Mercy Philbrick's Choice

by Helen Hunt Jackson

"Are you Mrs. Philbrick?"

"Yes," said Mercy. "Did you wish to see me?"

The woman hesitated a moment, as if trying to phrase her sentence, and then burst out impetuously, with a flood of tears,--

"Won't you come and help me make my husband come home. He is so sick, and I believe he will die in that wretched old garret."

Mercy looked at her in blank astonishment, and her first thought was that she must be insane; but the woman continued,--

"I'm Mrs. Wheeler. You never saw me before, but my husband's talked about you ever since he first saw you on the street, that day. You're the only human being I've ever known him take a fancy to; and I do believe, if anybody could do any thing with him, you could."

It seemed that, in addition to all his other eccentricities, "Old Man Wheeler" had the habit of disappearing from his home at intervals, leaving no clew behind him. He had attacks of a morbid unwillingness to see a human face: during tkese attacks, he would hide himself, sometimes in one place, sometimes in another. He had old warehouses, old deserted mills and factories, and uninhabited rooms and houses in all the towns in the vicinity. There was hardly any article of merchandise which he had not at one time or another had a depot for, or a manufactory of. He had especially a hobby for attempting to make articles which were not made in this country. It was only necessary for some one to go to him, and say, "Mr. Wheeler, do you know how much this country pays every year for importing such or such an article?" to throw him into a rage.

"Damned nonsense! Damned nonsense, sir. Just as well make it here. I'll make it myself." And up would start a new manufacture, just as soon as he could get men to work at it.

At one time it was ink, at another time brushes, then chintz, and then pocket-books; in fact, nobody pretended to remember all the schemes which the old man had failed in. He would stop them as instantaneously as he began them, dismiss the workmen, shut up the shops or the mills, turn the key on them just as they stood, very possibly filled full of material in the rough. He did not care. The hobby was over: he had proved that the thing could be made in America, and he was content. It was usually in some one of these disused buildings that he set up his hermitage in these absences from home. He would sally out once a day and buy bread, just a pittance, hardly enough to keep him alive, and then bury himself again in darkness and solitude. If the absence did not last more than three or four days, his wife and sons gave themselves no concern about him. He usually returned a saner and healthier man than he went away. When the absences were longer, they went in search of him, and could usually prevail on him to return home with them. But this last absence had been much longer than usual before they found him. He was as cunning and artful as a fugitive from justice in concealing his haunt. At last he was discovered in the old garret store-room over the Brick Row. The marvel was that he had not died of cold there. He was not far from it, however; for he was so ill that at times he was delirious. He lay curled up in the old stack of comforters in the corner, with only a jug of water and some crumbs of bread by his side, when they found him. He had been so ill when he last crawled up the stairs that he had forgotten to take the key out of the keyhole, but left it on the outside, and by that they found him. At the bare suggestion of his going home, he became so furious that it seemed unsafe to urge it. His wife and eldest son had stayed there with him now for two days; but he had grown steadily worse, and it was plain that he must die unless he could be properly cared for.

"At last I thought of you," said the poor woman. "He's always said so much about you; and once, when I was riding with him, he pointed you out to me on the street, and said he, 'That's the very nicest girl in America.' And he told me about his giving you the clock; and I never knew him give any thing away before in his whole life. Not but what he has always been very good to me, in his way. He'd never give me a cent o' money; but he'd always pay bills,--that is, that was any way reasonable. But I said to 'Siah this morning, 'If there's anybody on earth can coax your father to let us take him home, it's that Mrs. Philbrick; and I'm going to find her.' 'Siah didn't want me to. The boys are so ashamed about it; but I don't see any shame in it. It's just a kind of queer way Mr. Wheeler's always had; and everybody's got something queer about 'em, first or last; and this way of Mr. Wheeler's of going off don't hurt anybody but himself. I got used to 't long ago. Now, won't you come, and try and see if you can't persuade him? It won't do any harm to try."