“And how did they work?”
“Oh, I forgot everything as soon as I got into the house, of course,” he answered wearily, as though he were dreadfully slow in learning to be polite. “She came up to me, and stood so close that I hadn’t room to bow. When her mother came in, she shook hands, and I couldn’t have bowed to her without pushing over my chair. It was a total failure, though I am improving. I take off my hat now before going in at the gate. I am under contract to go there to-morrow night, and you shall accompany me. I have a new suit of clothes, too. They arrived a few days after I came here; I asked Barker who sent them, and he said he supposed it must have been God.
“Jo,” I said, “you are very happy here, I can see it already.”
“I confess that I am,” he replied; “more contented than I ever expected to be anywhere. I am useful to Barker (so he is kind enough to say, at least), and he told me to-day that he intends to pay me wages from the time I came, instead of compelling me to work a long while for nothing. Yes, I am very happy here; you have guessed my secret.”
I was heartily glad of it, and said so, and added that no one deserved it more.
“But after all there is nothing like a fairy story in it; nothing unreal, and nothing that is likely to melt away, and leave me a drudge at Fairview again. I am simply in a place where, if I work hard, I shall get something for it. Every one ought to have that opportunity, therefore it is not too much to hope that my good fortune may continue. I should have been as comfortably situated as I am now a good many years ago (no one is so unworthy that he does not deserve pay for what work he does well), but I have learned nothing, and earned nothing, until now, though I am almost a man grown.”
Jo had been a full hand on the farm for several years, but he never received anything for it, except complaints, and I understood what he meant.
“But I want to talk to you about Mateel; I think a great deal about her. It’s very odd, but it is very true. At home, and at your house, the poorest corner was too good for Jo; with her the best is too poor. I should be very ungrateful did she not occupy my thoughts a great deal. Though she is a lady and I only a rough country boy, she is so considerate of me that I cannot help loving her, though it is very presuming in me, I fear. I feel as though I were visiting a queen when I go there, but she makes me so welcome that I soon forget myself, and imagine I am a king. All of my ambition is connected with her now. If I hope to become a worthy man, and well-to-do, it is that she may be proud of me, and feel that I have worked to please her; if I study Barker’s books diligently by the light of this lantern at night, it is that I may become more intelligent, and worthy of the good opinion she has of me. I dream of nothing pleasant in which she does not have a part. If I fancy I am happy, she is beside me, and the cause of it; if I have grown rich and great in a night, I am only glad of it because it will please Mateel. Always and everywhere, when my better part is uppermost, she is in my thoughts, but never when I am contemptible in any way. There seems to be no doubt, in short, that I am desperately in love.”
I had suspected this for some time, though I pretended to be greatly surprised.
“I have never said anything to her about it,” he continued. “Maybe I never shall, but, ignorant as I am, I can see she is glad to see me when I go there, and she would not invite me back so cordially if she could not tolerate me. It is very pleasant for an ignorant fellow like me to be friends with a refined lady like Mateel. I never thought there was anything in life equal to it. She does not seem to know but that I am of a good family, but I intend to tell her honestly and truly some time what an unfavored fellow I am.”