That Fortune Part 2

"I wish he would," said Philip; and then, having moved so that he could see Celia's face, "Do you like Murad Ault?"

"No," replied Celia, promptly; "he's horrid, but he isn't afraid of anything."

"Well, I don't care," said Philip, who was nettled by this implication.

And Celia, who had shown her power of irritating, took another tack.

"You don't think I'd be seen going around with him? Aren't we having a good time up here?"

"Bully!" replied Philip. And not seeing the way to expand this topic any further, he suddenly said:

"Celia, the next time I go on our hill I'll get you lots of sa.s.safras."

"Oh, I love sa.s.safras, and sweet-flag!"

"We can get that on the way home. I know a place." And then there was a pause. "Celia, you didn't tell me what you are going to do when you grow up."

"Go to college."

"You? Why, girls do, don't they? I never thought of that."

"Of course they do. I don't know whether I'll write or be a doctor. I know one thing--I won't teach school. It's the hatefulest thing there is! It's nice to be a doctor and have your own horse, and go round like a man. If it wasn't for seeing so many sick people! I guess I'll write stories and things."

"So would I," Philip confessed, "if I knew any."

"Why, you make 'em up. Mamma says they are all made up. I can make 'em in my head any time when I'm alone."

"I don't know," Philip said, reflectively, "but I could make up a story about Murad Ault, and how he got to be a pirate and got in jail and was hanged."

"Oh, that wouldn't be a real story. You have got to have different people in it, and have 'em talk, just as they do in books; and somebody is in love and somebody dies, and the like of that."

"Well, there are such stories in The Pirate's Own Book, and it's awful interesting."

"I'd be ashamed, Philip Burnett, to read such a cruel thing, all about robbers and murders."

"I didn't read it through; Alice said she was going to burn it up. I shouldn't wonder if she did."

"Boys make me tired!" exclaimed this little piece of presumption; and this att.i.tude of superiority exasperated Philip more than anything else his mentor had said or done, and he a.s.serted his years of seniority by jumping up and saying, decidedly, "It's time to go home. Shall I carry your wreath?"

"No, I thank you!" replied Celia, with frigid politeness.

"Down in the meadow," said Philip, making one more effort at conciliation, "we can get some tigerlilies, and weave them in and make a beautiful wreath for your mother."

"She doesn't like things fussed up," was the gracious reply. And then the children trudged along homeward, each with a distinct sense of injury.

IV

Traits that make a child disagreeable are apt to be perpetuated in the adult. The b.u.mptious, impudent, selfish, "hateful" boy may become a man of force, of learning, of decided capacity, even of polish and good manners, and score success, so that those who know him say how remarkable it is that such a "knurly" lad should have turned out so well. But some exigency in his career, it may be extraordinary prosperity or bitter defeat, may at any moment reveal the radical traits of the boy, the original ign.o.ble nature. The world says that it is a "throwing back"; it is probably only a persistence of the original meanness under all the overlaid cultivation and restraint.

Without bothering itself about the recondite problems of heredity or the influence of environment, the world wisely makes great account of "stock." The peasant nature, which may be a very different thing from the peasant condition, persists, and shows itself in business affairs, in literature, even in the artist. No marriage is wisely contracted without consideration of "stock." The admirable qualities which make a union one of mutual respect and enduring affection--the generosities, the magnanimities, the courage of soul, the crystalline truthfulness, the endurance of ill fortune and of prosperity--are commonly the persistence of the character of the stock.

We can get on with surface weaknesses and eccentricities, and even disagreeable peculiarities, if the substratum of character is sound.

There is no woman or man so difficult--to get on with, whatever his or her graces or accomplishments, as the one "you don't know where to find," as the phrase is. Indeed, it has come to pa.s.s that the highest and final eulogy ever given to a man, either in public or private life, is that he is one "you can tie to." And when you find a woman of that sort you do not need to explain to the cynical the wisdom of the Creator in making the most attractive and fascinating s.e.x.

The traits, good and bad, persist; they may be veneered or restrained, they are seldom eradicated. All the traits that made the great Napoleon worshiped, hated, and feared existed in the little Bonaparte, as perfectly as the pea-pod in the flower. The whole of the First Empire was smirched with Corsican vulgarity. The world always reckons with these radical influences that go to make up a family. One of the first questions asked by an old politician, who knew his world thoroughly, about any man becoming prominent, when there was a discussion of his probable action, was, "Whom did he marry?"

There are exceptions to this general rule, and they are always noticeable when they occur--this deviation from the traits of the earliest years--and offer material fox some of the subtlest and most interesting studies of the novelist.

It was impossible for those who met Philip Burnett after he had left college, and taken his degree in the law-school, and spent a year, more or less studiously, in Europe, to really know him if they had not known the dreaming boy in his early home, with all the limitations as well as the vitalizing influences of his start in life. And on the contrary, the error of the neighbors of a lad in forecasting his career comes from the fact that they do not know him. The verdict about Philip would probably have been that he was a very nice sort of a boy, but that he would never "set the North River on fire." There was a headstrong, selfish, pushing sort of boy, one of Philip's older schoolmates, who had become one of the foremost merchants and operators in New York, and was already talked of for mayor. This success was the sort that fulfilled the rural idea of getting on in the world, whereas Philip's accomplishments, seen through the veneer of conceit which they had occasioned him to take on, did not commend themselves as anything worth while. Accomplishments rarely do unless they are translated into visible position or into the currency of the realm. How else can they be judged? Does not the great public involuntarily respect the author rather for the sale of his books than for the books themselves?

The period of Philip's novitiate--those most important years from his acquaintance with Celia Howard to the attainment of his professional degree--was most interesting to him, but the story of it would not detain the reader of exciting fiction. He had elected to use his little patrimony in making himself instead of in making money--if merely following his inclination could be called an election. If he had reasoned about it he would have known that the few thousands of dollars left to him from his father's estate, if judiciously invested in business, would have grown to a good sum when he came of age, and he would by that time have come into business habits, so that all he would need to do would be to go on and make more money. If he had reasoned more deeply he would have seen that by this process he would become a man of comparatively few resources for the enjoyment of life, and a person of very little interest to himself or to anybody else. So perhaps it was just as well that he followed his instincts and postponed the making of money until he had made himself, though he was to have a good many bitter days when the possession of money seemed to him about the one thing desirable.

It was Celia, who had been his constant counselor and tormentor, about the time when she was beginning to feel a little shy and long-legged, in her short skirts, who had, in a romantic sympathy with his tastes, opposed his going into a "store" as a clerk, which seemed to the boy at one time an ideal situation for a young man.

"A store, indeed!" cried the young lady; "pomatum on your hair, and a grin on your face; snip, snip, snip, calico, ribbons, yard-stick; 'It's very becoming, miss, that color; this is only a sample, only a remnant, but I shall have a new stock in by Friday; anything else, ma'am, today?'

Sho! Philip, for a man!"

Fortunately for Philip there lived in the village an old waif, a scholarly oddity, uncommunicative, whose coming to dwell there had excited much gossip before the inhabitants got used to his odd ways.

Usually reticent and rough of speech--the children thought he was an old bear--he was nevertheless discovered to be kindly and even charitable in neighborhood emergencies, and the minister said he was about the most learned man he ever knew. His history does not concern us, but he was doubtless one of the men whose talents have failed to connect with success in anything, who had had his bout with the world, and retired into peaceful seclusion in an indulgence of a mild pessimism about the world generally.

He lived alone, except for the rather neutral presence of Aunt Hepsy, who had formerly been a village tailoress, and whose cottage he had bought with the proviso that the old woman should continue in it as "help." With Aunt Hepsy he was no more communicative than with anybody else. "He was always readin', when he wasn't goin' fishin' or off in the woods with his gun, and never made no trouble, and was about the easiest man to get along with she ever see. You mind your business and he'll mind his'n." That was the sum of Aunt Hepsy's delivery about the recluse, though no doubt her old age was enriched by constant "study"

over his probable history and character. But Aunt Hepsy, since she had given up tailoring, was something of a recluse herself.

The house was full of books, mostly queer books, "in languages n.o.body knows what," as Aunt Hepsy said, which made Philip open his eyes when he went there one day to take to the old man a memorandum-book which he had found on Mill Brook. The recluse took a fancy to the ingenuous lad when he saw he was interested in books, and perhaps had a mind not much more practical than his own; the result was an acquaintance, and finally an intimacy--at which the village wondered until it transpired that Philip was studying with the old fellow, who was no doubt a poor shack of a school-teacher in disguise.

It was from this gruff friend that Philip learned Greek and Latin enough to enable him to enter college, not enough drill and exact training in either to give him a high stand, but an appreciation of the literatures about which the old scholar was always enthusiastic. Philip regretted all his life that he had not been severely drilled in the cla.s.sics and mathematics, for he never could become a specialist in anything. But perhaps, even in this, fate was dealing with him according to his capacities. And, indeed, he had a greater respect for the scholarship of his wayside tutor than for the pedantic acquirements of many men he came to know afterwards. It was from him that Philip learned about books and how to look for what he wanted to know, and it was he who directed Philip's taste to the best. When he went off to college the lad had not a good preparation, but he knew a great deal that would not count in the entrance examinations.

"You will need all the tools you can get the use of, my boy, in the struggle," was the advice of his mentor, "and the things you will need most may be those you have thought least of. I never go fishing without both fly and bait."

Philip was always grateful that before he entered college he had a fine reading knowledge of French, and that he knew enough German to read and enjoy Heine's poems and prose, and that he had read, or read in, pretty much all the English cla.s.sics.

He used to recall the remark of a lad about his own age, who was on a vacation visit to Rivervale, and had just been prepared for college at one of the famous schools. The boys liked each other and were much together in the summer, and talked about what interested them during their rambles, carrying the rod or the fowling-piece. Philip naturally had most to say about the world he knew, which was the world of books--that is to say, the stored information that had acc.u.mulated in the world. This more and more impressed the trained student, who one day exclaimed:

"By George! I might have known something if I hadn't been kept at school all my life."

Philip's career in college could not have been called notable. He was not one of the dozen stars in the cla.s.s-room, but he had a reputation of another sort. His cla.s.smates had a habit of resorting to him if they wanted to "know anything" outside the text-books, for the range of his information seemed to them encyclopaedic. On the other hand, he escaped the reputation of what is called "a good fellow." He was not so much unpopular as he was unknown in the college generally, but those who did know him were tolerant of the fact that he cared more for reading than for college sports or college politics. It must be confessed that he added little to the reputation of the university, since his name was never once mentioned in the public prints--search has been made since the public came to know him as a writer--as a hero in any crew or team on any game field. Perhaps it was a little selfish that his muscle developed in the gymnasium was not put into advertising use for the university. The excuse was that he had not time to become an athlete, any more than he had time to spend three years in the discipline of the regular army, which was in itself an excellent thing.

Celia, in one of her letters--it was during her first year at a woman's college, when the development of muscle in gymnastics, running, and the vigorous game of ball was largely engaging the attention of this enthusiastic young lady--took him to task for his inactivity. "This is the age of muscle," she wrote; "the brain is useless in a flabby body, and probably the brain itself is nothing but concentrated intelligent muscle. I don't know how men are coming out, but women will never get the position they have the right to occupy until they are physically the equals of men."

Philip had replied, banteringly, that if that were so he had no desire to enter in a physical compet.i.tion with women, and that men had better look out for another field.

But later on, when Celia had got into the swing of the cla.s.sics, and was training for a part in the play of "Antigone," she wrote in a different strain, though she would have denied that the change had any relation to the fact that she had strained her back in a rowing-match. She did not apologize for her former advice, but she was all aglow about the Greek drama, and made reference to Aspasia as an intellectual type of what women might become. "I didn't ever tell you how envious I used to be when you were studying Greek with that old codger in Rivervale, and could talk about Athens and all that. Next time we meet, I can tell you, it will be Greek meets Greek. I do hope you have not dropped the cla.s.sics and gone in for the modern notion of being real and practical.

If I ever hear of your writing 'real' poetry--it is supposed to be real if it is in dialect or misspelled! never will write you again, much less speak to you."

Whatever this decided young woman was doing at the time she was sure was the best for everybody to do, and especially for Master Phil.