Edith and John: A Story of Pittsburgh

by Franklin Smith Farquhar

"I fully intended to, Mr. Jarney, at the first opportunity of breaking in on our line of conversation," said John.

"I am very happy to report she is growing better every hour," said Mr. Jarney, turning on his heel and walking across the room again, and returning, with a freshly lighted cigar in his mouth.

"I wish her well," replied John, and then he halted in what he intended to say further—halted for a moment only, when he asked: "Mr. Jarney, with your permission, I should like to see Miss Jarney, once in awhile during her illness. May I have the wish granted?"

"I have no objection—while she is ill," he answered, with that singular proviso attached.

Then he sat down, and took up his work. At noon he asked John to lunch with him. John accepted, and lunched. At four p. m. he asked John to accompany him home for dinner. John accepted, and went.

The combination of circumstances surrounding John's intimacies with the Jarney family was very indefinable to him, at first. But, as the days passed, he was slowly and assuredly convinced that his services as employe of that man of wealth were not of the sordid kind alone. Mr. Jarney's condescending manner, his straight-forwardness, his implicit faith in him, his good will toward him, his extinguishment of form, all showed to him that he was not so unapproachable as might be believed by any young man of the qualities of John Winthrope.

Possessed with an unquenchable desire to do that which is right, honest, honorable, or justifiable, John pursued a course that ever kept him in good favor. He did not do this with any preconceived plan, or scheme, to accomplish a purpose, but it was through an inherent prepossession of his makeup. Through the days he labored with great assiduity to get results; through the evenings he studied with great concentration on his subjects—always busy, always ready to answer a call, or a summons. All these traits in him, Mr. Jarney was not slow in perceiving, and he gave encouragement, as he would, like any other man of his mould, to any one who showed the same relative adaptation and faithfulness. Mr. Jarney looked upon John as having many parts worth cultivating. As he had, for a long time, been gleaning in the field of young manhood for such a reaping, he now considered, since he acquired John, that he had harvested a good sheaf of wheat when he garnered him; and he purposed, if all continued straight in him, to flail out his true worth, if the throwing out of opportunity would be effectually grasped. But while he had these views concerning such material for his purpose, he, at no time, thought that his daughter would, in any manner, enter into the proposition. He would not have thought of compromising his views on business with his paternal ideas; nor would he ever have condoned himself, or his wife, should either have entertained an iota of a notion that it were necessary to bring her name into such mercenary transactions.

By reason of the extraordinary events, however, that had come to pass, anent his daughter, he was perforce compelled to extenuate any qualifying conducements that might connect her with whomsoever claimed the privilege of being his second, as John was, in business. His amiableness toward John during the past few days might be interpreted in one particularity by the reader; which is, that he was encouraging that young man to press his suit for his daughter's hand; but this is farther from the thought than that he would give her away to any young profligate who might ask the favor of him. He was, withal, a true father, in its supremest meaning. He loved his daughter. He granted her every reasonable wish. He even went so far as to make unrelenting enemies among the Four Hundred, of which he was considered a worthy member, by discanting and discouraging their form of pleasures for the young men and women, and looking with disfavor upon the youths who paid his daughter the least attention. One of his most unpardonable offenses, in this connection, was his unsparing resentment toward Jasper Cobb's persistency in wanting to pay court to Edith, with matrimonial intent. The Cobbs could not, naturally, forgive him for such treatment of their young hopeful, who was just then strewing his pathway with the wildest kind of oats. And, as if fortune never failed him, Edith and her mother, coincided with him. This attitude of theirs, therefore, gave him the greatest kind of pleasure, and enhanced his inclination to stop at nothing that would satisfy their claims to his patronage.

The foregoing statement is made to show what manner of man he was with his family; but not to excuse him for the manner of man he was with his business associates. So, in showing favors toward his secretary, he acted from a double possibility, i. e.: one to have a trustworthy employe in a very important position; the other to curry favor with a very lovable daughter, who had an independence that might run wild on a clear trackage of his own building.

He had asked John to lunch with him that day mostly to be generous. He had asked him to his home again mostly for the good that his going might do for his afflicted child, in her hallucination. Nothing more. He did these things in such a cheerful way, and in such an unusual manner, that John was confounded. And he did it without reckoning the consequences, as many fathers act in the excitable moments of their infinite love for their offspring.