The Romance of a Plain Man Part 35

"Easy? Does he think so?"

"So you call that easy, gentlemen?' I responded. 'Well, I tell you that boy has sweated for it since he was seven years old. It's the only way, too, I'm sure of it. If you want to succeed, you've got to begin by sweating.'"

"Thank you, General, but I suppose most things look easy until you've tried them."

"It doesn't look easy to me, Ben, when I've seen you at it all day and half the night since you were a boy. What I said to those fellows at the club is the Gospel truth--there's but one way to get anything in this world, and that is by sweating for it."

We were in his study, to which he was confined by an attack of the gout, and at such times he loved to ramble on in his aging, reminiscent habit.

"You know, General," I said, "that they want me to accept the presidency of the Union Bank in Jennings' place. I've been one of the directors, you see, for the last three or four years."

"You'd be the youngest bank president in the country. It's a good thing, and you'd control enough money to keep you awake at night. But remember, Ben, as my dear old coloured mammy used to say to me, 'to hatch first ain't always to crow last.'"

"Do you call it hatching or crowing to become president of the Union Bank?"

"That depends. If you're shrewd and safe, as I think you are, it may turn out to be both. It would be a good plan, though, to say to yourself every time you come up Franklin Street, 'I've toted potatoes up this hill, and not my own potatoes either.' It's good for you, sir, to remember it, d.a.m.ned good."

"I'm not likely to forget it--they were heavy."

"It was the best thing that ever happened to you--it was the making of you. There's nothing I know so good for a man as to be able to remember that he toted somebody else's potatoes. Now, look at that George of mine. He never toted a potato in his life--not even his own. If he had, he might have been a bank president to-day instead of the pleasant, well-dressed club-man he is, with a mustache like wax-work. I've an idea, Ben, but don't let it get any farther, that he never got over not having Sally, and that took the spirit out of him. She's well, ain't she?"

"Yes, she's very well and more beautiful than ever."

"Hasn't developed any principles yet, eh? I always thought they were in her."

"None that interfere with my comfort at any rate."

"Keep an eye on her and keep her occupied all the time. That's the way to deal with a woman who has ideas--don't leave her a blessed minute to sit down and hatch 'em out. Pet her, dress her, amuse her, and whenever she begins to talk about a principle, step out and buy her a present to take her mind off it. Anything no bigger than a thimble will turn a woman's mind in the right direction if you spring it on her like a surprise. Ah, that's the way her Aunt Matoaca ought to have been treated. Poor Miss Matoaca, she went wrong for the want of a little simple management like that. You never saw Miss Matoaca Bland when she was a girl, Ben?"

"I have heard she was beautiful."

"Beautiful ain't the word, sir! I tell you the first time I ever saw her she came to church in a white poke bonnet lined with cherry-coloured silk, and her cheeks exactly a match to her bonnet lining." He got out his big silk handkerchief, and blew his nose loudly, after which he wiped his eyes, and sat staring moodily at his foot bandaged out of all proportion to its natural size.

"Who'd have thought to look at her then," he pursued, "that she'd go cracked over this Yankee abolition idea before she died."

"Why, I thought they owned slaves up to the end, General."

"Slaves? What have slaves got to do with it? Ain't the abolitionists and the woman suffragists and the rest of those d.a.m.ned fire-eating Yankees all the same? What they want to do is to overturn the Const.i.tution, and it makes no difference to 'em whether they overturn it under one name or the other. I tell you, Ben, as sure's my name's George Bolingbroke, Matoaca Bland couldn't have told me to the day of her death whether she was an abolitionist or a woman's suffragist. When a woman goes cracked like that, all she wants is to be a fire-eater, and I doubt if she ever knows what she is eating it about. Women ain't like men, my boy, there isn't an ounce of moderation to the whole s.e.x, sir. Why, look at the way they're always getting their hearts broken or their heads cracked. They can't feel an emotion or think an idea that something inside of 'em doesn't begin to split. Now, did you ever hear of a man getting his heart broken or his brain cracked?"

The canker was still there, doing its bitter work. For forty years Miss Matoaca had had her revenge, and even in the grave her ghost would not lie quiet and let him rest. In his watery little eyes and his protruding, childish lip, I read the story of fruitless excesses and of vain retaliations.

When I reached home, I found Sally in her upstairs sitting-room with Jessy, who was trying on an elaborate ball gown of white lace. Since the two years of mourning were over, the little sister had come to stay with us, and Sally was filled with generous plans for the girl's pleasure.

Jessy, herself, received it all with her reserved, indifferent manner, turning her beautiful profile upon us with an expression of saintly serenity. It amused me sometimes to wonder what was behind the brilliant red and white of her complexion--what thoughts? what desires? what impulses? She went so placidly on her way, gaining what she wanted, executing what she planned, accepting what was offered to her, that there were moments when I felt tempted to arouse her by a burst of anger--to discover if a single natural instinct survived the shining polish of her exterior. Sally had worked a miracle in her manner, her speech, her dress; and yet in all that time I had never seen the ripple of an impulse cross the exquisite vacancy of her face. Did she feel? Did she think? Did she care? I demanded. Once or twice I had spoken of President, trying to excite a look of grat.i.tude, if not of affection; but even then no change had come in the mirror-like surface of her blue eyes. President, I was aware, had sacrificed himself to her while I was still a child, had slaved and toiled and denied himself that he might make her a lady. Yet when I asked her if she ever wrote to him, she smiled quietly and shook her head.

"Why don't you write to him, Jessy? He was always fond of you."

"He writes such dreadful letters--just like a working-man's--that I hate to get them," she answered, turning to catch the effect of her train in the long mirror.

"He is a working-man, Jessy, and so am I."

She accepted the statement without demur, as she accepted everything--neither denying nor disputing, but apparently indifferent to its truth or falseness. My eyes met Sally's in the gla.s.s, and they held me in a long, compa.s.sionate gaze.

"All men are working-men, Jessy, if they are worth anything," she said, "and any work is good work if it is well done."

"He is a miner," responded Jessy.

"If he is, it is because he prefers to do the work he knows to being idle," I answered sharply. "What you must remember is that when he had little, and I had nothing, he gave you freely all that he had."

She did not answer, and for a moment I thought I had convinced her.

"Will you write to President to-night?" I asked.

"But we are having a dinner party. How can I?"

"To-morrow, then?"

"I am going to the theatre with Mrs. Blansford. Mr. Cottrel has taken a box for her. He is one of the richest men in the West, isn't he?"

"There are a great many rich men in the West. How can it concern you?"

"Oh, it's beautiful to be rich," she returned, in the most enthusiastic phrase I had ever heard her utter; and gathering her white lace train over her arm she went into her bedroom to remove the dress.

"What is she made of, Sally?" I asked, in sheer desperation; "flesh and blood, do you think?"

"I don't know, Ben, not your flesh and blood, certainly."

"But for President--why wasn't my father hanged before he gave him such a name!--she would have remained ignorant and common with all her beauty. He almost starved himself in order to send her to a good school and give her pretty clothes."

"I know, I know, it seems terribly ungrateful--but perhaps she's excited over her first dinner."

That evening we were to give our first formal dinner, and when I came downstairs a little before eight o'clock, I found the rooms a bower of azaleas, over which the pink-shaded lamps shed a light that touched Jessy's lace gown with pale rose.

"It's like fairyland, isn't it?" she said, "and the table is so beautiful. Come and see the table."

She led me into the dining-room and we stood gazing down on the decorations, while we waited for Sally.

"Who is coming, Jessy?"

"Twelve in all. General Bolingbroke and Mr. Bolingbroke, Mrs. Fitzhugh, Governor Blenner, Miss Page," she went on reading the cards, "Mr. Mason, Miss Watson, Colonel Henry, Mrs. Preston, Mrs. Tyler--"

"That will do. I'll know them when I see them. Do you like it, Jessy?"

"Yes, I like it. Isn't my dress lovely?"

"Very, but don't get spoiled. You see Sally has had this all her life, and she isn't spoiled."

"I don't believe she could be," she responded, for her admiration for Sally was the most human thing I had ever discovered about her, "and she's so beautiful--more beautiful, I think, than Bonny Page, though of course n.o.body would agree with me."