She punctuated this with reproving glances at Tom, to which, however, he paid not the smallest attention.
“But you know, Solomon,” he said artfully, “if you only had your money where you could draw on it, you wouldn’t have to work as you do now. They keep you trotting pretty lively at the farm, don’t they? And I’ll warrant Aunt Katharine finds you chores enough when you’re at her house.”
The little man’s face was clear again. Here, at least, was a point on which he had no misgiving. “Law, Thomas,” he said, “I—I like to keep busy. Why, there ain’t a bit o’ sense in a body bein’ all puffed up and thinkin’ he’s too good to work like other folks jest ’cause he’s rich. ’Tain’t your own doings, being rich, leastways not all of it. It’s partly the way things happen, and then it’s the disposition you’ve got. That’s the way I look at it. And it always ’peared to me,” he added, with the most touching simplicity, “that, when a body’s rich as I be, he or’ to do a leetle more ’n common folks to sort o’ try ’n’ pay up for it.”
“Mr. Ridgeway,” exclaimed Stella—it was impossible after this to let that graceless brother say another word—“would you mind showing us some of your pretty things right now? My cousins never saw them, and I’m sure they’d enjoy it ever so much.”
The countenance of Solomon Ridgeway was aflame with pleasure. He lowered his box from his shoulders and unstrapped it with a childish eagerness. “Why, I—I’d be proud to, Miss Stella,” he said, with a hurrying rapture. Then, looking about for a suitable place of exhibition, he added, “Jest come under that big chestnut tree over there, and I’ll spread ’em all out so you can see ’em.”
It was not huckleberrying, but something much more unique, which engaged them for the next half hour. The collection which Solomon Ridgeway drew from his box and spread before their dazzled eyes was a marvel of tinsel and glitter. There were brooches and rings and chains enough to have made the fortune of half a dozen pedlers; trumpery stuff, most of it, but what of that?
The owner was not one to let a carping world settle for him the value of his treasure. There was paste that gleamed like diamonds in settings burnished like the finest gold, and there were the colors of topaz and emerald and sapphire and ruby. Who cared whether they flashed in bits of glass or in stones drawn from the mines? They were things of beauty for a’ that, and they filled their owner’s soul with joy. He had gathered them slowly through the savings of earlier years, and the gifts of friends; he loved them every one, and believed them to be of fabulous value.
“They ain’t all I’ve got, you know. There’s a lot more,” he said repeatedly; and then he rubbed his hands together and smiled upon his audience with the air of a Crœsus demanding, “Do you know any one richer than I?”
It was impossible not to wish to give him pleasure, and more than once the girls exclaimed over the beauty of some trinket. Esther was especially warm in her admiration, and there was no insincerity in her words when she said: “I think you have some perfectly lovely things, Mr. Ridgeway. I don’t wonder you prize them, and I’m sure that little girl who is sick will thank you all her life for letting her see them.”
He had almost forgotten his friend on the other side of the hill. He gathered up his treasures now with a sudden remembrance, lifted his box to his shoulders again and was off, turning back again and again to make his little bow, half of pomposity and half of humility, as he hurried away.