portly, so rubicund. Idleness, easy living, and a steady, if moderate, indulgence in ruddy drinks will increase the girth and deepen the complexion of any man, no matter toward how lofty a goal the thoughts of his youth may have tended. In youth he had professed scorn for his own prospective wealth. He, as well as John, should carve out a career forhimself. His money he would use in certain philanthropic schemes. But falling in love had been fatal to this single-mindedness,—and now, at forty-five, what wonder that he was dissatisfied.
To saunter down Beacon Street to the club, to play a game of whist with a trio as idle as himself, to drive, never in those days to ride, to sit near uncongenial people at a tedious, if fashionable, dinner, to dance attendance on his wife or some other woman in the brilliant crushes imposed on all who would be thought on intimate terms with society—this, he knew, was not the life he had once planned. To be sure, his footsteps sometimes carried him beyond the club to a little downtown office where he was supposed to have business—business so slight that it only irritated him to pretend to follow it. To sign papers, to approve plans which his lawyer and his agent had already carefully thought out, this, he reasoned, was almost beneath his notice; and soafter a time he gave up even going to the office, and papers were sent to his house instead for his signature.
He might, of course, have rid himself, at least partially, of his ennui, by engaging in some definite philanthropic schemes; but philanthropy as a profession by itself wasn't the vogue among rich men in Boston two decades ago. Even had it been the fashion, Stuart Digby could with difficulty have adjusted himself to the condition which this work imposed. His long residence abroad made it impossible for him to regard impartially his American fellow-citizens, whether looked at as an object of political or philanthropic interest.
Yet if Stuart Digby fell far short of his own ideal, there was at least one person in the world who believed him to be perfect; not his wife, not his son, but his daughter Kate, who was never so happy as when, clinging to his hand, she could coax him to take a long walk with herover the Mill-dam toward the Brookline boundary.
Moreover, it may be said without sarcasm that his many years' residence in Europe had made Stuart Digby of much more value to his friends in general than he himself perhaps realized. He had what might be called a refined and thorough geographical taste; this is to say, he was a connoisseur of places. He could tell intending travellers just what climate, what cuisine, even what company they would be likely to find at Nice, at Gastein, at Torquay, at certain seasons. He had many a picturesque and hitherto unheard of nook to recommend, and when the great capitals, especially Paris, were under discussion, he could pronounce discriminatingly upon the hotels and shops most worthy the patronage of a man of culture.
"Yes, it was a pleasant funeral," said Miss Chatterwits, as she sat sewing one morning at Miss Theodora's. Kate, who was present, laughed at the speech, although she understood Miss Chatterwits' idiosyncracies in the matter of funerals. To the latter, funerals were sources of real delight, and few at the West End were ungraced by her presence. In her best gown of shining black silk, with its rows and rows of bias ruffles, she seemed as necessary to the proper conduct of the ceremony as the undertaker himself. With her wide acquaintance among thepeople of the neighborhood, she could decide exactly the proper place for each mourner; she knew just who belonged in the back and who in the front parlor, and the grave demeanor with which she assigned each one his seat hardly hid her air of bustling satisfaction.
Miss Theodora and Kate were therefore not shocked when she repeated, "Yes, it was a pleasant funeral," continuing: "I declare, I don't think there was a soul there I didn't know. I was able to be real useful showing them where to sit. You should have seen the flowers. It took us the best part of a day to fix them. The family, of course, felt too bad to take much notice of the flowers, but I guess they enjoyed the choir singing. Mary Timpkins herself would have been pleased to see how well everything went off, for she always was so fussy about things."
Then, as no one interrupted her, she continued: "It's just a shame, MissTheodora, that you did not go yourself. Mr. Blunt made the most edifying remarks you ever heard. Why, I almost cried, though you know I've had a great deal of experience in such occasions; and if you'd heard him I'm sure you'd have been miserable for the rest of the day."
Kate smiled at the thought of the pleasure her cousin had missed in escaping this misery, but Miss Theodora, not noticing Miss Chatterwits' humor, responded merely:
"Ah! the death of so young a person is always sad."
"Especially under such painful circumstances," added Miss Chatterwits.
"What circumstances?" asked Kate, now interested.
"Love!" answered Miss Chatterwits, solemnly. "She died of love."
"Love!" echoed Kate. "Shakespeare says nobody ever died of love." Then, with an afterthought: "Perhaps he was thinking only of men. But why do youthink Miss Timpkins died of love? She didn't look as foolish as that."
"Well,"—and Miss Chatterwits shook her head in joyful significance, for it always pleased her to have news of this kind to tell,—"I guess if Hiram Bradstreet hadn't gone and left her she'd be alive to-day."
"What nonsense!" said Kate.
"Oh, you can smile, but I've sewed at her house by the week running, and he'd come sometimes two afternoons together to ask her to go to walk somewhere; and even if she was in the middle of trying on she'd drop everything and run, looking as pleased as could be."
"Any one would look pleased to escape a trying on."
"Oh, you can make light of it. But once when I said I guessed I'd be fitting a wedding dress soon, she colored right up, and said she, 'Oh, we're only friends.'"
"That's nothing."
"Perhaps it was nothing when Mary Timpkins began to fade the very minute she heard Hiram Bradstreet was engaged to a girl he met on the steamer last summer. Why did he go to Europe anyway?"
"Probably because Mary Timpkins wouldn't marry him; for truly, Miss Chatterwits, I'm going to agree with Dr. Jones that she died of typhoid fever."
"Maybe,—after she'd run herself down worrying about Hiram Bradstreet."
"Oh, no. Hiram Bradstreet, worrying about her, fled to Europe in despair, and let his heart be caught in the rebound by that girl on the steamer."
This sensible conclusion, though at the time uttered half in fun, was characteristic of Kate. She was loath to believe that a well balanced girl could die of love. Love in the abstract troubled her as little as love in the concrete. She seldom indulged in sentimental thoughts, much less in sentimental conversation.
In their distaste for sentimentality, Ernest and Kate met on common ground; and even Mrs. Digby, though at one time disposed to discountenance their intimacy, at length decided there was no danger of her somewhat self-willed daughter's falling in love with her penniless cousin. In time, however, as Ernest boy-like, found his pleasure more and more in things outside the house, Miss Theodora and Kate drew nearer together.
The elder woman had always had a certain pleasure in acting as friend and helper to a little circle of poor people, of whom there were so many on the narrow streets descending toward the north. These were not the poor whites to whom Miss Theodora's mother had been a Lady Bountiful, but "darkies," as Diantha called them, of mysterious origin and of still more mysterious habits. They were crowded together in queer-smelling houses, in narrow lanes and alleys, or inthe upper stories over shops in the squalid main thoroughfares of the district which some people still call "Nigger Hill."
"It doesn't seem a bit like Boston," Kate would say, clinging to Miss Theodora's arm while they went in and out of the rickety dwellings, where stout black women, with heads swathed in bandannas, or shoeless children in ragged clothes saluted them respectfully. Although Miss Theodora knew nothing of modern scientific charities, she tried to make reform and reward go hand in hand.
"I feel," she said occasionally, "as if I oughtn't to help Beverly Brown's family when I know the man is drinking; but I can't bear to see those children without shoes, or let Araminta suffer for food with that baby to care for."
"Of course you can't," Kate would answer, emphatically: "and Moses and Aaron Brown are the very cunningesttwins any one could imagine, even if they are bow-legged." And then Kate, opening her little silk bag, would display within a collection of oranges, sticks of candy, and even painted wooden toys which she had bought on her way through Charles Street. "Come, Cousin Theodora," she would cry, "put on your hat and coat, and let us go down and see the twins, and let me carry this basket."
Or again: "There isn't any harm in my just getting some of this bright calico for aprons for Araminta, and you don't care if I buy mittens for the twins," she would say entreatingly; for Miss Theodora, always careful of money herself, often had to restrain her young cousin's expenditures, at least in the matter of clothes. As regarded food, it was different.
When Kate, stopping in front of one of the little provision shops, with their fly-specked windows, through which was dimly seen an array of wiltedvegetables and doubtful-looking meats, decided to order a dinner for this one or that of her proteges, Miss Theodora had not the heart to hinder. But I will do her the credit to say that she never encouraged the giving of dinners to those whose need was caused by vice. In the future of the dark-skinned boys and girls Miss Theodora took a great interest. She realized that in the public schools they had their opportunity; and she saw with regret that not all who were educated made the best use of their education. Restless, unwilling to take the kind of work which alone was likely to fall to their lot, some of the young girls, educated or uneducated, drifted into ways which the older women of their race spoke of with the strongest disapprobation.
"They's a wuthless lot, the hull of them, and I wouldn't try to do nothing for them if I was you," Diantha often exclaimed, when Miss Theodoraadmitted how sorely the problem of these dusky people pressed upon her. Yet Diantha herself was almost certain to call her mistress' attention to the next case of need on which she herself stumbled in her wanderings among her people. Or, as likely as not, when Miss Theodora was sought out by some poor creature in real or pretended misery, the present emergency would overthrow all theories.
In one of the hill streets there was a home for colored old women, holding not a large number of inmates, but still holding, as Kate expressed it, "a very contented crowd"—much more contented, indeed, than many of the dwellers in the "Old Ladies' Home," the refuge for white women who had seen better days.
"I went to see old Mrs. Smith," said Kate one day, speaking of an inmate of the latter institution. "She was sitting with her blind drawn, looking as glumas could be. 'Why don't you raise the curtain?' I asked. 'You have such a beautiful view of the river.' 'Oh, yes,' she said, 'beautiful for anybody who likes rivers.' Do you know she'd rather sit moping in a corner all day than try to get some pleasure out of the lovely view across the river from her window! She enjoys being miserable now, just because she has seen 'better days.'"
"There are a great many people like her in the world," smiled Miss Theodora.
"Well, I prefer old Auntie Jane up in the colored women's home. She says that she never was as well off as she has been since she came to the home. She has a little window box with a small geranium and some white elysium in blossom; and she says that it reminds her of the old plantation where she grew up. She can see nothing from her window but houses across the narrow street; but she is a great deal happier than Mrs. Smith with all her view."
When Kate accompanied her on her round of visits, Miss Theodora did not penetrate far into the little lanes that zigzagged off from Phillips Street. She kept more to the main road, and seldom took the young girl upstairs, or down into the dingy basements. For in her mind's eye a large place was occupied by Mrs. Stuart Digby, who at any time might end Kate's visiting among the poor. Kate, therefore, had to content herself with restricted vistas of fascinatingalleys with wooden houses sloping toward each other at a curious angle, with little balconies of strangely southern appearance; and she sighed that she could not wander within them. She looked longingly, too, at the little church whenever they passed it; for Ben, who, rather for entertainment than edification, went there occasionally to the evening prayer meetings, had repeated many amusing speeches made by the colored brothers.
Still, if she could not do all that she wished to, she made the most of what came in her way. She loved to notice the difference between the kinds of things sold in Phillips Street shops and in those of the more pretentious thoroughfare to the north, through which the horse-cars ran to Cambridge. In the former case, eatables of all kinds were conspicuous,—not only meat and vegetables, and especially sausages, but corn for popping and molasses candy and spruce gum, all heterogeneouslydisplayed in the small window of one little shop. On Cambridge Street, oyster saloons and bar-rooms and pawn-shops, before which hung a great variety of old garments on hooks, jostled against each other, strangely contrasting with numerous cake-shops, which offered to the passer-by a great variety of unwholesome comestibles. From the little windows of the dwelling rooms above the shops, frowsy and unkempt women looked down on the street below, and Miss Theodora usually drew Kate quickly along, as occasionally they traversed it for a short distance on their way to the hospital.
In the same neighborhood was a short street of unsavory reputation, partly on account of a murder committed within its limits many years before, and partly because it held the city morgue. Hardly realizing where she was, Miss Theodora one day was picking her way along the slippery sidewalk, with Kate closelyfollowing, when something dark crossed their path. They stopped to make way for it. It was a grim, indefinite something, which two men had lifted from a wagon to carry into a neighboring building—a something whose resemblance to a human body was not concealed by the dark green cloth covering it. Then they knew that they were near the morgue; and while the elder woman was regretting that she had brought Kate with her, she heard a voice speak her name, and, turning, saw Ben Bruce but a few steps behind.
"Isn't it late for you ladies to be in this part of the city?" he exclaimed as he overtook them, and they realized that it was almost dusk.
"We are not timid," smiled Miss Theodora; "but we shall be glad of your company, Ben. We stayed longer than we meant to stay at the hospital, and I know that I ought not to have kept Kate so late."
"I wasn't thinking so much of the time as the place," said Ben. "Some way I do not like to have you and Miss Kate wandering about in these dirty streets—at least alone."
"I suppose you think that we would be better off with any slip of a boy. But truly we do not need a protector, although we shall be very glad of your company home."
"I do not mean safety exactly," answered Ben; "but it does not seem to me—well, appropriate for you and Miss Kate to go around into all kinds of dirty houses," and he glanced at Kate's pretty gown and fur-trimmed coat.
"Oh, it does not hurt my clothes at all," Kate answered, as he glanced at her dress. "I have only my oldest clothes on to-day, and I've been in a very clean place, too. I'm sure nothing could be cleaner than the hospital."
"Well, you can turn it into fun, but you know what I mean," said Ben. Forlike many another young man, he felt that tenderly bred women should be kept ignorant of the unsightly parts of a city. Thus as they went up the hill Ben and Kate kept up their merry banter, until they reached Miss Theodora's door.
"Come in to tea with us. Ernest will be glad to see you," said the elder woman. But Ben shook his head.
"Thank you very much, but they expect me home."
Nevertheless, he went inside for a little while, and sat before the open fire in the little sitting-room,—Miss Theodora allowed herself this one extravagance,—and heard Kate humorously relate the adventures of the afternoon.
"I have brought," she said, "a bottle of old Mrs. Slawson's bitters. I feel guilty in not having any of the many diseases they are warranted to cure, but I shall give the bottle to our cook, who is always complaining, and keeps a dozen bottles sitting on the kitchenmantelpiece. You know about Mrs. Slawson, don't you, Ben?"
"Oh, she's the old person who made so much money out of a patent medicine."
"Yes, and then married a 'light-skinned darky,' as she called him, who ran away with it all. It is great fun to hear her tell of the large number of people she has cured. Why, the greatest ladies in Boston, she says, used to drive up in their carriages to patronize her."
"Why doesn't she keep up her business now?"
"Well, she is too old to continue it herself, and she does not wish any one else to have her formulas. She has just enough money to live on, and once in a while she has a few bottles put up to give away to her friends. My visits to her are purely social, not charitable, and this is my reward"—and Kate displayed a clumsy package in yellow wrappings.
Then Ernest came in—now a tall ladlooking younger than Kate, though a year older—and welcomed Ben, and begged him to spend the evening. But Ben, resolute, though reluctant to leave the pleasant group clustered around Miss Theodora's fire, hurried off just as the clock struck six.
His father opened the door for him when he reached home,—his father in his shirt sleeves, encircled with an odor of tobacco. With an eye keener than usual, the boy noted particularly, as if seen for the first time, things to which he had been accustomed all his life—the well-worn oil-cloth on the hall, the kerosene lamp flaring dismally in its bracket. How different it all was from the refinement of Miss Theodora's home,—foralthough Miss Theodora's carpets were worn and even threadbare, and, except in the hall, she was as sparing of gas as Mr. Bruce himself, the odor of cooking never escaped from Diantha's domain. The indefinable between comfort and discomfort made the Bruce's economy very unlike that practised by Miss Theodora.
"You are late," said Mrs. Bruce querulously as Ben entered the dining-room.
"Am I? I met Miss Theodora and walked home with them."
"Yes, and went into the house with them, I dare say!" interrupted Mr. Bruce.
"Why not?" asked Ben.
"You always seem taken up with those people. I don't see how you can be, all so patronizing as they are."
"Patronizing!" repeated Ben to himself. "Miss Theodora patronizing!" How far from the truth this seemed!
"You do not mean Miss Theodora?"
"Why not Miss Theodora? She walksalong the street, never looking to the right or left, as if she were quite too good to speak to ordinary people."
"But she is terribly near-sighted. She does not see people unless they are right in front of her."
"I guess she could see well enough if she tried. I've noticed her cross the street almost on a run to speak to some little black boy. She's ready enough to take up with people like that; and she's able to see you. Ben,—but—"
Ben flushed a little. He did not like being put on a level with Miss Theodora's black proteges. Nor was this all. Mr. Bruce, taking up his wife's words, continued:
"Yes, it's just as your mother says; all those people think themselves a great way above the rest of us that are just as good as they are. I don't blame Miss Theodora so much, for her father really was a great man. But those Digbys! Who are they? Why, Mrs. StuartDigby's grandfather, they say, was a tailor in New York when my grandfather was one of General Washington's staff officers. We didn't have to buy that sword in our parlor second-hand in a Cornhill shop, where some people get their family relics."
"Not the Digbys or Miss Theodora."
"About the Digbys I'm not so sure. Miss Theodora ought to have some good things, if they didn't sell off everything when they went into that little house." As a matter of fact, the kin of Mr. Bruce were so few that Ben could not understand how he could generalize about them. Yet, "my family" could not have figured more largely in his conversation, had he been chieftain of a Scottish clan.
So rapid was Mr. Bruce's flow of language, that Ben and his mother usually kept quiet when he was well launched on any subject. Often, indeed, Ben let his thoughts wander far away until recalled to himself by some direct question.
It was Kate, Kate alone, whom his father's words touched. For the moment he felt that he might be perfectly happy could he see with the bodily eye as small a gulf between the Digby family and his own as his father presented to his mental vision. Seated before Miss Theodora's hospitable fire, watching the color deepen on Kate's sensitive cheeks as the light flickered across them, he forgot everything but her. In Ralph's presence, however, he realized that his world and the Digbys' were very far apart, and that his own awkwardness and roughness must be felt all too strongly by Kate. Then for weeks he would avoid Miss Theodora's house when Kate was there, or would run in for only a moment with Ernest to inspect some wonderful invention by the latter then in process of development in the basement workroom. Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Digby he seldom thought of. But how to bridge the gulf between himself and Kate!
The story of his own good ancestry began to have new interest for him. He looked more closely at his little sisters. They had the delicacy of feature which their mother still retained. They had the wax-like color which she had long ago lost. He glanced around the shabby room and felt rebellious. Should they be restricted to the same narrow life as their mother's? Was poverty to keep them down as it kept down so many of their neighbors? No, no! he would devote himself to building up a fortune, and then—even here Kate began to be curiously mixed up with his musings, and then he was called back to earth by his mother's voice.
The claim of his ancestors had never made a very strong impression on Ben. He had classed them with certain other harmless pretences of his mother's, like making a rug in the parlor cover an unmendable hole in the carpet, or putting lace curtains in the front windows of anupper room which in other respects was meagerly furnished. But now his point of view had begun to change, and he could even imagine himself in time bowing to the fetich of family.
"What's the matter, Polly?" he said one afternoon to his youngest sister, whom he found sitting on the doorstep by herself with the traces of tears on her face.
"Oh, Ada Green says that my new winter dress is only an old one because it's made out of an old one of mother's; and," incoherently, "she had ice-cream for dinner—and why can't we?"
"Who, mother?" laughed Ben.
"No, you know who I mean, Ada—they have ice-cream every Saturday, and she always comes out and tells me, and asks me what day we have ice-cream, and I have to say 'Never.'"
Ben, though he saw the ludicrous side of the little girl's grief, kissed her as he had many a time before when she had been disturbed by similar things.
"Cheer up," he said; "it won't be so very long before I can give you ice-cream every day, and new dresses not made out of mother's old ones. Then you can walk up and down the sidewalk and tell Ada Green; or you can offer her some of your ice-cream,—heap coals of ice on her head."
He added more of this nonsense until the child's face brightened as she entered the house, clinging to his arm, and mounted the attic stairs to sit near him while he studied.
Ben's plans for the future were definite, and his hopes were not the mere self-confidence of youth. Fortunate in securing one of the state scholarships at the Institute, he had been told by his teachers that a high place in his profession, that of civil engineer, might be his ultimately. But "ultimately" meant a long time yet, and his sister was perhaps right in sighing that before he could give her ice-cream and similar delights,she would be too "grown up" to enjoy them.
When, therefore, he looked at his little sisters and thought of the probable narrowness of their lives unless he should interpose, he put aside any idle balancing of merits of his family as compared with that of Stuart Digby.
Ernest stood leaning against the mantelpiece in his aunt's bedroom. Never enthusiastic about college, he was growing even less so under the shadow of the impending examinations, now but a month away. His preliminaries had given him a hint that only by hard work could he enter college without conditions. Greek was the great stumbling-block, and he dreaded the final test more than he cared to admit.
"Do change your mind, Aunt Teddy," he began imploringly.
His aunt, in a low, straight-backed chair, looked up from her sewing.
"Change my mind about what?"
"Oh, you know—going to Harvard. Why must I go?"
Miss Theodora sighed. Had she waited and saved, pleased by the hope of a distinguished college career for Ernest, only to find college with him a question not of "will" but of "must"? Ernest caught her look of disappointment.
"Of course I am perfectly willing to go to Harvard to please you, but—I wish I could study the things Ben studies."
Miss Theodora's voice had an unwonted note of sternness in it.
"You are going to Harvard, Ernest, not because I wish it, but because your father wished it; because your father, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, five generations, all were graduates. You will be the sixth of our family in direct line to graduate with honor."
"Perhaps it won't be with honor in mycase, Aunt Teddy. Remember my Greek."
Miss Theodora smiled. "I have tried to forget it." Then as Ernest leaned down to kiss her, "No, no. I can't be coaxed into saying what I don't think. Of course you will go to Harvard and be an honor to your family."
He loved his aunt; he wished to please her; but, oh, if he could only beg off from college! If he could only follow Ben to his scientific school! Ben, no one could deny it, would be a great man, and Ben had not gone to Harvard. Ben and Ralph in contrast presented themselves to Ernest's mind as his aunt spoke of the "honor of the family." Changing his lounging position, he stood in an attitude of direct interrogation before Miss Theodora.
"Now, Aunt Teddy, which is going to be a great man, Ben or Ralph?"
"I am no prophet, Ernest."
"Oh, well, you know what I mean.Would you rather have me grow up like Ben or like Ralph?"
"I am fond of Ben."
"Yes, and you don't like Ralph a bit better than I do. He can write Greek exercises that are nearly perfect,—and Ben don't know Alpha from Omega."
"You seem to believe that Ben's good qualities result from his ignorance of Greek, and Ralph's from his knowledge of the classics."
"I am not so silly as that, Aunt Teddy. But Ralph won't be a great honor to the family even if he should go through Harvard twenty times, and I wouldn't be a disgrace to you even if I didn't know Greek, or law, or any of those things."
As Ernest seldom spoke so bitterly on this subject, Miss Theodora wisely avoided further discussion by turning to her writing-table.
"I have a letter to finish now, Ernest; why do you not go down to your workroom? Kate is anxious for the table you promised her."
Ernest went off to his work, while Miss Theodora, still sitting before the fire thinking lovingly of the boy, pictured him in the not remote future a worthy wearer of the legal honor of the family. When Miss Theodora said "family," she thought most often of a long line of Massachusetts ancestors of dignified demeanor and studious expression, all resembling in general features the portrait of her grandfather hanging on the library wall. This portrait her own father had had enlarged from a poorly executed miniature. Perhaps it was the painter's fault that the nose had an air of intellectuality—even more exaggerated than that of the high forehead. Ernest as a little boy was so frightened by this portrait that he did not like to be left alone in the room with it.
As he grew older, it over-awed him like the rows of sheepskin-covered volumes in the bookcases under the painting. Miss Theodora, loving the books asshe loved the portrait, occasionally would unlock the glass door with its faded red silk curtains to show Ernest the volumes that his grandfather and his great-great-grandfather had studied. As he grew older, she solemnly intrusted the key to his care, hoping that he would find the books as pleasant reading as she had found them in her girlhood. But the clumsy type and the old-fashioned style were so forbidding to the boy, that his aunt saw with sorrow that he made no effort to acquire a love for eighteenth-century literature. He managed, to be sure, to read the few "Spectator" and "Tatler" essays which she selected, and he discovered for himself the amusing qualities of Addison's "Rosamond." His "Robinson Crusoe" in modern dress counted of course as a book of to-day rather than as a work of the Age of Anne. Had it been among its sheepskin covered contemporaries, more than half its charm would have vanished. TheCoke, the Blackstone, the Kent, which had been part of his grandfather's professional library, the boy regarded with even less interest than the other books. Miss Theodora had told Ernest that many would be as useful to him as they had been to his grandfather, not realizing that the mere thought of mastering their musty contents increased his distaste for the law.
Strangely enough, too, Ernest found little glamour in the name "Harvard." As a child he had been curious about the meaning of Class Day, when he heard caterers' carts rumbling through Charles Street on their way to Cambridge, or saw gayly dressed girls with deferential escorts walking toward the horse-cars or driving over the bridge. When he grew older the name of Harvard was associated with boat races and ball games, and it pleased him to think that he might some time count himself among the wearers of the victorious crimson. Butthe dreaded examinations and a truer knowledge of what the study of law meant had at last made the name of Harvard a bugbear.
While Miss Theodora, therefore, mused before the fire, Ernest in his basement workshop let his thoughts wander far afield from Harvard and the musty law. He wondered if he could make a dynamo according to the directions laid down in a new book of physics he had lately read. He wondered if he should ever have a chance to go West to the silver mines—for this was about the time when all eyes were turned toward the splendors of Leadville. He wondered if he should ever invent anything like that marvellous telephone of which the world was beginning to talk so much. He knew a fellow whose uncle had been present at a private exhibition of the new invention, and the uncle had been sure that in a short time people a mile apart would be able to exchange actual words over the wire.
As to the dynamo, Ernest felt pretty sure that he would make one; as to the mines of the West he was equally confident that he would see them some day; hadn't he always promised when he was a man to take his aunt on a long journey? But as to rivalling the inventor of the telephone, ah, no! what chance would he have to invent anything, when four years, four long years, must be spent at college, and at least two years more in preparing for the bar?
"Alas, Harvard!" sighed Ernest in the basement, while "fair Harvard" formed the burden of Miss Theodora's thoughts as she sat by the fire upstairs.
After all, Ernest entered Harvard creditably. To work off two or three conditions would be a very small matter,—so he thought optimistically at the beginning of the year. On the whole,college had an unexpected charm for him, and he showed a temper in November quite different from that of the spring. Perhaps the summer's tour in Europe, which he had made with Ralph and Ralph's tutor, had changed his point of view. Miss Theodora could not feel grateful enough to Stuart Digby for sending Ernest to Europe. Though she had herself set aside a little sum for this purpose, she was only too glad to accept her cousin's offer.
When the boys came home, their friends noted a change in Ernest. Mrs. Fetchum thought that it was largely in the matter of clothes.
"You couldn't expect but what such stylish clothes would make a difference, at least in appearance; not but what Ernest himself is just the same as he used to be."
Justice drove Mrs. Fetchum to this admission; for when Ernest, walking up the hill a few days after his homecoming, caught sight of her as she stood within her half-open door, not only had he stopped to speak to her, but he had run up the steps to shake hands; this, too—for it was Sunday—in sight of several neighbors who were passing, and under the very eyes of certain inquisitive faces looking from windows near by,—a most gratifying remembrance to Mrs. Fetchum.
"Ernest looks some different," said Mrs. Fetchum, describing the interview to Mr. Fetchum, "but his heart's in the right place. He said he ain't seen a place he liked better than Boston in all the course of his travels."
Miss Chatterwits, who never agreed with any opinion of her neighbors, declared that Ernest was changed.
"But it isn't his clothes. If I do make dresses, I don't think that clothes is everything. It's his manners. You can see it, Miss Theodora,—just a little more polish. It's perfectly natural, you know,since he's come in contact, so to speak, with foreign courts. Didn't he say that he saw the royal family riding in a procession in London, and didn't he and Ralph go to dinner at the American minister's at The Hague? Those things of course count."
Miss Chatterwits, like many others who take pride in their republicanism, dearly loved to hear about royalty. Ernest, therefore, when he found that she was somewhat disappointed that he could not tell her more about kings and queens, gave her elaborate accounts of the palaces he had visited. Thus did he half solace her for the fact that he had had no personal interviews with princes and other potentates.
Yet, although Miss Chatterwits would not ascribe any change in Ernest to his clothes, she by no means overlooked the extent and variety of the wardrobe which he had brought back with him from the other side. In this respect Stuart Digbyhad been as generous as in everything else connected with Ernest's foreign journey. His orders that Ernest should have an outfit of London clothes in no way inferior to Ralph's had been literally carried out. The result was startling, not only in the matter of coats, waistcoats and other necessities, but in the matter of walking sticks, umbrellas, and similar luxuries.
For almost a week Ernest kept the neighborhood astir counting his various new suits. Boy-like, he mischievously wore them one by one on successive days for the mere sake of giving Mrs. Fetchum and the others something to talk about. To Miss Chatterwits he gladly lent his cloth travelling cap, when she expressed her wish to take a pattern of it, and he let her carefully inspect a certain overcoat.
"It's quite at your service, Miss Chatterwits, although I more than half believe you are going to cut one just likeit for little Tommie Grigsby. Just think of it, the latest London fashions for a six-year old."
Nor did Miss Chatterwits deny the implication. For in those days, when you could not buy ready-made clothes in every shop, the costume of many a little West End boy was cut over from his father's garments by the hands of the old seamstress.
Miss Theodora did not find Ernest changed. "Improved, perhaps, but not changed by his summer abroad," she said to herself, seeing in this no real contradiction. He was still the same Ernest—respectful, kind, yielding to her will, even in the many details connected with the furnishing of his rooms at Cambridge—the same Ernest who years ago had clung to her hand dark evenings as they walked home from Stuart Digby's. All the interested relatives—"all," yet few—wondered that Miss Theodora could afford to fit up Ernest's college rooms sohandsomely. But was it not for this that she had saved ever since John's death?
So Ernest, in Hollis, had the counterpart of John's old room; and his aunt, looking from the broad window-seat across the leafy quadrangle, unchanged in aspect through a quarter of a century, felt herself carried back to those early days. Until John's death she had not realized that all her hopes were centred in him. Now she knew only too well that life without Ernest would mean little enough to her.
Ernest, appreciating his aunt's devotion, tried to repay it by thorough work—tried, yet failed. For, after all, study is not the only absorbing interest at Cambridge. Sports in the field, practice on the river, these stir the blood and take a young man's time. A good-looking lad with a well-known name, connected with various families of reputed wealth and high position, has every chance for popularity at Harvard. Buta popular man with limited means has to pay a price for popularity. Ernest spent his fairly liberal allowance to the last cent. He had to entertain, had to do things that were, though he knew it not, a great strain on his aunt's purse. Though he had entered college without the social advantages of a preparation at one of the private schools, he soon had many friends. Miss Theodora was pleased with her nephew's success. John had been popular, and it would have been strange indeed had the son not followed in the father's footsteps. She could not conceal from herself, however, a definite uneasiness that Ernest, unlike his father, showed little interest in his studies. He grumbled not a little at the course laid out for him, complained that he would have hardly a wider choice of studies in his sophomore year, and ascribed all his shortcomings in examinations to the fact that he was rigorously held down to uncongenial work. Norwas he altogether wrong, for many a Harvard student in those days longed for freedom from the fetters of prescribed studies.