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diff --git a/23170-8.txt b/23170-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f35a51d --- /dev/null +++ b/23170-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1630 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Brace Of Boys, by Fitz Hugh Ludlow + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Brace Of Boys + 1867, From "Little Brother" + +Author: Fitz Hugh Ludlow + +Release Date: October 24, 2007 [EBook #23170] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BRACE OF BOYS *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +A BRACE OF BOYS + +By Fitz Hugh Ludlow + +From "Little Brother," + +Copyright, 1867, by Lee & Shepard + + +I am a bachelor uncle. That, as a mere fact, might happen to anybody; +but I am a bachelor uncle by internal fitness. I am one essentially, +just as I am an individual of the Caucasian division of the human race; +and if, through untoward circumstances--which Heaven forbid--I should +lose my present position, I shouldn't be surprised if you saw me out +in the "Herald" under "Situations Wanted--Males." Thanks to a marrying +tendency in the rest of my family, I have now little need to advertise, +all the business being thrown into my way which a single member of my +profession can attend to. I suppose you won't agree with me; but, do you +know, sometimes I think it's better than having children of one's own? +People tell me that I'd feel very differently if I did have any. Perhaps +so, but then, too, I might be unwise with them; I might bother them +into mischief by trying to keep them out. I might be avaricious +of them--might be tempted to lock them up in my own stingy old +nursery-chest instead of paying them out to meet the bills of humanity +and keep the Lord's business moving. I might forget, when I had spent +my life in fining their gold and polishing their graven-work, that +they were still vessels for the Master's use--I only the Butler--the +sweetness and the spirit with which they brimmed all belonging to His +lips who tasted bitterness for me. Then, if seeking to drain another's +wine, I raised the chalice to my lips and found it gall, or felt it +steal into my old veins to poison the heart and paralyze the hand which +had kept it from the Master, what further good would there be for me in +the world? Who doesn't know, in some friend's house, a closet containing +that worst of skeletons--the skeleton which, in becoming naked, grim and +ghastly, tears its way through our own flesh and blood? To be an uncle +is a different kind of thing. There you have nothing of the excitement +of responsibility to shake your judgment That's what makes us bachelor +uncles so much better judges of what's good for children and their +fathers and mothers. We know that nobody will blame us if our nephews +unjoint their knuckles or cut their fingers off; so we give them +five-bladed knives and boxing gloves. This involves getting thanked at +the time, which is pleasant; and if no catastrophe occurs, when they +have grown stout and ingenious, with what calm satisfaction we hear +people say, "See what a pretty windmill the child's whittled out with +Uncle Ned's birthday present!" or, "That boy's grown an inch round the +chest since you set him sparring!" Uncles never get stale. They don't +come every day like parents and plain pudding; they're a sort of holiday +relative with a plummy, Christmas flavor about them. Everybody +hasn't got them; they are not so rare as the meteoric showers, but as +occasional as a particularly fine day, and whenever they come to a house +they're in the nature of a pleasant surprise. + +I meander, like a desultory, placid river of an old bachelor as I am, +through the flowery mead of several nurseries. I am detained by all the +little roots that run down into me to drink happiness, but I linger +longest among the children of my sister Lu. + +Lu married Mr. Lovegrove. He is a merchant, retired, with a fortune +amassed by the old-fashioned slow process of trade, and regards the +mercantile life of the present day only as so much greed and gambling +Christianly baptized. For the ten years elapsing since he sold out of +Lovegrove, Cashdown & Co., he has devoted himself to his family and a +revival of letters, taking up again the Latin and Greek which he had not +looked at since his college days, until he dismissed teas and silks to +adorn a suburban villa with a spectacle of a prime Christian parent and +Pagan scholar. Lu is my favorite sister; Lovegrove an unusually good +article of brother-in-law; and I can not say that any of my nieces +and nephews interest me more than their two children, Daniel and Billy, +who are more unlike than words can paint them. They are far apart in +point of years; Daniel is twenty-two, Billy eleven. I was reminded of +this fact the other day by Billy, as he stood between my legs, scowling +at his book of sums. + +"'A boy has 85 turnips and gives his sister 80'--pretty present for +a girl, isn't it?" said Billy with an air of supreme contempt. "Could +_you_ stand such stuff--say?" + +I put on my instructive face and answered: "Well, my dear Billy, +you know that arithmetic is necessary to you if you mean to be an +industrious man and succeed in business. Suppose your parents were to +lose all their property, what would become of them without a little son +who could make money and keep accounts?" + +"Oh!" said Billy with surprise. "Hasn't father got enough stamps to see +him through?" + +"He has now, I hope; but people don't always keep them. Suppose they +should go by some accident when your father was too old to make any more +stamps for himself?" + +"You haven't thought of brother Daniel--" + +True; for nobody ever had, in connection with the active employments of +life. + +"No, Billy," I replied; "I forgot him; but then, you know, Daniel is +more of a student than a business man, and--" + +"Oh, Uncle Teddy! you don't think I meant he'd support them? I meant I'd +have to take care of father and mother and of all when they'd all got to +be old people together. Just think! I'm eleven and he's twenty-two; so +he is just twice as old as I am. How old are you?" + +"Forty, Billy, last August." + +"Well, you aren't so awful old, and when I get to be as old as you +Daniel will be eighty. Seth Kendall's grandfather isn't more than that, +and he has to be fed with a spoon, and a nurse puts him to bed and +wheels him around in a chair like a baby. That takes the stamps, _I_ +bet! Well, I'll tell you how I'll keep my accounts; I'll have a stick +like Robinson Crusoe, and every time I make a toadskin I'll gouge a +piece out of one side of the stick, and every time I spend one I'll +gouge a piece out of the other." + +"Spend a what!" said the gentle and astonished voice of my sister Lu, +who, unperceived, had slipped into the room. + +"A toadskin, ma," replied Billy, shutting up Colburn with a farewell +glance of contempt. + +"Dear! dear! where does the boy learn such horrid words?" + +"Why, ma! don't you know what a toadskin is? Here's one," said Billy, +drawing a dingy five-cent stamp from his pocket. "And don't I wish I had +lots of 'em!" + +"Oh!" sighed his mother, "to think I should have a child so addicted to +slang! How I wish he were like Daniel!" + +"Well, mother," replied Billy, "if you wanted two boys just alike you'd +oughter had twins. There ain't any use of my trying to be like Daniel +now when he's got eleven years the start. Whoop! There's a dog-fight! +Hear 'em! It's Joe Casey's dog--I know his bark!" + +With these words my nephew snatched his Glengarry bonnet from the table +and bolted downstairs to see the fun. + +"What will become of him?" said Lu hopelessly; "he has no taste for +anything but rough play; and then such language as he uses! Why _isn't_ +he like Daniel?" + +"I suppose because his Maker never repeats himself. Even twins often +possess strongly marked individualities. Don't you think it would be a +good plan to learn Billy better before you try to teach him? If you do +you'll make something as good of him as Daniel; though it will be rather +different from that model." + +"Remember, Ned, that you never did like Daniel as well as you do +Billy. But we all know the proverb about old maids' daughters and old +bachelors' sons. I wish you had Billy for a month--then you'd see." + +"I'm not sure that I'd do any better than you. I might err as much in +other directions. But I'd try to start right by acknowledging that he +was a new problem, not to be worked without finding the value of 'x' in +his particular instance. The formula which solves one boy will no more +solve the next one than the rule of three will solve a question +in calculus--or, to rise into your sphere, than the receipt for +one-two-three-four cake conduct you to a successful issue through plum +pudding--" + +I excel in metaphysical discussions, and was about giving further +elaboration of my favorite idea when the door burst open. Master Billy +came tumbling in with a torn jacket, a bloody nose, the trace of a few +tears in his eyes, and the mangiest of cur dogs in his hands. + +"Oh my! my!! my!!!" exclaimed his mother. + +"Don't you get scared, ma!" cried Billy, smiling a stern smile of +triumph; "I smashed the nose off him! He won't sass me again for nothing +_this_ while! Uncle Teddy, d'ye know it wasn't a dogfight after all? +There was that nasty good-for-nothing Joe Casey 'n' Patsy Grogan and a +lot of bad boys from Mackerelville; and they'd caught this poor little +ki-oodle and tied a tin pot to his tail and were trying to set Joe's dog +on him, though he's ten times littler--" + +"You naughty, naughty boy! How did you suppose your mother'd feel to see +you playing with those ragamuffins?" + +"Yes, I _played_ 'em! I polished 'em--that's the play I did! Says I, +'Put down that poor little pup! Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Patsy +Grogan?' 'I guess you don't know who I am,' says he. That's the way they +always say, Uncle Teddy, to make a fellow think they're some awful great +fighters. So says I again, 'Well, you put down that dog or I'll show you +who _I_ am'; and when he held on, I let him have it. Then he dropped the +pup, and as I stooped to pick it up he gave me one on the bugle." + +"_Bugle!_ Oh! oh! oh!" + +"The rest pitched in to help him; but I grabbed the pup, and while I +was trying to give as good as I got--only a fellow can't do it well with +only one hand, Uncle Teddy--up came a policeman and the whole crowd ran +away. So I got the dog safe, and here he is!" + +With that Billy set down his "ki-oodle," bade farewell to every fear, +and wiped his bleeding nose. The unhappy beast slunk back between the +legs of his preserver and followed him out of the room, as Lu, with an +expression of maternal despair, bore him away for the correction of his +dilapidated raiment and depraved associations. I felt such sincere +pride in this young Mazzini of the dog-nation that I was vexed at Lu for +bestowing on him reproof instead of congratulation; but she was not the +only conservative who fails to see a good cause and a heroic heart under +a bloody nose and torn jacket. I resolved that if Billy was punished, he +should have his recompense before long in an extra holiday at Barnum's +or the Hippotheatron. + +You already have some idea of my other nephew if you have noticed that +none of us, not even that habitual disrespecter of dignities, Billy, +ever called him Dan. It would have seemed as incongruous as to call +Billy William. + +He was one of those youths who never give their parents a moment's +uneasiness; who never have to have their wills broken, and never forget +to put on their rubbers or take an umbrella. In boyhood he was intended +for a missionary. Had it been possible for him to go to Greenland's +icy mountains without catching cold, or to India's coral strand without +getting bilious, his parents would have carried out their pleasing dream +of contributing him to the world's evangelization. Lu and Mr. Lovegrove +had no doubt that he would have been greatly blessed if he could have +stood it. They brought him up in the most careful manner, and I can not +recollect the time when he was not president, secretary, or something in +some society of small yet good children. He was not only an exemplar to +whom all Lu's friends pointed their own nursery as the little boy who +could say most hymns and sit stillest in church, but he was a reproof +even unto his elders. One Sunday afternoon, in the Connecticut village +where my brother-in-law used to spend his summers, when half of the +congregation was slumbering under the combined effect of the heat, a +lunch of cheese and apples, and the sermon, my nephew, then aged five, +sat bolt upright in the pew, winkless as a demon hearing a new candidate +suspected of shakiness on a "a card'nal p'int," and mortified almost to +death poor old Mrs. Pringle, who, compassionating his years, had handed +him a sprig of her "meetin'-seed" over the back of the seat, by saying, +in a loud and stern voice: "I don't eat things in church." + +I should have spanked the boy when I got home, but Lu, with tears in her +eyes, quoted something about the mouths of babes and sucklings. + +Both she and his father always encouraged old manners in him. I think +they took such pride in raising a peculiarly pale boy as a gardener +does in getting a nice blanch on his celery, and, so long as he was +not absolutely sick, the graver he was, the better. He was a sensitive +plant, a violet by a mossy stone, and all that sort of thing. But when +in his tenth year he had the measles, and was narrowly carried through, +Lu got a scare about him. During his convalescence, reading aloud a life +of Henry Martyn to amuse him, she found in it a picture of that young +apostle preaching to a crowd of Hindus without any boots on. An American +mother's association of such behavior with croup and ipecac was too +strong to be counteracted by known climatic facts; and from that hour, +as she never had before, Lu realized that being a missionary might +involve going to carry the gospel to the heathen in your stocking-feet. + +When they had decided that such a life would not do for him, his +training had almost entirely unfitted him for any other active calling. +The strict propriety with which he had been brought up had resulted +in weak lungs, poor digestion, sluggish circulation, and torpid liver. +Moreover, he was troubled with the painfulest bashfulness which ever +made a mother think her child too ethereal, or a dispassionate outsider +regard him as too flimsy, for this world. These were weights enough +to carry, even if he had not labored under that heaviest of all, a +well-stored mind. + +No misnomer that last to any one who has ever frequented the Atlantic +Docks, or seen storage in any large port of entry. How does a storehouse +look? It's a vast, dark, cold chamber-dust an inch deep on the floor, +cobwebs festooning the girders--and piled from floor to ceiling on the +principle of getting the largest bulk into the least room, with barrels, +boxes, bales, baskets, chests, crates, and carboys--merchandise of all +description, from the rough, raw material to the most exquisite _choses +de luxe_. The inmost layers are inextricable without pulling down the +outer ones. If you want a particular case of broadcloth you must clear +yourself an alleyway through a hundred tierces of hams, and last week's +entry of clayed sugars is inaccessible without tumbling on your head a +mountain of Yankee notions. + +In my nephew's unfortunate youth such storage as this had minds. As long +as the crown of his brain's arch was not crushed in by some intellectual +Furman Street diaster, those stevedores of learning, the schoolmasters, +kept on unloading the Rome and Athens lighters into a boy's crowded +skull, and breaking out of the hold of that colossal old junk, The +Pure Mathematics, all the formulas which could be crowded into the +interstices between his Latin and Greek. At the time I introduce Billy, +both Lu and her husband were much changed. They had gained a great +deal in width of view and liberality of judgment. They read Dickens and +Thackeray with avidity; went now and then to the opera; proposed to let +Billy take a quarter at Dod-worth's; had statues in their parlor without +any thought of shame at their lack of petticoats, and did multitudes of +things which, in their early married life, they would have considered +shocking. Part of this change was due to the great increase of travel, +the wonderful progress in art and refinement which has enlarged this +generation's thought and corrected its ignorant opinions; infusing +cosmopolitanism into our manners by a revolution so gradual that its +subjects were a new people before their combativeness became alarmed, +yet so rapid that a man of thirty can scarcely believe his birthday, and +questions whether he has not added his life up wrong by a century or so +when he compares his own boy-Hood with that of the present day. But a +good deal of the transformation resulted from the means of gratifying +elegant tastes, the comfort, luxury, and culture which came with +Lovegrove's retirement on a fortune. They had mellowed on the sunny +shelves of prosperity, like every good thing which has an astringent +skin when it is green. They would greatly have liked to see Daniel shine +in society. Of his erudition they were proud, even to worship. The young +man never had any business, and his father never seemed to think of +giving him any; knowing, as Billy would say, that he had stamps enough +to "see him through." If Daniel liked, his father would have endowed +a professorship in some college and have given him the chair; but that +would have taken him away from his own room and the family physician. + +Daniel knew how much his parents wished him to make a figure in the +world, and only blamed himself for his failure, magnanimously forgetting +that they had crushed out the faculties which enable a man to mint the +small change of everyday society in the exclusive cultivation of such as +fit him for smelting its ponderous ingots. With that merciful blindness +which alone prevents all our lives from becoming a horror of nerveless +reproach, his parents were equally unaware of their share in the harm +done him, when they ascribed to his delicate organization the fact that, +at an age when love runs riot in all healthy blood, he could not see a +balmoral without his cheeks rivaling the most vivid stripe in it. They +flattered themselves that he would outgrow his bashfulness, but Daniel +had no such hope, and frequently confided in me that he thought he +should never marry at all. + +About two hours after Billy's disappearance under his mother's convoy, +the defender of the oppressed returned to my room bearing the dog under +his arm. His cheeks shone with washing like a pair of waxy Spitzenbergs, +and other indignities had been offered him to the extent of the brush +and comb. He also had a whole jacket on. + +"Well, Billy," said I, "what are you going to do with your dog?" + +"I don't know what I'm going to do. I've a great mind to be a bad, +disobedient boy with him, and _not_ have my days long in the land which +the Lord my God giveth me." + +"O Billy!" + +"I can't help it. They won't be long if I don't mind ma, she says; and +she wants me to be mean, and put Crab out in the street to have Patsy +catch him and tie coffee-pots to his tail. I--I--I--" + +Here my small nephew dug his fist into his eye and looked down. + +I told Billy to stop where he was, and went to intercede with Lu. She +was persuaded to entertain the angels of magnanimity and heroism in the +disguise of a young fighting character, and to accept my surety for +the behavior of his dog. Billy and I also obtained permission to go out +together and be gone the entire afternoon. + +We put Crab on a comfortable bed of rags in an old shoe box, and +then strolled, hand-in-hand, across that most delightful of New York +breathing-places, Stuyvesant Square. + +"Uncle Teddy!" exclaimed Billy with ardor; "I wish I could do something +to show you how much I think of you for being so good to me. I don't +know how. Would it make you happy if I was to learn a hymn for you--a +smashing big hymn--six verses, long metre, and no grumbling?" + +"No, Billy; you make me happy enough just by being a good boy." + +"Oh, Uncle Teddy!" replied Billy decidedly, "I'm afraid I can't do it. +I've tried so often and I always make such an awful mess of it." + +"Perhaps you get discouraged too easily--" + +"Well, if a savings-bank won't do it, there ain't any chance for a boy. +I got father to get me a savings-bank once and began being good just as +hard as ever I could for three cents a day. Every night I got 'em, I +put 'em in reg'lar, and sometimes I'd keep being good three whole days +running. That made a sight of money, I tell you. Then I'd do something, +ma said, to kick my pail of milk over, and those nights I didn't get +anything. I used to put in most of my marble and candy money, too." + +"What were you going to do with it?" + +"It was for an Objeck, Uncle Teddy. That's a kind of Indian, you know, +that eats people and wants the gospel. That's what pa says, anyway; I +didn't ever see one." + +"Well, didn't that make you happy--to help the poor little heathen +children?" + +"Oh, does it, Uncle Teddy? They never got a cent of it. One time I was +good so long I got scared. I was afraid I'd never want to fly my kite +on a roof again or go anywhere where I oughtn't, or have any fun. I +couldn't see any use of going and saving my money to send out to the +Objecks if it was going to make good boys of 'em. It was awful hard for +me to have to be a good boy, and it must be worse for them 'cause they +ain't used to it. So when there wasn't anybody upstairs I went and shook +a lot of pennies out of my chimney and bought ever so much taffy and +marbles and popcorn. Was that awful mean, Uncle Teddy?" + +The question involved such complications that I hesitated. Before I +could decide what to answer Billy continued: + +"Ma said it was robbing the heathen, and didn't I get it? I thought if +it was robbing I'd have a cop after me." + +"What's a 'cop'?" + +"That's what the boys call a policeman, Uncle Teddy; and then I should +be taken away and put in an awful black place underground, like Johnny +Wilson when he broke Mrs. Perkins's window. I was scared, I tell you. +But I didn't get anything worse than a whipping, and having my savings +bank taken away from me with all that was left in it, I haven't tried to +be good since, much." + +We now got into a Broadway stage going down, and being unable, on +account of the noise, to converse further upon those spiritual conflicts +of Billy's which so much interested me, we amused ourselves with looking +out until just as we reached the Astor House, when he asked me where we +were going. + +"Where do you guess?" said I. + +He cast a glance through the front window and his face became +irradiated. Oh, there's nothing like the simple, cheap luxury of +pleasing a child, to create sunshine enough for the chasing away of the +bluest adult devils! + +"We're going to Barnum's," said Billy, involuntarily clapping his hands. + +So we were; and, much as stuck-up people pretend to look down at the +place, I frequently am. Not only so, but I always see that class largely +represented there when I do go. To be sure, they always make believe +that they only come to amuse the children, or because their country +cousins visit them; and never fail to refer to the vulgar set one finds +there, and the fact of the animals smelling like anything but Jockey +Club; yet I notice that after they've been in the hall three minutes +they're as much interested as any of the people they come to poh-poh, +and only put on the high-bred air when they fancy some of their own +class are looking at them. I boldly acknowledge that I go because I like +it. I am especially happy, to be sure, if I have a child along to +go into ecstasies and give me a chance, by asking questions, for the +exhibition of that fund of information which is said to be one of my +chief charms in the social circle, and on several occasions has led +that portion of the public immediately about the Happy Family into the +erroneous impression that I was Mr. Barnum explaining his five hundred +thousand curiosities. On the present occasion we found several visitors +of the better class in the room devoted to the Aquarium. Among these was +a young lady, apparently about nineteen, in a tight-fitting basque of +black velvet, which showed her elegant figure to fine advantage, a skirt +of garnet silk, looped up over a pretty Balmoral, and the daintiest +imaginable pair of kid walking-boots. Her height was a trifle over the +medium, her eyes, a soft expressive brown, shaded by masses of hair +which exactly matched their color, and, at that rat-and-miceless day, +fell in such graceful abandon as to show at once that nature was the +only maid who crimped their waves into them. Her complexion was rosy +with health and sympathetic enjoyment; her mouth was faultless, her nose +sensitive, her manners full of refinement, and her voice musical as a +wood-robin's, when she spoke to the little boy of six at her side, to +whom she was revealing the palace of the great show-king. Billy and +I were flattening our noses against the abode of the balloon-fish and +determining whether he looked most like a horse-chestnut burr or a ripe +cucumber, when his eyes and my own simultaneously fell on the child and +lady. In a moment, to Billy the balloon-fish was as though he had not +been. + +"That's a pretty little boy!" said I. And then I asked Billy one of +those senseless routine questions which must make children look at us, +regarding the scope of our intellects very much as we look at Bushmen. + +"How would you like to play with him?" + +"Him!" replied Billy scornfully, "that's his first pair of boots; see +him pull up his little breeches to show the red tops to them! But, +crackey! isn't _she_ a smasher!" + +After that we visited the wax figures and the sleepy snakes, the learned +seal, and the glass-blowers. Whenever we passed from one room into +another, Billy could be caught looking anxiously to see if the pretty +girl and child were coming, too. + +Time fails me to describe how Billy was lost in the astonishment at the +Lightning Calculator--wanted me to beg the secret of that prodigy +for him to do his sums by--finally thought he had discovered it, and +resolved to keep his arm whirling all the time he studied his arithmetic +lesson the next morning. Equally inadequate is it to relate in full how +he became so confused among the waxworks that he pinched the solemnest +showman's legs to see if he was real, and perplexed the beautiful +Circassian to the verge of idiocy by telling her he had read all about +the way they sold girls like her in his geography. + +We had reached the stairs to that subterranean chamber in which the +Behemoth of Holy Writ was wallowing about without a thought of the +dignity which one expects from a canonical character. Billy had always +languished upon his memories of this diverting beast, and I stood ready +to see him plunge headlong the moment that he read the signboard at the +head of the stairs. When he paused and hesitated there, not seeming +at all anxious to go down till he saw the pretty girl and the child +following after--a sudden intuition flashed across me. Could it be +possible that Billy was caught in that vortex which whirled me down at +ten years--a little boy's first love? + +We were lingering about the elliptical basin, and catching occasional +glimpses between bubbles of a vivified hair trunk of monstrous compass, +whose knobby lid opened at one end and showed a red morocco lining, +when the pretty girl, in leaning over to point out the rising monster, +dropped into the water one of her little gloves, and the swash made by +the hippopotamus drifted it close under Billy's hand. Either in play, or +as a mere coincidence, the animal followed it. The other children about +the tank screamed and started back as he bumped his nose against the +side; but Billy manfully bent down and grabbed the glove, not an inch +from one of his big tusks, then marched around the tank and presented +it to the lady with a chivalry of manner in one of his years quite +surprising. + +"That's a real nice boy--you said so, didn't you, Lottie? And I wish +he'd come and play with me," said the little fellow by the young lady's +side, as Billy turned away, gracefully thanked, to come back to me with +his cheeks roseate with blushes. + +As he heard this, Billy sidled along the edge of the tank for a moment, +then faced about and said: + +"P'rhaps I will some day--where do you live?" + +"I live on East Seventeenth Street with papa--and Lottie stays there too +now--she's my cousin: where d'you live?" + +"Oh, I live close by--right on that big green square where I guess +the nurse takes you once in a while," said Billy patronizingly. Then, +looking up pluckily at the young lady, he added, "I never saw you out +there." + +"No, Jimmy's papa has only been in his new house a little while, and +I've just come to visit him." + +"Say, will you come and play with me some time?" chimed in the +inextinguishable Jimmy. "I've got a cooking stove--for real fire--and +blocks and a ball with a string." + +Billy, who belonged to a club for the practice of the great American +game, and was what A. Ward would call the most superior battest among +the I. G. B. B. C, or "Infant Giants," smiled from that altitude upon +Jimmy, but promised to go and play with him the next Saturday afternoon. + +Late that evening, after we had got home and dined, as I sat in my room +over Pickwick, with a sedative cigar, a gentle knock at the door told of +Daniel. I called "Come in!" and, entering with a slow dejected air, +he sat down by my fire. For ten minutes he remained silent, though +occasionally looking up as if about to speak, then dropping his head +again to ponder on the coals. Finally I laid down Dickens, and spoke +myself. + +"You don't seem well to-night, Daniel?" + +"I don't feel very well, uncle." + +"What's the matter, my boy?" + +"Oh--ah--I don't know. That is, I wish I knew how to tell you." + +I studied him for a few moments with kindly curiosity, then answered: +"Perhaps I can save you the trouble by cross-examining it out of you. +Let's try the method of elimination. I know that you are not harassed by +any economical considerations, for you've all the money you want; and I +know that ambition doesn't trouble you, for your tastes are scholarly. +This narrows down the investigation of your symptoms--listlessness, +general dejection, and all--to three causes: Dyspepsia, religious +conflicts, love. Now is your digestion awry?" + +"No, sir, good as usual. I'm not melancholy on religion and--" + +"You don't tell me you're in love?" + +"Well--yes--I suppose that's about it, Uncle Teddy." + +I took a long breath to recover from my astonishment at this +unimaginable revelation, then said: + +"Is your feeling returned?" + +"I really don't know, uncle. I don't believe it is. I don't see how it +can be. I never did anything to make her love me. What is there in me to +love! I've borne enough for her--that is, nothing that could do her any +good--though I've endured on her account, I may say, anguish. So, look +at it any way you please, I neither am, do, nor suffer anything that can +get a woman's love." + +"Oh, you man of learning! Even in love you tote your grammar along +with you, and arrange a divine passion under the active, passive, and +neuter!" + +Daniel smiled faintly. + +"You've no idea, Uncle Teddy, that you are twitting on facts; but you +hit the truth there; indeed you do. If she were a Greek or Latin woman +I could talk Anacreon or Horace to her. If women only understood the +philosophy of the flowers as well as they do the poetry--" + +"Thank God they don't, Daniel!" sighed out I devoutly. + +"Never mind--in that case I could entrance her for hours, talking about +the grounds of difference between Linnaeus and Jussieu. Women like +the star business, they say--and I could tell her where all the +constellations are; but sure as I tried to get off any sentiment about +them, I'd break down and make myself ridiculous. But what earthly chance +would the greatest philosopher that ever lived have with the woman +he loved, if he depended for her favor on his ability to analyze her +bouquet or tell her when she might look out for the next occultation of +Orion? I can't talk bread and butter. I can't do anything that makes a +man even tolerable to a woman!" + +"I hope you don't mean that nothing but bread and butter talk is +tolerable to a woman!" + +"No; but it's necessary to some extent--at any rate the ability is--in +order to succeed in society; and it is in society men first meet +and strike women. And Uncle Teddy! I'm such a fish out of water in +society!--such a dreadful floundering fish! When I see her dancing +gracefully as a swan swims, and feel that fellows, like little Jack +Mankyn, 'who don't know twelve times,' can dance to her perfect +admiration; when I see that she likes ease of manners--and all sorts of +men without an idea in their heads have that--while I turn all colors +when I speak to her, and am clumsy; and abrupt, and abstracted, and bad +at repartee--Uncle Teddy! sometimes (though it seems so ungrateful to +father and mother, who have spent such pains for me)--sometimes, do you +know, it seems to me as if I'd exchange all I've ever learned for the +power to make a good appearance before her!" + +"Daniel, my boy, it's too much a matter of reflection with you! A woman +is not to be taken by laying plans. If you love the lady (whose name I +don't ask you because I know you'll tell me as soon as you think best), +you must seek her companionship until you're well enough acquainted with +her to have her regard you as something different from the men whom she +meets merely in society, and judge your qualities by another standard +than that she applies to them. If she's a sensible girl (and God forbid +you should marry her otherwise!) she knows that people can't always be +dancing, or holding fans, or running after orange ice. If she's a girl +capable of appreciating your best points (and woe to you if you marry +a girl who can't!), she'll find them out upon closer intimacy, and once +found they'll a hundred times outweigh all brilliant advantages kept in +the showcase of fellows who have nothing on the shelves. When this comes +about, you will pop the question unconsciously, and, to adopt Milton, +she will drop into your lap, 'gathered--not harshly plucked.'" + +"I know that's sensible, Uncle Teddy, and I'll try. Let me tell you the +sacredest of secrets--regularly every day of my life I send her a little +poem fastened round the prettiest bouquet I can get at Hanfts." + +"Does she know who sends them?" + +"She can't have any idea. The German boy that takes them knows not a +word of English except her name and address. You'll forgive me, Uncle, +for not mentioning her name yet? You see she may despise or hate me some +day when she knows who it is that has paid her these attentions; and +then I'd like to be able to feel that at least I've never hurt her by +any absurd connection with myself." + +"Forgive you? Nonsense! The feeling does your heart infinite credit, +though a little counsel with your head would show you that your only +absurdity is self-depreciation." + +Daniel bade me good-night. As I put out my cigar and went to bed, +my mind reverted to the dauntless little Hotspur who had spent the +afternoon with me, and reversed his mother's wish, thinking: "Oh, if +Daniel were more like Billy!" + +It was always Billy's habit to come and sit with me while I smoked my +after-breakfast cigar, but the next morning did not see him enter my +room till St. George's hands pointed to a quarter of nine. + +"Well, Billy Boy Blue, come blow your horn; what haystack have you been +under till this time of day? We shan't have a minute to look over our +spelling together, and I know a boy is going in for promotion next week. +Have you had your breakfast and taken care of Crab?" + +"Yes, sir, but I didn't feel like getting up this morning." + +"Are you sick?" + +"No-o-o--it isn't that; but you'll laugh at me if I tell you." + +"Indeed, I won't, Billy!" + +"Well"--his voice dropped to a whisper and he stole close to my side--"I +had such a nice dream about _her_ just the last thing before the bell +rang; and when I woke up I felt so queer--so kinder good and kinder +bad--and I wanted to see her so much, that if I hadn't been a big boy, I +believe I should have blubbered. I tried ever so much to go to sleep and +see her again; but the more I tried the more I couldn't. After all, I +had to get up without it, though I didn't want any breakfast, and only +ate two buckwheat cakes, when I always eat six, you know, Uncle Teddy. +Can you keep a secret?" + +"Yes, dear, so you couldn't get it out of me if you were to shake me +upside down like a savings-bank." + +"Oh, ain't you mean! That was when I was small I did that. I'll tell you +the secret, though--that girl and I are going to get married. I mean to +ask her the first chance I get. Oh, isn't she a smasher!" + +"My dear Billy, shan't you wait a little while to see if you always like +her as well as you do now? Then, too, you'll be older." + +"I'm old enough, Uncle Teddy, and I love her dearly. I am as old as the +Kings of France used to be when they got married--I read it in Abbott's +history. But there's the clock striking nine! I must run or I shall get +a tardy mark and perhaps she'll want to see my certificate some time." + +So saying, he kissed me on the cheek and set off for school as fast +as his legs could carry him. Oh, Love, omnivorous Love, that sparest +neither the dotard leaning on his staff nor the boy with pantaloons +buttoning on his jacket--omnipotent Love, that, after parents and +teachers have failed, in one instant can make Billy try to become a good +boy! + +With both of my nephews hopelessly enamored and myself the confidant +of both, I had my hands full. Daniel was generally dejected and +distrustful; Billy buoyant and jolly. Daniel found it impossible to +overcome his bashfulness, was spontaneous only in sonnets, brilliant +only in bouquets. Billy was always coming to me with pleasant news, told +in his slangy New York boy vernacular. One day he would exclaim: "Oh, +I'm getting on prime! I got such a smile off her this morning as I went +by the window!" Another day he wanted counsel how to get a valentine to +her--because it was too big to shove in a lamppost and she might catch +him if he left it on the steps, rang the bell, and ran away. Daniel +wrote his own valentine, but, despite its originality, that document +gave him no such comfort as Billy got from twenty-five cents' worth of +embossed paper, pink cupids, and doggerel. + +Finally Billy announced to me that he had been to play with Jimmy and +got introduced to his girl. + +Shortly after this Lu gave what they call "a little company"--not a +party, but a reunion of forty or fifty people with whom the family were +well acquainted, several of them living in our immediate neighborhood. +There was a goodly proportion of young fold and there was to be dancing; +but the music was limited to a single piano played by the German exile +usual on such occasions, and the refreshments did not rise to the +splendor of a costly supper. This kind of compromise with fashionable +gayety was wisely deemed by Lu the best method of introducing Daniel to +the _beau monde_--a push given the timid eaglet by the maternal bird, +with a soft tree-top between him and the vast expanse of society. How +simple was the entertainment may be inferred from the fact that Lu felt +somewhat discomposed when she got a note from one of her guests asking +leave to bring along her niece who was making her a few weeks' visit. As +a matter of course, however, she returned answer to bring the young lady +and welcome. + +Daniel's dressing-room having been given up to the gentlemen, I invited +him to make his toilet in mine, and indeed, wanting him to create a +favorable impression, became his valet _pro tem_., tying his cravat and +teasing the divinity-student look out of his side hair. My little dandy +Billy came in for another share of attention, and when I managed to +button his jacket for him so that it showed his shirt studs "like +a man's," Count d'Orsay could not have felt a greater sense of his +sufficiency for all the demands of the gay world. + +When we reached the parlor we found Pa and Ma Lovegrove already +receiving. About a score of guests had arrived. Most of them were old +married couples which, after paying their devoirs, fell in two like +unriveted scissors, the gentlemen finding a new pivot in pa and the +ladies in ma, where they mildly opened and shut upon such questions as +severally concerned them, such as "The way gold closed" and "How the +children were." + +Besides the old married people there were several old young men, of +distinctly hopeless and unmarried aspect, who, having nothing in +common with the other class, nor sufficient energy of character to band +themselves for mutual protection, hovered dejectedly about the arch +pillars or appeared to be considering whether on the whole it would not +be feasible and best to sit down on the centre-table. These subsisted +upon such crumbs of comfort as Lu could get an occasional chance to +throw them by rapid sorties of conversation--became galvanically active +the moment they were punched up and fell flat the moment the punching +was remitted. I did all I could for them, but, having Daniel in tow, +dared not sail too near the edge of the Doldrums, lest he should drop +into sympathetic stagnation and be taken preternaturally bashful with +his sails all aback, just as I wanted to carry him gallantly into +action with some clipper-built cruiser of a nice young lady. Finally, Lu +bethought herself of that last plank of drowning conversationalists, the +photograph album. All the dejected young men made for it at once, some +reaching it just as they were about to sink for the last time, but all +getting a grip on it somehow and staying there, in company with other +people's babies whom they didn't know, and celebrities whom they knew to +death, until, one by one, they either stranded upon a motherly dowager +by the Fire-Place Shoals, or were rescued from the Sofa Reef by some +gallant wrecker of a strong-minded young lady, with a view of taking +salvage out of them in the German. + +Besides these, were already arrived a dozen nice little boys and girls +who had been invited to make it pleasant for Billy. I had to remind him +of the fact that they were his guests, for, in comparison with the queen +of his affections, they were in danger of being despised by him as small +fry. + +The younger ladies and gentlemen--those who had fascinations to disport +or were in the habit of disporting what they considered such--were +probably still at home consulting the looking-glass until that oracle +should announce the auspicious moment for their setting forth. + +Daniel was in conversation with a perfect godsend of a girl who +understood Latin and had taken up Greek. + +Billy was taking a moment's vacation from his boys and girls, busy with +"Old Maid" in the extension room, and whispering, with his hand in mine, +"Oh, don't I wish _she_ were here!" when a fresh invoice of ladies, just +unpacked from the dressing-room, in all the airy elegance of evening +costume, floated through the door. I heard Lu say: + +"Ah, Mrs. Rumbullion! happy to see your niece, too. How do you do, Miss +Pilgrim?" + +At this last word Billy jumped as if he had been shot, and the bevy of +ladies opening about Sister Lu disclosed the charming face and figure of +the pretty girl we had met at Barnum's. + +Billy's countenance rapidly changed from astonishment to joy. + +"Isn't that splendid, Uncle Teddy? Just as I was wishing it! It's just +like the fairy books!" and, rushing up to the party of new-comers, "My +dear Lottie!" cried he, "if I had only known you were coming I'd have +come after you!" + +As he caught her by the hand, I was pleased to see her soft eyes +brighten with gratification at his enthusiasm, but my sister Lu looked +on, naturally with astonishment in every feature. + +"Why Billy!" said she, "you ought not to call a strange young lady +'_Lottie?_ Miss Pilgrim, you must excuse my wild boy--" + +"And you must excuse my mother, Lottie," said Billy, affectionately +patting Miss Pilgrim's rose kid, "for calling you a strange young lady. +You are not strange at all--you're just as nice a girl as there is." + +"There are no excuses necessary," said Miss Pilgrim, with a bewitching +little laugh. "Billy and I know each other intimately well, Mrs. +Lovegrove, and I confess that when I heard the lady Aunt had been +invited to visit was his mother, I felt all the more willing to +infringe on etiquette this evening, by coming where I had no previous +introduction." + +"Don't you care!" said Billy encouragingly, "I'll introduce you to every +one of our family; I know 'em if you don't." + +At this moment I came up as Billy's reinforcement, and, fearing lest, in +his enthusiasm, he might forget the canon of society which introduced +a gentleman to a lady, not a lady to him, I ventured to suggest +it delicately by saying, "Billy, will you grant me the favor of a +presentation to Miss Pilgrim?" + +"In a minute, Uncle Teddy," answered Billy, considerably lowering his +voice. "The older people first;" and after this reproof I was left to +wait in the cold until he had gone through the ceremony of introducing +to the young lady his father and his mother. + +Billy, who had now assumed entire guardianship of Miss Pilgrim, with an +air of great dignity intrusted her to my care, and left us promenading +while he went in search of Daniel. I, myself, looked in vain for that +youth, whom I had not seen since the entrance of the last comers. Miss +Pilgrim and I found a congenial common ground in Billy, whom she spoke +of as one of the most delightfully original boys she had ever met; in +fact, altogether the most fascinating young gentleman she had seen +in New York society. You may be sure it wasn't Billy's left ear which +burned when I made my responses. + +In five minutes he reappeared to announce, in a tone of disappointment, +that he could find Daniel nowhere. He could see a light through his +keyhole, but the door was locked and he could get no admittance. Just +then Lu came up to present a certain--no, an uncertain--young man of the +fleet stranded on parlor furniture earlier in the evening. To Lu's great +astonishment, Miss Pilgrim asked Billy's permission to leave him. It was +granted with all the courtesy of a _preux chevalier_, on the condition, +readily assented to, that she should dance one Lancers with him during +the evening. + +"Dear me!" exclaimed Lu, after Billy had gone back like a superior +being, to assist at the childish amusement of his contemporaries, "would +anybody ever suppose that was our Billy?" + +"I should, my dear sister," said I, with proud satisfaction; "but you +remember I always was just to Billy." + +Left free, I went myself to hunt up Daniel. I found his door locked +and a light showing through the keyhole, as Billy had said. I made no +attempt to enter by knocking; but, going to my room and opening the +window next his, I leaned out as far as I could, shoved up his sash +with my cane and pushed aside his curtain. Such an unusual method of +communication could not fail to bring him to the window with a rush. +When he saw me, he trembled like a guilty thing, his countenance fell, +and, no longer able to feign absence, he unlocked his door and let me +enter by the normal mode. + +"Why, Daniel Lovegrove, my nephew, what does this mean; are you sick?" + +"Uncle Edward, I am not sick, and this means that I am a fool. Even a +little boy like Billy puts me to shame. I feel humbled to the very dust. +I wish I'd been a missionary and got massacred by savages. Oh, that I'd +been permitted to wear damp stockings in childhood, or that my mother +hadn't carried me through the measles! If it weren't wrong to take my +life into my own hands, I'd open that window and--and--sit in a draught +this very evening! Oh, yes! I'm just that bitter! Oh! Oh! Oh!" + +And Daniel paced the floor with strides of frenzy. + +"Well, my dear fellow, let's look at the matter calmly for a minute. +What brought on this sudden attack? You seemed doing well enough the +first ten minutes after we came down. I was only out of your sight long +enough to speak to the Rumbullion party who had just come in, and when +I turned you were gone. Now you are in this fearful condition. What +is there in the Rumbullions to start you off on such a bender of +bash-fulness as this which I here behold?" + +"Rumbullions indeed!" said Daniel. "A hundred Rumbillions could not make +me feel as I do; but _she_ can shake me into a whirlwind with her little +finger, and _she_ came with the Rumbullions!" + +"What! D'you--Miss Pilgrim?" + +"Miss Pilgrim!" + +I labored with Daniel for ten minutes, using every encouragement and +argument I could think of, and finally threatened him that I would bring +up the whole Rumbullion party, Miss Pilgrim included, telling them +that he invited them to look at his conchological cabinet, unless he +instantly shook the ice out of his manner and accompanied me downstairs. +This dreadful menace had the desired effect. He knew that I would not +scruple to fulfil it; and at the same time that it made him surrender it +also provoked him with me to a degree which gave his eyes and cheeks +as fine a glow as I could have wished for the purpose of a favorable +impression. The stimulus of wrath was good for him, and there was little +tremor in his knees when he descended the stairs. Well-a-day--so Daniel +and Billy were rivals! + +The latter gentleman met us at the foot of the staircase. + +"Oh, there you are, Daniel!" said he, cheerily. "I was just going to +look for you and Uncle Teddy. We wanted you for the dances. We have +had the Lancers twice and three round dances; and I danced the second +Lancers with Lottie. Now we're going to play some games to amuse the +children, you know," he added loftily with the adult gesture of pointing +his thumb over his shoulder at the extension room. "Lottie's going to +play, too, so will you and Daniel, won't you, uncle? Oh, here comes +Lottie now! This is my brother, Miss Pilgrim; let me introduce him to +you. I'm sure you'll like him. There's nothing he don't know." + +Miss Pilgrim had just come to the newel post of the staircase, and when +she looked into Daniel's face blushed like the red, red rose, losing her +self-possession perceptibly more than Daniel. + +The courage of weak warriors and timid gallants mounts as the opposite +party's falls, and Daniel made out to say, in a firm tone, that it was +long since he had enjoyed the pleasure of meeting Miss Pilgrim. + +"Not since Mrs. Cramcroud's last sociable, I think," replied Miss +Pilgrim, her cheeks and eyes still playing the telltale. + +"Oho! so you don't want any introduction," exclaimed Master Billy. I +didn't know you knew each other, Lottie." + +"I have met Mr. Lovegrove in society. Shall we go and join in the +plays?" + +"To be sure we shall!" cried Billy. "You needn't mind; all the grown +people are going to." + +On entering the parlor we found it as he had said. The guests being +almost all well acquainted with each other, at the solicitation of +jolly little Mrs. Bloomingal, Sister Lu had consented to make a pleasant +Christmas kind of time of it, in which everybody was permitted to be +young again and romp with the rompiest. We played Blindman's-buff till +we tired of that--Daniel, to Lu's great delight, coming out splendidly +as Blindman, and evincing such "cheek" in the style he hunted down and +caught the ladies, as satisfied me that nothing but his sight stood in +the way of his making an audacious figure in the world. Then a pretty +little girl, Tilly Turtelle, who seemed quite a premature flirt, +proposed "Doorkeeper"--a suggestion accepted with great _éclat_ by all +the children, several grown people assenting. + +To Billy--quite as much on account of his shining prominence in the +executive faculties of his character, as host--was committed the duty +of counting out the first person to be sent into the hall. There were so +many of us that "Aina-maina-mona-mike" would not go quite around; +but with that promptness of expedient which belongs to genius, Billy +instantly added on "Intery-mintery-cutery-corn," and the last word of +the cabalistic formula fell upon me, Edward Balbus. I disappeared into +the entry amid peals of happy laughter from both old and young, calling, +when the door opened again to ask me who I wanted, for the pretty, +lisping flirt who had proposed the game. After giving me a coquettish +little chirrup of a kiss and telling me my beard scratched, she bade me, +on my return, send out to her "Mither Billy Lovegrove." I obeyed her; +my youngest nephew retired and, after a couple of seconds, during which +Tilly undoubtedly got what she proposed the game for, Billy being +a great favorite with the little girls, she came back pouting and +blushing, to announce that he wanted Miss Pilgrim. The young lady +showed no mock modesty, but arose at once and laughingly went out to her +youthful admirer, who, as I afterward learned, embraced her ardently and +told her he loved her better than any girl in the world. As he turned +to go back she told him that he might send to her one of her juvenile +cousins, Reginald Rumbullion. Now, whether because on this youthful +Rumbullion's account Billy had suffered the pangs of that most terrible +passion, jealousy, or from his natural enjoyment of playing practical +jokes destructive of all dignity in his elders, Billy marched into the +room, and, having shut the door behind him, paralyzed the crowded parlor +by an announcement that Mr. Daniel Lovegrove was wanted. + +I was standing at his side and could feel him' tremble--see him turn +pale. + +"Dear me!" he whispered, in a choking voice; "can she mean me?" + +"Of course she does," said I. "Who else? Do you hesitate? Surely you +can't refuse such an invitation from a lady." + +"No; I suppose not," said he, mechanically. And, amid much laughter from +the disinterested, while the faces of Mrs. Rumbullion and his mother +were spectacles of crimson astonishment, he made his exit from the room. +Never in my life did I so much long for that instrument, described +by Mr. Samuel Weller--a pair of patent, double-million magnifying +microscopes of hex-tery power, to see through a deal door. Instead of +this I had to learn what happened only by report. + +Lottie Pilgrim was standing under the hall burners with her elbow on the +newel-post, more vividly charming than he had ever seen her before, at +Mrs. Crajncroud's sociable or elsewhere. When startled by the apparition +of Mr. Daniel Lovegrove instead of little Rumbullion whom she was +expecting--she had no time to exclaim or hide her mounting color, none +at all to explain to her own mind the mistake that had occurred, before +his arm was clasped around her waist and his lips so closely pressed to +hers that, through her soft, thick hair she could feel the throbbing of +his temples. As for Daniel, he seemed in a walking dream, from which he +waked to see Miss Pilgrim looking into his eyes with utter, though +not incensed stupefaction,--to stammer, "Forgive me! do forgive me! I +thought you were in, earnest." + +"So I was," she said tremulously, as soon as she could catch her voice, +"in sending for my cousin Reginald." + +"Oh dear, what shall I do! Believe me, I was told you wanted me. Let +me go and explain it to mother. She will tell the rest--I couldn't do +it--I'd die of mortification. Oh, that wretched boy Billy!" + +On the principle already mentioned, his agitation reassured her. + +"Don't try to explain it now--it may get Billy a scolding. Are there any +but intimate family friends here this evening?" + +"No--I believe--no--I'm sure," replied Daniel, collecting his faculties. + +"Then I don't mind what they think. Perhaps they'll suppose we've known +each other long; but we'll arrange it by and by. They'll think the more +of it the longer we stay out here--hear them laugh! I must run back now. +I'll send you somebody." + +A round of juvenile applause greeted her as she hurried into the parlor, +and a number of grown people smiled quite musically. Her quick woman's +wit told her how to retaliate and divide the embarrassment of the +occasion. As she passed me she said in an undertone: + +"Answer quick! Who is that fat lady on the sofa who laughed so loud?" + +"Mrs. Cromwell Craggs," said I, quietly. + +Miss Pilgrim made a satirically low courtesy and spoke in a modest but +distinct voice: + +"I really must be excused for asking. I'm a stranger, you know; but is +there such a lady here as Mrs. Craggs--Mrs. _Cromwell_ Craggs? For, if +so, the present doorkeeper would like to see Mrs. Cromwell Craggs." + +Then came the turn of the fat lady to be laughed at; but out she had to +go and get kissed like the rest of us. Before the close of the evening +Billy was made as jealous as his parents and I were surprised to see +Daniel in close conversation with Miss Pilgrim among the geraniums and +fuchsias of the conservatory. + +"A regular flirtation," said Billy, somewhat indignantly. The conclusion +which they arrived at was that after all no great harm had been done, +and that the dear little fellow ought not to be peached on for his fun. +If I had known at the time how easily they forgave him, I should have +suspected that the offence Billy had led Daniel into committing was not +unlikely to be repeated on the offender's own account; but so much as I +could see showed me that the ice was broken. + +Billy's jealousy did not outlast the party. He became more and more +interested in "his girl," and often went in the afternoon, after getting +out of school, ostensibly to play with Jimmy. Daniel's calls, according +to adult etiquette, made in the evening, did not interfere with my +younger nephew's, and as neither knew that the other, after his fashion, +was his most uncompromising rival, my position, as the confidant of +both, was one of extreme delicacy. But the matter was more speedily +settled than I expected. + +Billy came to me one day and told me that he intended to get married +immediately; that he was going to speak to his Lottie that very +afternoon. He was prepared to meet every objection. He had asked his +father if he might, and his father said yes, if he had money enough to +support a wife--and Billy thought he had. He'd saved up all the money +his Uncle Jim and Aunt Jane had sent him for Christmas; and besides, if +he were once married, his father wouldn't see him want for stamps, he +knew. Then, too, he was going to leave school and be a merchant next +year--and I'd help him now and then, if he got hard up, wouldn't I? +If he were driven to it, he could be a good boy again, and save up the +money to buy Lottie presents with, instead of giving it to nasty old +"Objecks." He was so much older than when he had the savings-bank that +he ought to have at least ten cents a day now for being good; didn't +I think that was fair? As to his age, if Lottie loved him, he didn't +care--anyway he would be lots bigger than she was before long--and he'd +often heard his ma say she approved of early marriages; hers and pa's +was one. So he ran off up Livingston Place, the most undaunted lover +that ever put an extra shine on his proposal boots, or spent half an +hour on the bow of his popping necktie. + +Shortly after, Daniel went into the street. Not meaning to call upon his +_inamorata_, but drawn by the irresistible fascination of passing her +house, he strolled in the direction that Billy had gone. As he came to +the Rumbullions', something suddenly bade him enter--a whim he called +it, but not his own--one of the whims of destiny which are always +gratified. + +"Yes, sir," said the servant, "Miss Pilgrim is in, I will call her." + +His step was always light. He passed noiselessly into the front parlor +and sat down among the heavy brocatelle curtains which shadowed the +recess of one of the windows. He supposed Miss Pilgrim to be upstairs, +and while his heart fluttered, expecting her footfall at the particular +door, he heard an earnest boyish voice in the inside room. Looking from +his concealment he beheld Miss Pilgrim on a sofa in the pier and sitting +by her side, with her hand clasped in his, his brother Billy. Before he +could avoid it, he became aware that Billy was unconsciously but eagerly +forestalling him. + +"Now, Lottie, my dear Lottie! I wish you would! I'll do everything I can +to make you happy. If you'll only marry me, I'll be good all the +time! Come now! Say yes! Father's got a really nice place over the +stable--they only use it for a tool room now; we could clear it out and +have it scrubbed and go to housekeeping right away. Ma'd let us have all +her old set of chinai I've got a silver mug Uncle Teddy gave me and a +napkin ring and four spoons. As soon as I make my money I'll buy a nice +carriage and horses, any color you want 'em. Oh, my darling, darling +Lottie, I do love you so much and we could have such a splendid time! Do +say yes, Lottie--please, _do_ please!" + +Miss Pilgrim looked at the earnest little suitor with a face in +which tender interest and compassion quite overrode any sense of +the whimsicality of the situation which might lurk there. Daniel's +astonishment at the sight was so great that he realized the entire state +of the case before he could recover himself sufficiently to rise and go +into the back room. + +Billy jumped up and looked defiantly at the intruder. Miss Pilgrim +blushed violently, but turned away her head to avoid the exhibition of a +still more convulsing emotion than embarrassment. + +"I must beg your pardon, Miss Pilgrim--and yours, too, Billy," began +Daniel in a hesitating way, hardly knowing how to treat the posture in +which he found things, "but--you see--the fact is the servant said she'd +go to announce me--and really when I came in, I hadn't any idea you were +here, or Billy either." + +"Then," said Billy, moderating the defiant attitude, "you actually +weren't dodging around and trying to find out what Lottie and I were +about on the sly? Well, I'll believe you. I'm sure you couldn't be as +mean as that, when I'm the only brother you have got, that always brings +you oranges when you're sick, and never plays ball on the stairs when +you've got a headache. Now, then, I'll trust you, I've been asking +Lottie to marry me, and I want you to help me. Ask her if she won't, +Daniel--see if she won't do it for you!" + +Miss Pilgrim had been trying to find words, but her face was too much +for her and she was obliged to seek retirement in her handkerchief. As +she drew it from her pocket, a well-worn piece of paper followed it and +fell upon the floor. Billy picked it up before she noticed it, and +was about to hand it to her, when his jealous eye fell upon a withered +rosebud sewed to its margin. As he looked at it, with his little +brows knit into a precocious sternness, he recognized his brother's +handwriting immediately beneath the flower. It was one of the daily +anonymous sonnets, of which Daniel had told me, and the bud a relic of +the bouquet accompanying it. Still Daniel was silent. What else could he +be? + +"Very well, very well, Master Daniel!" exclaimed Billy, in a voice +trembling with grief and indignation, "there's good enough reason why +you won't speak a word for me. You want her yourself--here it is in your +own writing. No wonder you won't tell Lottie to be my wife, when you're +trying to take her away from me. Oh, Lottie, dear Lottie! I love you +just as much as he does, though I don't know everything and can't write +you poetry like it was out of the Fifth Reader! Daniel, how could you +go and write to my Lottie this way: 'My churner'--no, it isn't churner, +it's charmer,--'let me call thee mine'?" + +Forgetting the sacredness of private MS. in that of private grief, +he would have gone on, with a pause here and there for certainty of +spelling, to the conclusion of the poem, had not Lottie sprung up, with +her imploring face suffused by her discovery, for the first time, of +the identity of her secret lover and the escape of his sonnet from her +pocket. It was too late! There he stood before her unmistakably proved, +and herself unmistakably proving in what estimation she held his verses +and bouquets. + +"Oh Billy, dear Billy! If you do love me, don't do so!" So exclaiming, +she held out her hand, and Billy put the MS. into it with all the +dignity of a wounded spirit. + +"Mr. Lovegrove," said Miss Pilgrim, "I don't know what to say." + +"I feel very much that way myself," said Daniel. + +"_I_ don't," said Billy, now in command of his voice. "I'll tell +you what it is: perhaps Daniel didn't know how much I wanted you, +Lottie--and perhaps he wants you 'most as bad as I do. But whatever way +it is, I want you to choose between us, fair and square, and no dodging. +Come now! You can take just whichever one of us you please, and the +other won't lay up any grudge, though I know if that's me, or like me, +he'll feel awful. You can have till to-morrow morning to make up your +mind between me and Daniel, and if he won't say anything about it to pa +and ma till then, I won't. Good-by, _dear_ Lottie!" + +He drew her face down to his, kissed her almost affectionately and then +marched out of the door, feeling, as he afterward told me, as if he +had blackened his boots all for nothing. Ah me! my dear Billy, how many +times we do that in this world! Of what followed when Daniel and Miss +Pilgrim were left alone, I have never had full details. + +But I do know that the young lady obeyed Billy and made her choice. Six +months after that both my nephews stood up in Mrs. Rumbullion's parlor +to take their several shares in a ceremony in which Miss Pilgrim was +the central figure when it began, and Mrs. Daniel Lovegrove when it +concluded. Time and elasticity of boyhood had so closed the sharp but +evanescent wound in Billy's heart that he could stand the trial of being +groomsman where he had wanted to be groom--more especially since he +was supported through the emergency by a little sister of Lottie's who +promised to be wondrously like her by the time Billy could stand up in +the more enviable capacity. Neither Daniel nor Lottie would listen to +any objection to such a groomsman on the score of his extreme youth, +for, as they said, Billy had been quite as instrumental in bringing them +together as any agent, save the Divinity shaping the ends and tying all +the knots in which there are heartstrings concerned, as well as white +ribbon. + +Since then Lu has stopped wishing that Billy were like Daniel, for she +says that if he had been, there would never have been any Mrs. Daniel +Lovegrove in the world. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Brace Of Boys, by Fitz Hugh Ludlow + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BRACE OF BOYS *** + +***** This file should be named 23170-8.txt or 23170-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/1/7/23170/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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