STAGE X.—WHICH BRINGS MR. HERON TO A HIGH POINT IN THE ROAD
CONTINUED my studies in New York for a year and a half. My growth, like McCarthy's, had been forced a little by the pressure of hard experience, and I was more serious and more thoughtful and observing, possibly, than boys of my age were apt to be. When I returned to Rushwater I had some knowledge of banking and bookkeeping, and the power and purpose of corporations, and, indeed, of the whole theory of business—not so much as I thought I had, of course, for no man has struck the right balance in the big ledger of his own mind until it is nearly full. He is so apt to overcredit himself and forget some of the charges. Well, in spite of that, I had things on the right side, and, among other items, my phonography, for my hand could follow the tongues of the orators, and that was a pace for you! Those days New York was full of prophets. I went to hear them for the sake of practice, and gathered reams of florid eloquence.
It is curious how I clung to that boy love in my heart. My sister had gone to Merrifield to visit a school friend, and met Jo, since when they had written letters to each other. So all my best news came roundabout, and was never too much, but always enough to sustain my passion.
There were perils in the big city for one of my age without a home, but this thing in my heart gave me good counsel. Whatever others may have thought of her, to me she was like Pallas to the Greek—a divinity—and I had to be worthy of her. I had met good people, and seen a bit of the best life of the city through my mother's uncle, Mr. Schermerhorn, and gathered knowledge of the amenities for my friend McCarthy.
Once again I had seen Mr. Vanderbilt when his famous Mountain Gal was to race near Coney Island. I took the horse-cars in Brooklyn, and went as far as they would carry me on my way to the track, and tramped down the road while others raced along in every kind of vehicle. It was after the hour, and the crowd had passed me, and I had not far to go, when along came the Commodore in his gig. I raised my hat to him, and he pulled up beside me.
“Have a ride, boy?” he asked.
I thanked him and got in, and away we sped. “Going to the race?” he inquired.
“Yes, sir. I want to see your horse go.”
“You know me?”
“Yes. You remember the big map?”
“Oh, I see you was somebody I knew. Great boy—that young Irishman. He'll make his mark. Have you a ticket?”
“No,” I said.
“Never mind; I'll fix it.”
So I entered with him in his gig, and he took me to the club-house and found a seat for me.
Next day I returned to my home in Hearts-dale, and hoped while there to go to Merrifield and see the Colonel and Jo. I was much taken down to learn from my sister that they had sailed for Liverpool the day before.
I was ready for my career at Rushwater, and my mother and sister were going to live with me in a snug house which the hand-made gentleman had built and furnished for us.
I called upon Judge Crocket and presented my compliments. Mr. Boggs and the soldiers were playing old sledge in a corner. All eyes were turned upon me. The Judge asked how I was getting along, and greeted my answer with a little smile of incredulity. His smiles at time had the gleam of steel and cut like a chisel; but I wanted to make friends, and said:
“I have thought it over, and made up my mind that you were very kind to me.”
“Oh, you have!” he answered, as if caring little what I thought.
Now I had meant to be polite, but his indifference stung me, and I added:
“Yes; you sent me out of bad business and worse company. I am grateful. You men who live in the shadow of death don't know how pleasant the world is. I want to thank you.” Judge Crocket began to carve the air with his chisel. “You're a scamp, sir,” he declared. “You wrote that 'scurrilious' poem about the dance at Jones'. It was an outrage—an outrage!”
“I deserve no such credit,” was my answer. “I did not write the poem, and, if it hurt your feelings, I am glad that I know nothing of its authorship. But you have no right to complain. For years you have been cutting people to the bone with sharp criticism. You seem to think well of no one. You have said things about me that were undeserved and scandalous.”
The Judge had resumed his cutting, and the wrinkles in his face had deepened, but he made no answer. Mr. Boggs nudged his neighbor and looked up at me with a smile, in which amusement was mingled with contempt.
I left the shop, and found Swipes and some of our old companions waiting for me outside the door. Swipes had grown so that I scarcely knew him.
“How are you and the shingle-nail?” I asked.
“The nail an' I have gone out of partnership,” he answered. “I don't worry any more about that nail. I used to lie awake nights thinking of it. By-and-by I forgot it, and was all right. I drawed the nail out o' my mind, as ye might say, and have had no more trouble.”
Swipes had gone into deeper water than he knew. From that moment I began to draw the shingle-nails out of my own mind; the opposition of Boggs and Crocket was, after all, a little matter. What kind of man was I in fact?—there was the important thing, not what they thought of me. Death and his angels were ever striving to pull one down. I would not let them halt or baffle me for a moment. I had my belt on the great engine of life, as Pearl had told me, and I knew it would whirl me on.
So from that day I permitted little things to worry me no longer, but gave my strength wholly to greater issues. I forgot the shingle-nails.
The boys had heard of my adventure on the high rope, and now regarded me with a kind of awe, and put many queries. I answered them with a sense of sadness and humility that there was nothing else in my career which they thought it worth while to ask about.
On the whole, I was not sorry to leave the village of Heartsdale. It was greatly changed. The burned area was pretty well covered with new buildings. One man had left a black, dirty, charred ruin flush with the sidewalk in the very centre of the main street, and refused either to remove it or permit it to be removed. He blamed the firemen and the pump and everybody in the village for the loss of his store, and there stood the ruin for a punishment—a black memorial of his blacker scorn.
New faces were on every side. A steam-mill had come, and morning, noon, and night one could hear the peal of its whistle. The first waves of power had reached the little town. Instead of being content with its small farmer-traffic, the town itself had become a producer, and was shipping doors and blinds and sashes, and boats and canoes, and rough and dressed lumber to distant places. A new act was beginning in the great drama of the republic.
When we started for Rushwater there were at least a score of the friends and schoolmates of my sister who went to the station for a last word with us. There was not a prettier miss in the north country than that very sister of mine—save Jo, the incomparable Jo!
The hand-made gentleman met us at the depot in Rushwater, and drove us to our new home with a fine coach and pair.
“What a change!” said my sister, when he had left us for the night. “He has grown positively handsome and is a real gentleman.”
Success and observation and right thinking, above all, had distinguished the man—James Henry McCarthy. Something—was it the tireless upreach of his thought?—had straightened his figure and raised his chin a little, and covered him with a strong, calm dignity, as with a robe of higher office, and tuned his voice for new appeals, so that even I was surprised and got a little touch of awe, and felt my smallness when I took his hand. I spoke of these things and of my feeling.
“Well,” said my mother, “the only real gentleman is 'hand-made,' as he puts it. After all, one cannot inherit much of that. One has to begin, soon or late, and build slowly and patiently, putting one stone on another, just as Mr. McCarthy has done.”