Crusoe in New York, and other tales

by Edward Everett Hale

As pretty a girl as there was in Ohio. And how much that says!

Brunette, or of that tendency, yet with blue eyes. And how much that says!

Tall and strong, not too plump, but still not scrawny, nor as a skeleton in clothing. I do not say that she could whip her weight in wild-cats; I do not know. Of that breed of animals few are left in Ohio, thanks to the prowess of the grandmothers of the present generation. But I do say that of the mother of the mother of Hester Bryan, of whom I write, this eulogy was simple truth. The Puma concolor, or native catamount of those regions, had yielded a hundred times before her prowess. And this I will add,—that Hester Bryan was just a bit taller and prettier than her mother, as she, in her day, was taller and prettier than hers. For there are worlds of life in which

"Nature gives us more than all she ever takes away."

Now do not go to thinking that Hester Bryan was a great strapping Amazon, and looked like a female prize-fighter. She was tall, and she was strong, and she was graceful as the Venus of the Porta Portese, if by good luck you ever saw her.

And she was as good as pretty; and she was the queen of the whole town, because she was pretty and good, and so bright. She never set herself up as grander than the other girls, and all the other girls set her up as the queen of their love and worship.

And the boys? Oh, that was of course. But then there were no "pretenders," as the French say. All that was settled long ago—as long ago as when she wore a sun-bonnet, and walked barefoot to school. Horace would always be waiting for her at the Five Corners, with the largest and ripest raspberries, or with whatever other offering was in season. As long ago as when he made his first canoe, there would hang under her window, before breakfast, great bunches of the earliest pond-lilies. As soon as it would do for these young folks to go on sleigh-rides, it was in Horace's cutter that Hester always rode. And when Hester sang in the choir, she always stood at the right hand of the altos, and just across the passage stood Horace, at the left hand of the tenors. Not a young man in the village interfered with Horace's pre-emption there. But not a young man in the village who did not stand by Horace as loyally as the girls stood by Hester; and if he had needed to summon a working party to build a bridge across a slue, that Hester might walk dry-shod with a white slipper on, why, all the young men of the neighborhood would be there as soon as Horace wound his horn.

A nice girl at the West once wrote me to ask why all the good young men, who were bright and spirited and nice, were in my books, and why, in fact, the bright boys, who knew something and could do something and could be something—in short, were agreeable—were apt to be lounging round liquor saloons in the village when they should be better employed. I told her, of course, to wait a little; that she was looking through some very small key-hole. How I wish that my unknown correspondent could have seen Horace Ray! He was handsome, he was bright, he was strong, he was steady, he was full of fun; he could read French well, and could talk German, and he knew enough Latin. And yet he did not lounge round a liquor saloon, and the minister was glad, and not sorry, that he sung in the choir.

When this story begins, Horace Ray was twenty-two years old, and Hester Bryan was twenty-one. I know that that is dreadfully old for a story, but how can I help that? Do you suppose I make it up as I go along? If they did not choose to be married when he was eighteen and she seventeen, can I help that? The truth is, that Hester's father was a man who liked to have his own way, and in some things had it. He had not had it in making a large fortune, though he had always tried for that. In that business he had failed,—had failed badly. He was always just close to it; but always, just as he touched the log on which he was to stand erect, quite out of the water, the log was pushed away by his touch, and floated quite out of reach, he paddling far behind. Hester's mother was in heaven, or things might have been made easier for her. As it was, her father would not hear of her marrying Horace till Horace should have something better than expectations, till he was fixed in a regular business, with a regular income. Perhaps Ohio is now so far established as a conservative and old-fashioned country that most fathers of charming girls in Ohio will agree with him. Yet I never heard of any one's starving in Ohio. They do say that no one was ever hungry there!

Because of this horrible sentence of old Mr. Bryan—because of this—the happiest day of Horace's life was the day when he could come, at last, to Hester, and could tell her that he was appointed assistant engineer on the Scioto Valley Railroad, with a salary of one thousand dollars a year, to be increased by one hundred dollars at the end of the first year. Here was the "regular income in the regular business," and now all would be well. Would she be married in church, or would she rather go to Columbus, to be married quietly? For his part, he was all ready; he would like to be married that day.