Stories of a Western Town Part 14

Esther was getting into the carriage; her face was turned from him, but he could see the pink deepen in her ear and the oval of her cheek. She answered that it was a friend of theirs, Mr. Lossing. As if the name had struck them both dumb, neither spoke for a few moments. Armorer bit a sigh in two. "Essie," said he, "I guess it is no use to side-track the subject. You know why I came here, don't you?"

"Aunt Meg told me what she wrote to you."

"I knew she would. She had compunctions of conscience letting him hang round you, until she told me; and then she had awful gripes because she had told, and had to confess to YOU!"

He continued in a different tone: "Essie, I have missed your mother a long while, and n.o.body knows how that kind of missing hurts; but it seems to me I never missed her as I do to-day. I need her to advise me about you, Essie. It is like this: I don't want to be a stern parent any more than you want to elope on a rope ladder. We have got to look at this thing together, my dear little girl, and try to--to trust each other."

"Don't you think, papa," said Esther, smiling rather tremulously, "that we would better wait, before we have all these solemn preparations, until we know surely whether Mr. Lossing wants me?"

"Don't you know surely?"

"He has never said anything of--of that--kind."

"Oh, he is in love with you fast enough," growled Armorer; but a smile of intense relief brightened his face. "Now, you see, my dear, all I know about this young man, except that he wants my daughter--which you will admit is not likely to prejudice me in his favor--is that he is mayor of this town and has a furniture store----"

"A manufactory; it is a very large business!"

"All right, manufactory, then; all the same he is not a brilliant match for my daughter, not such a husband as your sisters have." Esther's lip quivered and her color rose again; but she did not speak. "Still I will say that I think a fellow who can make his own fortune is better than a man with twice that fortune made for him. My dear, if Lossing has the right stuff in him and he is a real good fellow, I shan't make you go into a decline by objecting; but you see it is a big shock to me, and you must let me get used to it, and let me size the young man up in my own way. There is another thing, Esther; I am going to Europe Thursday, that will give me just a day in Chicago if I go to-morrow, and I wish you would come with me. Will you mind?"

Either she changed her seat or she started at the proposal. But how could she say that she wanted to stay in America with a man who had not said a formal word of love to her? "I can get ready, I think, papa,"

said Esther.

They drove on. He felt a crawling pain in his heart, for he loved his daughter Esther as he had loved no other child of his; and he knew that he had hurt her. Naturally, he grew the more angry at the impertinent young man who was the cause of the flitting; for the whole European plan had been cooked up since the receipt of Mrs. Ellis's letter. They were on the very street down which he used to walk (for it takes the line of the hills) when he was a poor boy, a struggling, ferociously ambitious young man. He looked at the changed rows of buildings, and other thoughts came uppermost for a moment. "It was here father's church used to stand; it's gone, now," he said. "It was a wood church, painted a kind of gray; mother had a bonnet the same color, and she used to say she matched the church. I bought it with the very first money I earned.

Part of it came from weeding, and the weather was warm, and I can feel the way my back would sting and creak, now! I would want to stop, often, but I thought of mother in church with that bonnet, and I kept on!

There's the place where Seeds, the grocer that used to trust us, had his store; it was his children had the scarlet fever, and mother went to nurse them. My! but how dismal it was at home! We always got more whippings when mother was away. Your grandfather was a good man, too honest for this world, and he loved every one of his seven children; but he brought us up to fear him and the Lord. We feared him the most, because the Lord couldn't whip us! He never whipped us when we did anything, but waited until next day, that he might not punish in anger; so we had all the night to antic.i.p.ate it. Did I ever tell you of the time he caught me in a lie? I was lame for a week after it. He never caught me in another lie."

"I think he was cruel; I can't help it, papa," cried Esther, with whom this was an old argument, "still it did good, that time!"

"Oh, no, he wasn't cruel, my dear," said Armorer, with a queer smile that seemed to take only one-half of his face, not answering the last words; "he was too sure of his interpretation of the Scripture, that was all. Why, that man just slaved to educate us children; he'd have gone to the stake rejoicing to have made sure that we should be saved. And of the whole seven only one is a church member. Is that the road?"

They could see a car swinging past, on a parallel street, its bent pole hitching along the trolley-wire.

"Pretty scrubby-looking cars," commented Armorer; "but get our new ordinance through the council, we can save enough to afford some fine new cars. Has Lossing said anything to you about the ordinance and our pet.i.tion to be allowed to leave off the conductors?"

"He hasn't said anything, but I read about it in the papers. Is it so very important that it should be pa.s.sed?"

"Saving money is always important, my dear," said Armorer, seriously.

The horses turned again. They were now opposite a fair lawn and a house of wood and stone built after the old colonial pattern, as modern architects see it. Esther pointed, saying:

"Aunt Meg's, papa; isn't it pretty?"

"Very handsome, very fine," said the financier, who knew nothing about architecture, except its exceeding expense. "Esther, I've a notion; if that young man of yours has brains and is fond of you he ought to be able to get my ordinance through his little eight by ten city council.

There is our chance to see what stuff he is made of!"

"Oh, he has a great deal of influence," said Esther; "he can do it, unless--unless he thinks the ordinance would be bad for the city, you know."

"Confound the modern way of educating girls!" thought Armorer. "Now, it would have been enough for Esther's mother to know that anything was for my interests; it wouldn't have to help all out-doors, too!"

But instead of enlarging on this point, he went into a sketch of the improvements the road could make with the money saved by the change, and was waxing eloquent when a lady of a pleasant and comely face, and a trig though not slender figure, advanced to greet them.

It was after breakfast (and the scene was the neat pig's pen, where Armorer was displaying his ignorance of swine) that he found his first chance to talk with his sister alone. "Oh, first, Sis," said he, "about your birthday, to-day; I telegraphed to Tiffany's for that silver service, you know, that you liked, so you needn't think there's a mistake when it comes."

"Oh, 'Raish, that gorgeous thing! I must kiss you, if Daniel does see me!"

"Oh, that's all right," said Armorer, hastily, and began to talk of the pig. Suddenly, without looking up, he dropped into the pig-pen the remark: "I'm very much obliged to you for writing me, Meg."

"I don't know whether to feel more like a virtuous sister or a villanous aunt," sighed Mrs. Ellis; "things seemed to be getting on so rapidly that it didn't seem right, Esther visiting me and all, not to give you a hint; still, I am sure that nothing has been said, and it is horrid for Esther, perfectly HORRID, discussing her proposals that haven't been proposed!"

"I don't want them ever to be proposed," said Armorer, gloomily.

"I know you always said you didn't want Esther to marry; but I thought if she fell in love with the right man--we know that marriage is a very happy estate, sometimes, Horatio!" She sighed again. In her case it was only the memory of happiness, for Colonel Ellis had been dead these twelve years; but his widow mourned him still.

"If you marry the right one, maybe," answered Armorer, grudgingly; "but see here, Meg, Esther is different from the other girls; they got married when Jenny was alive to look after them, and I knew the men, and they were both big matches, you know. Then, too, I was so busy making money while the other girls grew up that I hadn't time to get real well acquainted with them. I don't think they ever kissed me, except when I gave them a check. But Esther and I----" he drummed with his fingers on the boards, his thin, keen face wearing a look that would have amazed his business acquaintances--"you remember when her mother died, Meg?

Only fifteen, and how she took hold of things! And we have been together ever since, and she makes me think of her grandmother and her mother both. She's never had a wish I knew that I haven't granted--why, d---- it! I've bought my clothes to please her----"

"That's why you are become so well-dressed, Horatio; I wondered how you came to spruce up so!" interrupted Mrs. Ellis.

"It has been so blamed lonesome whenever she went to visit you, but yet I wouldn't say a word because I knew what a good time she had; but if I had known that there was a confounded, long-legged, sniffy young idiot all that while trying to steal my daughter away from me!" In an access of wrath at the idea Armorer wrenched off the picket that he clutched, at which he laughed and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"Why, Meg, the papers and magazines are always howling that women won't marry," cried he, with a fresh sense of grievance; "now, two of my girls have married, that's enough; there was no reason for me to expect any more of them would! There isn't one d---- bit of need for Esther to marry!"

"But if she loves the young fellow and he loves her, won't you let them be happy?"

"He won't make her happy."

"He is a very good fellow, truly and really, 'Raish. And he comes of a good family----"

"I don't care for his family; and as to his being moral and all that, I know several young fellows that could skin him alive in a bargain that are moral as you please. I have been a moral man, myself. But the trouble with this Lossing (I told Esther I didn't know anything about him, but I do), the trouble with him is that he is chock full of all kinds of principles! Just as father was. Don't you remember how he lost parish after parish because he couldn't smooth over the big men in them?

Lossing is every bit as pig-headed. I am not going to have my daughter lead the kind of life my mother did. I want a son-in-law who ain't going to think himself so much better than I am, and be rowing me for my way of doing business. If Esther MUST marry I'd like her to marry a man with a head on him that I can take into business, and who will be willing to live with the old man. This Lossing has got his notions of making a sort of Highland chief affair of the labor question, and we should get along about as well as the Kilkenny cats!"

Mrs. Ellis knew more than Esther about Armorer's business methods, having the advantage of her husband's point of view; and Colonel Ellis had kept the army standard of honor as well as the army ignorance of business. To counterbalance, she knew more than anyone alive what a good son and brother Horatio had always been. But she could not restrain a smile at the picture of the partnership.

"Precisely, you see yourself," said Armorer. "Meg"--hesitating--"you don't suppose it would be any use to offer Esther a cool hundred thousand to promise to bounce this young fellow?"

"Horatio, NO!" cried Mrs. Ellis, tossing her pretty gray head indignantly; "you'd insult her!"

"Take it the same way, eh? Well, perhaps; Essie has high-toned notions.

That's all right, it is the thing for women. Mother had them too. Look here, Meg, I'll tell you, I want to see if this young fellow has ANY sense! We have an ordinance that we want pa.s.sed. If he will get his council to pa.s.s it, that will show he can put his grand theories into his pockets sometimes; and I will give him a show with Esther. If he doesn't care enough for my girl to oblige her father, even if he doesn't please a lot of carping roosters that want the earth for their town and would like a street railway to be run to accommodate them and lose money for the stockholders, well, then, you can't blame me if I don't want him! Now, will you do one thing for me, Meg, to help me out? I don't want Lossing to persuade Esther to commit herself; you know how, when she was a little mite, if Esther gave her word she kept it. I want you to promise me you won't let Esther be alone one second with young Lossing. She is going to-morrow, but there's your whist-party to-night; I suppose he's coming? And I want you to promise you won't let him have our address. If he treats me square, he won't need to ask you for it.

Well?"

He b.u.t.toned up his coat and folded his arms, waiting.

Mrs. Ellis's sympathy had gone out to the young people as naturally as water runs down hill; for she is of a romantic temperament, though she doesn't dare to be weighed. But she remembered the silver service, the coffee-pot, the tea-pot, the tray for spoons, the creamer, the hot-water kettle, the sugar-bowl, all on a rich salver, splendid, dazzling; what rank ingrat.i.tude it would be to oppose her generous brother! Rather sadly she answered, but she did answer: "I'll do that much for you, 'Raish, but I feel we're risking Esther's happiness, and I can only keep the letter of my promise."

"That's all I ask, my dear," said Armorer, taking out a little shabby note-book from his breast-pocket, and scratching out a line. The line effaced read: