Stories of a Western Town Part 13

"All of it. To YOU," Harry replied, dryly. He was conscious of the dean's gaze upon him. "I had a sudden impulse," said he, "and I gave it; that is all."

The tears rose to the clergyman's eyes; he tried to wink them away, then he tried to brush them away with a quick rub of his fingers, then he sprang up and walked to the window, his back to Harry. Directly he was facing the young man again, and speaking.

"You must excuse me, Mr. Lossing; since my sickness a little thing upsets me."

"Mr. Gilling had diphtheria last spring," the dean struck in, "there was an epidemic of diphtheria, in Matin's Junction; Mr. Gilling really saved the place; but his wife and he both contracted the disease, and his wife nearly died."

Harry remembered some story that he had heard at the time--his eyes began to light up as they do when he is moved.

"Why, YOU are the man that made them disinfect their houses," cried he, "and invented a little oven or something to steam mattresses and things.

You are the man that nursed them and buried them when the undertaker died. You digged graves with your own hands--I say, I should like to shake hands with you!"

Gilling shook hands, submissively, but looking bewildered.

He cleared his throat. "Would you mind, Mr. Lossing, if I took up your time so far as to tell you what so overcame me?"

"I should be glad----"

"You see, sir, my wife was the daughter of the Episcopal minister--I mean the rector, at the town--well, it wasn't a town, it was two or three towns off in Shelby County where I had my circuit. You may be surprised, sir, to know that I was once a Methodist minister."

"Is it possible?" said Harry.

"Yes, sir. Her father--my wife's, I mean--was about as high a churchman as he could be, and be married. He induced me to join our communion; and very soon after I was married. I hope, Mr. Lossing, you'll come and see us some time, and see my wife. She--are you married?"

"I am not so fortunate."

"A good wife cometh from the Lord, sir, SURE! I thought I appreciated mine, but I guess I didn't. She had two things she wanted, and one I did want myself; but the other--I couldn't seem to bring my mind to it, no--anyhow! We hadn't any children but one that died four years ago, a little baby. Ever since she died my wife has had a longing to have a stained-gla.s.s window, with the picture, you know, of Christ blessing little children, put into our little church. In Memoriam, you know.

Seems as if, now we've lost the baby, we think all the more of the church. Maybe she was a sort of idol to us. Yes, sir, that's one thing my wife fairly longed for. We've saved our money, what we COULD save; there are so many calls; during the sickness, last winter, the sick needed so many things, and it didn't seem right for us to neglect them just for our baby's window; and--the money went. The other thing was different. My wife has got it into her head I have a fine voice. And she's higher church than I am; so she has always wanted me to INTONE. I told her I'd look like a fool intoning, and there's no mistake about it, I DO! But she couldn't see it that way. It was 'most the only point wherein we differed; and last spring, when she was so sick, and I didn't know but I'd lose her, it was dreadful to me to think how I'd crossed her. So, Mr. Lossing, when she got well I promised her, for a thank-offering, I'd intone. And I have ever since. My people know me so well, and we've been through so much together, that they didn't make any fuss--though they are not high--fact is, I'm not high myself. But they were kind and considerate, and I got on pretty well at home; but when I came to rise up in that great edifice, before that cultured and intellectual audience, so finely dressed, it did seem to me I could NOT do it! I was sorely tempted to break my promise. I was, for a fact." He drew a long breath. "I just had to pray for grace, or I never would have pulled through. I had the sermon my wife likes best with me; but I know it lacks--it lacks--it isn't what you need! I was dreadfully scared and I felt miserable when I got up to preach it--and then to think that you were--but it is the Lord's doing and marvellous in our eyes! I don't know what Maggie will say when I tell her we can get the window. The best she hoped was I'd bring back enough so the church could pay me eighteen dollars they owe on my salary. And now--it's wonderful! Why, Mr. Lossing, I've been thinking so much and wanting so to get that window for her, that, hearing the dean wanted some car-pentering done, I thought maybe, as I'm a fair carpenter--that was my trade once, sir--I'd ask him to let ME do the job. I was aware there is nothing in our rules--I mean our canons--to prevent me, and n.o.body need know I was the rector of Matin's Junction, because I would come just in my overalls.

There is a cheap place where I could lodge, and I could feed myself for almost nothing, living is so cheap. I was praying about that, too.

Now, your n.o.ble generosity will enable me to donate what they owe on my salary, and get the window too!"

"Take my advice," said Harry, "donate nothing. Say nothing about this gift; I will take care of the warden, and I can answer for the dean."

"Yes," said the dean, "on the whole, Gilling, you would better say nothing, I think; Mr. Lossing is more afraid of a reputation for generosity than of the small-pox."

The older man looked at Harry with glistening eyes of admiration; with what Christian virtues of humility he was endowing that embarra.s.sed young man, it is painful to imagine.

The dean's eyes twinkled above his handkerchief, which hid his mouth, as he rose to make his farewells. He shook hands, warmly. "G.o.d bless you, Harry," said he. Gilling, too, wrung Harry's hands; he was seeking some parting word of grat.i.tude, but he could only choke out, "I hope you will get MARRIED some time, Mr. Lossing, then you'll understand."

"Well," said Harry, as the door closed, and he flung out his arms and his chest in a huge sigh, "I do believe it was better than the puppies!"

HARRY LOSSING

THE note-book of Mr. Horatio Armorer, president of our street railways, contained a page of interest to some people in our town, on the occasion of his last visit.

He wrote it while the train creaked over the river, and the porter of his Pullman car was brushing all the dust that had been distributed on the pa.s.sengers' clothing, into the main aisle.

If you had seen him writing it (with a stubby little pencil that he occasionally brightened with the tip of his tongue), you would not have dreamed him to be more profoundly disturbed than he had been in years.

Nor would the page itself have much enlightened you.

"_See abt road M-- D-- See L See E & M tea-set See abt L_."

Translated into long-hand, this reads: "See about the street-car road, Marston (the superintendent) and Dane (the lawyer). See Lossing, see Esther and Maggie, and remember about tea-set. See about Lossing."

His memoranda written, he slipped the book in his pocket, reflecting cynically, "There's habit! I've no need of writing that. It's not pleasant enough to forget!"

Thirty odd years ago, Horatio Armorer--they called him 'Raish, then--had left the town to seek his fortune in Chicago. It was his daydream to wrestle a hundred thousand dollars out of the world's tight fists, and return to live in pomp on Brady Street hill! He should drive a buggy with two horses, and his wife should keep two girls. Long ago, the hundred thousand limit had been reached and pa.s.sed, next the million; and still he did not return. His father, the Presbyterian minister, left his parish, or, to be exact, was gently propelled out of his parish by the disaffected; the family had a new home; and the son, struggling to help them out of his scanty resources, went to the new parish and not to the old. He grew rich, he established his brothers and sisters in prosperity, he erected costly monuments and a memorial church to his parents (they were beyond any other gifts from him); he married, and lavished his money on three daughters; but the home of his youth neither saw him nor his money until Margaret Ellis bought a house on Brady Street, far up town, where she could have all the gra.s.s that she wanted.

Mrs. Ellis was a widow and rich. Not a millionaire like her brother, but the possessor of a handsome property.

She was the best-natured woman in the world, and never guessed how hard her neighbors found it to forgive her for always calling their town of thirty thousand souls, "the country." She said that she had pined for years to live in the country, and have horses, and a Jersey cow and chickens, and "a neat pig." All of which modest cravings she gratified on her little estate; and the gardener was often seen with a scowl and the garden hose, keeping the pig neat.

It was later that Mr. Armorer had bought the street railways, they having had a troublous history and being for sale cheap. n.o.body that knows Armorer as a business man would back his sentiment by so much as an old shoe; yet it was sentiment, and not a good bargain, that had enticed the financier. Once engaged, the instincts of a shrewd trader prompted him to turn it into a good bargain, anyhow. His fancy was pleased by a vision of a return to the home of his childhood and his struggling youth, as a greater personage than his hopes had ever dared promise.

But, in the event, there was little enough gratification for his vanity.

Not since his wife's death had he been so hara.s.sed and anxious; for he came not in order to view his new property, but because his sister had written him her suspicions that Harry Lossing wanted to marry his youngest daughter.

Armorer arrived in the early dawn. Early as it was, a handsome victoria, with horses sleeker of skin and harness heavier and brighter than one is used to meet outside the great cities, had been in waiting for twenty minutes; while for that s.p.a.ce of time a pretty girl had paced up and down the platform. The keenest observer among the crowd, airing its meek impatience on the platform, did not detect any sign of anxiety in her behavior. She walked erect, with a step that left a clean-cut footprint in the dust, as girls are trained to walk nowadays. Her tailor-made gown of fine blue serge had not a wrinkle. It was so simple that only a fashionable woman could guess anywhere near the awful sum total which that plain skirt, that short jacket, and that severe waistcoat had once made on a ruled sheet of paper. When she turned her face toward the low, red station-house and the people, it looked gentle, and the least in the world sad. She had one of those clear olive skins that easily grow pale; it was pale to-day. Her black hair was fine as spun silk; the coil under her hat-brim shone as she moved. The fine hair, the soft, transparent skin, and the beautiful marking of her brows were responsible for an air of fragile daintiness in her person, just as her almond-shaped, liquid dark eyes and unsmiling mouth made her look sad. It was a most attractive face, in all its moods; sometimes it was a beautiful face; yet it did not have a single perfect feature except the mouth, which--at least so Harry Lossing told his mother--might have been stolen from the Venus of Milo. Even the mouth, some critics called too small for her nose; but it is as easy to call her nose too large for her mouth.

The instant she turned her back on the bustle of the station, all the lines in her face seemed to waver and the eyes to brighten. Finally, when the train rolled up to the platform and a young-looking elderly man swung himself nimbly off the steps, the color flared up in her cheeks, only to sink as suddenly; like a candle flame in a gust of wind.

Mr. Armorer put his two arms and his umbrella and travelling-bag about the charming shape in blue, at the same time exclaiming, "You're a good girl to come out so early, Essie! How's Aunt Meg?"

"Oh, very well. She would have come too, but she hasn't come back from training."

"Training?"

"Yes, dear, she has a regular trainer, like John L. Sullivan, you know.

She drives out to the park with Eliza and me, and walks and runs races, and does gymnastics. She has lost ten pounds."

Armorer wagged his head with a grin: "I dare say. I thought so when you began. Meg is always moaning and groaning because she isn't a sylph!

She will make her cook's life a burden for about two months and lose ten pounds, and then she will revel in ice-cream! Last time, she was raving about Dr. Salisbury and living on beefsteak sausages, spending a fortune starving herself."

"She had Dr. Salisbury's pamphlet; but Cardigan told her it was a long way out; so she said she hated to have it do no one any good, and she gave it to Maria, one of the maids, who is always fretting because she is so thin."

"But the thing was to cure fat people!"

"Precisely." Esther laughed a little low laugh, at which her father's eyes shone; "but you see she told Maria to exactly reverse the advice and eat everything that was injurious to stout people, and it would be just right for her."

"I perceive," said Armorer, dryly; "very ingenious and feminine scheme.

But who is Cardigan?"

"Shuey Cardigan? He is the trainer. He is a fireman in a furniture shop, now; but he used to be the boxing teacher for some Harvard men; and he was a distinguished pugilist, once. He said to me, modestly, 'I don't suppose you will have seen my name in the _Police Gazette_, miss?' But he really is a very sober, decent man, notwithstanding."

"Your Aunt Meg always was picking up queer birds! Pray, who introduced this decent pugilist?"