Bart Ridgeley Part 5

"Doctor," said Barton, in the little office of the latter, "I've called to borrow your Euclid; may I have it? I have never tried Euclid, really."

"Oh, yes, you can have it, and welcome. Do you want to try yourself on the _pons asinorum?_"

"What is that; another bridge of sighs? for I suppose they can be found out of Venice."

"It is a place over which a.s.ses have to be carried. It is, indeed, a bridge of sighs, and a bridge of size."

"Oh, Doctor, don't you do that! Well, let me try it! I want more work; and especially I want a wrestle with Euclid."

"Work! what are you doing, that you call work?"

"Well, hoeing beans, pulling up weeds, harvesting oats, with recreations in Latin Grammar, Dabol, Algebra, Watts on the Mind, Butler's a.n.a.logy, and other trifles."

"All at one time?"

"No, not more than three at the same time. Don't lecture me, Doctor, I am incorrigible. When I work, I don't play."

"And when you don't play you work, occasionally; well, I think Euclid will do you good."

"I won't take it as a prescription, Doctor!"

"A thorough course of mathematics would do more for one of your flighty mind, than anything else; you want chaining down to the severe logic of lines and angles."

"To the solution of such profound problems as, that the whole of a thing is more than a fraction of it; and things that are exactly alike resemble each other, for instance, eh?"

"Pshaw! you will make fun of everything. Will you ever reach discretion, and deal with things seriously?"

"I was never more serious in my life, and could cry with mortification over my lost, idled-away hours, you never believed in me, and are not to blame for that, nor have I any promises to make. I am not thought to be at all promising, I believe."

"Bart," said the Doctor, seriously, "you don't lack capacity; but you are too quick and impulsive, and all imagination and fancy."

"Well, Doctor, you flatter me; but really is not the imagination one of the highest elements of the human mind? In the wide world's history was it not a crowning, and one of the most useful qualities of many of the greatest men?"

"Great men have had imagination. I presume, and achieved great things in spite of it; but through it, never."

"Why, Doctor! the mere mathematician is the most servile of mortals.

He is useful, but cannot create, or even discover. He weighs and measures. Project one of his angles into s.p.a.ce, and, though it may reach within ten feet of a blazing star that dazzles men with eyes, yet he will neither see nor know of its existence. His foot-rule won't reach it, and he has no eyes. Imagination! it was the logic of the G.o.ds--the power to create; and among men it abolishes the impossible.

By its force and strength one may strike fire from hidden flints in darkened worlds, and beat new windows in the blind sides of the ages.

Columbus imagined another continent, and sailed to it; and so of all great discoverers."

The Doctor listened with some surprise. "Did it ever occur to you, Bart, that you might be an orator of some sort?"

"Such an orator as Brutus is--cold, formal, and dead? I'd rather not be an orator at all, 'but talk right on,' like plain, blunt Mark Antony."

"And yet Brutus has been quoted and held up by poets and orators as a sublime example of virtue and patriotism, young man!"

"And yet he never made murder the fashion;" and--striking an att.i.tude--"Caesar had his Brutus! Charles had his Cromwell! and George III. had--what the devil did George have? He was stupid enough to have been a mathematician, though I never heard that he was."

"Oh dear, Bart!" said the Doctor, with a sigh, "for G.o.d's sake, and your own, do study Euclid if you can! Don't you see that your mind is always sky-rocketing and chasing thistle-down through the air?"

"'The downy thistle-seed my fare, My strain forever new,'"

said Bart, laughing, and preparing to go.

"By the way," asked the Doctor, "wouldn't you like to go fishing one of these nights? We haven't been but once or twice this summer. Jonah, and Theodore, and 'Brother Young' and I have been talking about it for some days. We will rig up a fire-jack, if you will go, and use the spear."

"I am afraid I would be sky-rocketing, Doctor; but send me word when you are ready."

Barton had now entered upon something like a regular course. He had one of those intense nervous temperaments that did not require or permit excessive sleep. He arose with the first light, and took up at once the severest study he had until breakfast, and then worked with the boys, or alone, the most of the forenoon, at whatever on the farm, or about the house, seemed most to want his hand; the afternoons and evenings were given to unremitting study or reading. His tone of mind and new habit of introspection induced him to take long walks in the woods and secluded places, and after his work for the day was done; he imposed upon himself a regular and systematic course, and compelled himself to adhere to it. He saw few, went nowhere; and among that busy people, after the little buzz occasioned by his return had subsided, he ceased to be an object of interest or comment.

It was remarked among them that they did not hear his rifle in the forests, and n.o.body had presents of wild turkeys and venison, as they sometimes had, and he was in his own silent way shaping out his own destiny.

He received a letter from Henry in reply to his own, full of kindness, with such hints as the elder could give as to his course of study. His observing mother saw at once a marked change in his manner and words. Thoughtful and forbearing, his arrogance disappeared, and his impetuous, dashing way evidently toned down, while he was more tender towards her, and seemed to fall naturally into the place of an elder brother--careful and gentle to the young boys.

CHAPTER VIII.

A RAMBLE IN THE WOODS, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

Already the summer had deepened and ripened into autumn. The sky had a darker tint, and the breeze had a plaintive note in its voice; and here and there the footprints of change were in the tree-tops.

On one of those serene, deep afternoons, Barton, who had been importuned by the boys to go into the woods in pursuit of a flock of turkeys, that George had over and over declared "could be found just out south, and which were just as thick and fat as anything," yielded, and, taking his rifle, started out, accompanied by them, in high glee.

George's declaration about the turkeys was, without much difficulty, verified, and Bart, who was a practised hunter, and knew all the habits of the shy and difficult bird, managed in a short time to secure two. He felt an old longing for a good, long, lonely ramble, and directed the boys, who were in ecstacies at his skill and the result, to carry the game back to their mother, while he went out to the Slashing, adding that if he did not come back until into the night, they might know he had gone to the pond, to meet the Doctor and a fishing-party; and with a good-natured admonition from George, to look out for that wolverine that haunted the Slashing, they separated.

The "Slashing" was a large tract of fallen timber, all of which had been cut down years before, and left to decay as it fell. Near this, and to the east, an old roadway had been cut, leading south, which was often used by the neighbors to go from the Ridgeley neighborhood to settlements skirting the eastern border of "the woods" before mentioned. Still further east, and surrounded by forest, on a small stream, was Coe's carding machine and fulling mill, to which a by-way led from the State road, at a point near Parker's. The Coes, a shiftless, harmless set, lived much secluded, and were often the objects of charity, and as such somewhat under the patronage of Mrs.

Markham and Julia; and some of her young friends were occasionally attracted there for a ramble among the rocks and springs, from which Coe's creek, a little stream, arose. From the old road a path led to the fields of Judge Markham, about a fourth of a mile distant, which was the shortest route from his house to Coe's.

On his return ramble, just as Bart was about to emerge from the woods into the opening made by the old road from the west, he was surprised to see Julia approaching him, going along that track towards home. She was alone, and walking with a quick step. Lifting his hat, he stepped forward towards the path in which she was walking. The meeting in the wild, still woods, under the deepening shades of approaching night, was a surprise to both; and, by the light in the eyes of the youth, and warmer color in the face of the maiden, seemed not unpleasant to either.

"This is a surprise, meeting you here alone," said Barton, stepping to the side of the footway, a little in advance of her.

"It must be," answered Julia. "Poor old lady Coe is quite ill, and I've been around there, and, as it was latish, I have taken this short way home, rather than go all the way around the road."

"Indeed, if you are really going this way you must permit me to attend you," said Bart, placing his gun against a stump. "It is a good half-mile to the path that leads out to your father's, and it is already darkening;" and he turned and walked by her side.

"It is really not necessary," said the girl, quite decidedly. "I know the way, and am not in the least afraid."

"Forgive me, Miss Markham, but I really fear that you must choose between my attendance out of these woods and turning back around the road," replied Bart.

His manner, so frank and courteous, and his voice, so gentle, had nevertheless, to her woman's ear, a vibration of the man's nerve of force and will, to which the girl seemed unconsciously to yield. They walked along. The mystery of night was weaving its weird charm in the forest, and strange notes and sounds came from its depths, and these young, pure natures found an undefined sweetness in companionship.

On they walked in silence, as if neither cared to break it. The young girl at length said: