FRANCIS RICHARD STOCKTON.
OPULAR among the writers of lighter fiction in modern times, who have delighted the multitudes from the realms of childhood to almost every walk of life, few authors have been more prolific and generally popular than the illustrator of “Vanity Fair” and the author of “The Lady or the Tiger.”
Frank Stockton (for with the masses he is plain “Frank”) was born in Philadelphia, Pa., April 5, 1834. He had the benefit of only such educational training as the public schools and the Central High School of that city afforded. Originally, his ambition was to be an engraver, and he devoted a number of years to that calling,—engraving and designing on wood for the comic paper published in New York City, before the war, under the title of “Vanity Fair.” He also made pictures for other illustrated periodicals; and at the same time he also did literary and journalistic work, his first connection being with the Philadelphia “Post.” In 1872 he abandoned his engraving altogether to accept an editorial position on the New York “Hearthstone,” and later he joined the staff of “Scribner’s Monthly,” which has since been converted into the “Century Magazine.” He was also made assistant editor of “St. Nicholas Magazine,” when it was established in 1873, in connection with Mary Mapes Dodge, the famous child writer. In 1880 Mr. Stockton resigned his editorial position to devote himself to purely literary work. Since that time he has been before the world as a contributor to magazines on special topics and as a writer of books.
Few authors have been more industrious than Frank Stockton. During the last thirty years his fertile imagination and busy pen have contributed at least one new book almost every year, frequently two volumes and sometimes three coming out in the course of twelve months. His first published volume was a collection of stories for children issued in 1869 under the title of “Ting-a-Ling Stories.” Then came “Round About Rambles;” “What Might Have Been Expected;” “Tales Out of School;” “A Jolly Fellowship;” “The Floating Prince;” “The Story of Viteau;” and “Personally Conducted.” The above are all for young people and were issued between 1869 and 1889. Many now grown-up men and women look back with pleasant recollections to the happy hours spent with these books when they were boys and girls.
Of the many other volumes of novels and short stories which Mr. Stockton has written, the following are, perhaps, the best known: “Rudder Grange” (1879); “Lady or the Tiger and Other Stories” (1884); “The Late Mrs. Mull” (1886); “The Christmas Wreck and Other Tales” (1887); “The Great War Syndicates” (1889); “Stories of Three Burglars” (1890); “The Merry Chanter” (1890); and following this came “Ardis [♦]Claverden,” and since that several other serial novels have been published in the magazines.
[♦] ‘Cloverden’ replaced with ‘Claverden’
Mr. Stockton has also written some poetry; but he is pre-eminently a story-teller, and it is to his prose writings that he is indebted for the popularity which he enjoys. His stories are direct and clear in method and style, while their humor is quiet, picturesque and quaint.
THE END OF A CAREER.[¹]
(FROM “THE MERRY CHANTER.”)
[¹] The Century Co., New York. Copyright, Frank R. Stockton.
OR two years Doris and I had been engaged to be married. The first of these years appeared to us about as long as any ordinary year, but the second seemed to stretch itself out to the length of fifteen or even eighteen months. There had been many delays and disappointments in that year.
We were both young enough to wait and both old enough to know we ought to wait; and so we waited. But, as we frequently admitted to ourselves, there was nothing particularly jolly in this condition of things. Every young man should have sufficient respect for himself to make him hesitate before entering into a matrimonial alliance in which he would have to be supported by his wife. This would have been the case had [♦]Doris and I married within those two years.
[♦] ‘Dorris’ replaced with ‘Doris’
I am by profession an analyzer of lava. Having been from my boyhood an enthusiastic student of mineralogy and geology, I gradually became convinced that there was no reason why precious metals and precious stones should not be found at spots on the earth where nature herself attended to the working of her own mines. That is to say, that I can see no reason why a volcano should not exist at a spot where there were valuable mineral deposits; and this being the case, there is no reason why those deposits should not be thrown out during eruptions in a melted form, or unmelted and mixed with the ordinary lava.
Hoping to find proof of the correctness of my theory, I have analyzed lava from a great many volcanoes. I have not been able to afford to travel much, but specimens have been sent to me from various parts of the world. My attention was particularly turned to extinct volcanoes; for should I find traces of precious deposits in the lava of one of these, not only could its old lava beds be worked, but by artificial means eruptions of a minor order might be produced, and fresher and possibly richer material might be thrown out.
But I had not yet received any specimen of lava which encouraged me to begin workings in the vicinity in which it was found.
My theories met with little favor from other scientists, but this did not discourage me. Should success come it would be very great.
Doris had expectations which she sometimes thought might reasonably be considered great ones, but her actual income was small. She had now no immediate family, and for some years lived with what she called “law kin.” She was of a most independent turn of mind, and being of age could do what she pleased with her own whenever it should come to her.
My own income was extremely limited, and what my actual necessities allowed me to spare from it was devoted to the collection of the specimens on the study of which I based the hopes of my fortunes.
In regard to our future alliance, Doris depended mainly upon her expectations, and she did not hesitate, upon occasion, frankly and plainly to tell me so. Naturally I objected to such dependence, and anxiously looked forward to the day when a little lump of lava might open before me a golden future which I might honorably ask any woman to share. But I do not believe that anything I said upon this subject influenced the ideas of Doris.
The lady of my love was a handsome girl, quick and active of mind and body, nearly always of a lively mood, and sometimes decidedly gay. She had seen a good deal of the world and the people in it, and was “up,” as she put it, in a great many things. Moreover, she declared that she had “a heart for any fate.” It has sometimes occurred to me that this remark would better be deferred until the heart and the fate had had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with each other.
We lived not far apart in a New England town, and calling upon her one evening I was surprised to find the lively Doris in tears. Her tears were not violent, however, and she quickly dried them; and, without waiting for any inquiries on my part, she informed me of the cause of her trouble.
“The Merry Chanter has come in,” she said.
“Come in!” I ejaculated.
“Yes,” she answered, “and that is not the worst of it; it has been in a long time.”
I knew all about the Merry Chanter. This was a ship. It was her ship which was to come in. Years ago this ship had been freighted with the ventures of her family, and had sailed for far-off seas. The results of those ventures, together with the ship itself, now belonged to Doris. They were her expectations.
“But why does this grieve you?” I asked. “Why do you say that the coming of the ship, to which you have been looking forward with so much ardor, is not the worst of it?”
“Because it isn’t,” she answered. “The rest is a great deal worse. The whole affair is a doleful failure. I had a letter to-day from Mooseley, a little town on the sea-coast. The Merry Chanter came back there three years ago with nothing in it. What has become of what it carried out, or what it ought to have brought back, nobody seems to know. The captain and the crew left it the day after its arrival at Mooseley. Why they went away, or what they took with them, I have not heard, but a man named Asa Cantling writes me that the Merry Chanter has been lying at his wharf for three years; that he wants to be paid the wharfage that is due him; and that for a long time he has been trying to find out to whom the ship belongs. At last he has discovered that I am the sole owner, and he sends to me his bill for wharfage, stating that he believes it now amounts to more than the vessel is worth.”
“Absurd!” I cried. “Any vessel must be worth more than its wharfage rates for three years. This man must be imposing upon you.”
Doris did not answer. She was looking drearily out of the window at the moonlighted landscape. Her heart and her fate had come together, and they did not appear to suit each other.
I sat silent, also, reflecting. I looked at the bill which she had handed to me, and then I reflected again, gazing out of the window at the moonlighted landscape.
It so happened that I then had on hand a sum of money equal to the amount of this bill, which amount was made up not only of wharfage rates, but of other expenses connected with the long stay of the vessel at Asa Cantling’s wharf.
My little store of money was the result of months of savings and a good deal of personal self-denial. Every cent of it had its mission in one part of the world or another. It was intended solely to carry on the work of my life, my battle for fortune. It was to show me, in a wider and more thorough manner than had ever been possible before, what chance there was for my finding the key which should unlock for me the treasures in the storehouse of the earth.
I thought for a few minutes longer, and then I said, “Doris, if you should pay this bill and redeem the vessel, what good would you gain?”
She turned quickly towards me. “I should gain a great deal of good,” she said. “In the first place I should be relieved of a soul-chilling debt. Isn’t that a good? And of a debt, too, which grows heavier every day. Mr. Cantling writes that it will be difficult to sell the ship, for it is not the sort that the people thereabout want. And if he breaks it up he will not get half the amount of his bill. And so there it must stay, piling wharfage on wharfage, and all sorts of other expenses on those that have gone before, until I become the leading woman bankrupt of the world.”
“But if you paid the money and took the ship,” I asked, “what would you do with it?”
“I know exactly what I would do with it,” said Doris. “It is my inheritance, and I would take that ship and make our fortunes. I would begin in a humble way just as people begin in other businesses. I would carry hay, codfish, ice, anything, from one port to another. And when I had made a little money in this way I would sail away to the Orient and come back loaded with rich stuffs and spices.”
“Did the people who sailed the ship before do that?” I asked.
“I have not the slightest doubt of it,” she answered; “and they ran away with the proceeds. I do not know that you can feel as I do,” she continued. “The Merry Chanter is mine. It is my all. For years I have looked forward to what it might bring me. It has brought me nothing but a debt, but I feel that it can be made to do better than that, and my soul is on fire to make it do better.”
It is not difficult to agree with a girl who looks as this one looked and who speaks as this one spoke.
“Doris,” I exclaimed, “if you go into that sort of thing I go with you. I will set the Merry Chanter free.”
“How can you do it?” she cried.
“Doris,” I said, “hear me. Let us be cool and practical.”
“I think neither of us is very cool,” she said, “and perhaps not very practical. But go on.”
“I can pay this bill,” I said, “but in doing it I shall abandon all hope of continuing what I have chosen as my life work; the career which I have marked out for myself will be ended. Would you advise me to do this? And if I did it would you marry me now with nothing to rely upon but our little incomes and what we could make from your ship? Now, do not be hasty. Think seriously, and tell me what you would advise me to do.”
She answered instantly, “Take me, and the Merry Chanter.”
I gave up my career.
