John Tincroft, bachelor and benedict

by George E. Sargent

Now, I am not at all sure that Matthew had any real ground of complaint against his "own boy." At the best of times, perhaps, the old farmer had been an avaricious man; and it is notorious that the vice of avarice grows as age advances. No doubt it is true that as we brought nothing with us into the world, so it is certain we can carry nothing out of it. But there is as little doubt that we (not you and I, reader, who don't love money at all, but I at this present moment identify myself with those who do) like to retain our hold of what we have got as long as we can, and to increase it if it lies in our power. So, I daresay, Matthew Wilson was altogether under a mistake concerning George's too great sharpness. Nevertheless, George lay under the stigma.

As to Alfred and James, they had stuck to the farming, as they had always said they would do; and had managed by this time to have farms of their own—wives and children also, no doubt. But as our history has not hitherto concerned itself about these scions of the Wilson stock, we may take short notice of them here.

The mother of these young men plodded on by her husband's side on the down-hill of life, not altogether without her troubles and vexations. Among these minor miseries of human existence was the completest conviction, amounting to certainty, that servant girls were good-for-nothing, that education had ruined them out and out, that all the learning people of that sort needed to be taught, if it didn't come by nature, was to know how to wash, and brew, and bake, and scour and scrub, and milk cows, and churn, and so forth from morning to night. If they wanted anything else by way of recreation, hadn't they got their clothes to mend and their stockings to darn? If they wanted any teaching of another sort, they could go to church on Sundays, when their mistresses could spare them, and get it there. As to their sitting down, Sundays or work-a-days, with a book in their hands, as they were let to do in some houses (not in hers, she was thankful to say), she hadn't patience with it. But she knew what would come of it: mistresses would soon be maids, and maids mistresses. She only hoped the world would last out her time.

I should explain that this somewhat violent philippic was called forth on one particular occasion, when a Sunday school was started in the village by the successor of our venerable friend Mr. Rubric. For this worthy gentleman (who was aged when we first made his acquaintance) had departed this life some three or four years before the time in our history at which we have arrived. Another had entered on the scene of his labours, a younger man, and with a good many whims (I am using Mrs. Matthews expression, "a good many whims") in his brain, among which was the very old one that "for the soul to be without knowledge is not good."

Now, Mr. Rubric had held the same opinion, and had taught the people sound doctrine in his weekly ministration and his frequent visitations; and also in his careful supervision of the village national school, but he had not ventured so far as to "set up a Sunday school." (Mrs. Matthew's phrase again, not mine.) And this was going so far in advance of that good lady's ideas that she could not, at first, restrain her indignation. Mr. Newcome was, no doubt, a good man in his way—he could not be otherwise, seeing he was in the Church—and he preached good sermons, no doubt, if folks could only understand them. But, for all that, give her back her dear old Mr. Rubric. Ah! There were no parsons like the old ones that were dying out, stock and branch. She didn't know whether the railroads that there was such a talk about had anything to do with it. She should not wonder if they had; and if they had, it was no more than was to be expected; and it was all the worse for them. They had enough to answer for—taking away people's lives, as they were said to do—without having that!

Another sign of the degeneracy of the times, according to Mrs. Matthew, was that the cows didn't yield so much milk by half as they used to do; and that the milk, little as it was, did not produce so much cream; and that the cream didn't make such butter as when she was young. Moreover, the best sorts of potatoes were dying out, and the potato disease was coming in, which was a sign the world was in, or approaching unto, its last stage of decrepitude (not Mrs. Matthew's expression); and all she could hope was that it would last her time.

Now, all these fancies were harmless enough, though rather tiresome, perhaps, in their re-re-reiteration. And if Mrs. Matthews had remembered a certain piece of advice given in an old book about not saying that the former days were better than the present, she might have modified her views. But she did not remember this, and as it probably afforded the good old lady some satisfaction to dwell upon these imaginary grievances, I do not know that you and I, friend, need find fault with her.

We shall be old some day, if we live long enough; and then, perhaps, other story-tellers, now in their cradles, will be saying the same things of us.

Mrs. Matthew's troubles already mentioned were, after all, theoretical, and I am inclined to think she did not half believe in them herself. There was another nearer home which I shall only hint at, rather than dwell upon. Her daughter Elizabeth had become, more and more, a thorn in her side. Not that there was any positive unkindness of heart between the two, but there was much heart-burning at times. For one thing, the old farmer's wife had sometimes great difficulty in upholding her supreme authority at Low Beech, in all domestic affairs. And if it is true that two kings cannot sit upon the same throne, it is equally certain that a household does not get on at all times very amicably where there are two mistresses.

And so there were times when near approaches were made to disruption, for Elizabeth, as we have seen, was warm-tempered, and she declared, again and again, that she would go out to service, that she would, rather than be so put upon at home, and be looked upon as nothing and nobody. And though these passages of arms, or rather of tongue, ended in each party cooling down for the time, the burning discontent remained, ready to break out again on sufficient or insufficient occasion.