My Uncle Florimond

by Henry Harland

I must hasten over the next year. Of course, as the weeks and months slipped away, I gradually got more or less used to the new state of things, and the first sharp edge of my grief was dulled. The hardest hours of my day were those spent at table with Uncle Peter—alone with him, in a silence broken only by the clinking of our knives and forks. These were very hard, trying hours indeed. The rest of my time I passed out of doors, in the company of Sam Budd, our gardener's son, and the other village boys. What between swimming, fishing, and running the streets with them, I contrived to amuse myself after a fashion. Yet, for all that, the year I speak of was a forlorn, miserable year for me; I was far from being either happy or contented. My first violent anguish had simply given place to a vague, continuous sense of dissatisfaction and unrest, like a hunger, a craving, for something I could not name. That something was really—love: though I was not wise enough to know as much at the time. A child's heart—and, for that matter, a grown-up man's—craves affection as naturally as his stomach craves food; I did not have it; and that was why my heart ached and was sick. I wondered and wondered whether my present mode of life was going to last forever; I longed and longed for change. Somehow to escape, and get across the ocean to my Uncle Florimond, was my constant wish; but I saw no means of realizing it. Once in a while I would think, “Suppose I write to him and tell him how wretched I am, and ask him to send for me?” But then a feeling of shame and delicacy restrained me.

Another thing that you will easily see about this year, is that it must have been a very unprofitable one for me from the point of view of morals. My education was suspended; no more study, no more 'lessons. Uncle Peter never spoke of sending me to school; and I was too young and ignorant to desire to go of my own accord. Then, too, I was without any sort of refining or softening influence at home; Julia, our cook, being my single friend there, and my uncle's treatment of me serving only to sour and harden me. If, therefore, at the end of the year in question I was by no manner of means so nice a boy as I had been at the beginning of it, surely there was little cause for astonishment. Indeed, I imagine the only thing that kept me from growing altogether rough and wild and boisterous, was my thought of Uncle Florimond, and my ambition to be the kind of lad that I believed he would like to have me.

And now I come to an adventure which, as it proved, marked the point of a new departure in my affairs.

It was early in April, 1872. There had been a general thaw, followed by several days of heavy rain; and the result was, of course, a freshet. Our little river, the Yantic, had swollen to three—in some places even to four—times its ordinary width; and its usually placid current had acquired a tremendous strength and speed. This transformation was the subject of endless interest to us boys; and every day we used to go and stand upon the bank, and watch the broad and turbulent rush of water with mingled wonder, terror and delight. It was like seeing an old friend, whom we had hitherto regarded as a quite harmless and rather namby-pamby sort of chap, and been fearlessly familiar with, suddenly display the power and prowess of a giant, and brandish his fists at us, crying, “Come near me at your peril!” Our emotions sought utterance in such ejaculations as “My!” “Whew!” and “Jimminy!” and Sam Budd was always tempting me with, “Say, Gregory, stump ye to go in,” which was very aggravating. I hated to have him dare me.

Well, one afternoon—I think it was on the third day of the freshet—when Sam and I made our customary pilgrimage down through Captain Josh Abingdon's garden to the water's edge, fancy our surprise to behold a man standing there and fishing. Fishing in that torrent! It was too absurd for anything; and instantly all our wonder transferred itself from the stream to the fisherman, at whom we stared with eyes and mouths wide open, in an exceedingly curious and ill-bred manner. He didn't notice us at first; and when he did, he didn't seem to mind our rudeness the least bit. He just looked up for a minute, and calmly inspected us; and then he gave each of us a solemn, deliberate wink, and returned his attention to his pole, which, by the way, was an elaborate and costly one, jointed and trimmed with metal. He was a funny-looking man; short and stout, with a broad, flat, good-natured face, a thick nose, a large mouth, and hair as black and curling as a negro's.

He wore a fine suit of clothes of the style that we boys should have called cityfied; and across his waistcoat stretched a massive golden watch-chain, from which dangled a large golden locket set with precious stones.

Presently this strange individual drew in his line to examine his bait; and then, having satisfied himself as to its condition, he attempted to make a throw. But he threw too hard. His pole slipped from his grasp, flew through the air, fell far out into the water, and next moment started off down stream at the rate of a train of steam-cars. This was a sad mishap. The stranger's face expressed extreme dismay, and Sam and I felt sorry for him from the bottom of our hearts. It was really a great pity that such a handsome pole should be lost in such a needless fashion.

But stay! All at once the pole's progress down stream ceased. It had got caught by an eddy, which was sweeping it rapidly inward and upward toward the very spot upon the shore where we stood. Would it reach land safely, and be recovered? We waited, watching, in breathless suspense. Nearer it came—nearer—nearer! Our hopes were mounting very high indeed. A smile lighted the fisherman's broad face. The pole had now approached within twenty feet of the bank. Ten seconds more, and surely—But again, stay! Twenty feet from the shore the waters formed a whirlpool. In this whirlpool for an instant the pole remained motionless. Then, after a few jerky movements to right and left, instead of continuing its journey toward the shore, it began spinning round and round in the circling current. At any minute it might break loose and resume its course down stream; but for the present there it was, halting within a few yards of us—so near, and yet so far.

Up to this point we had all kept silence. But now the fisherman broke it with a loud, gasping sigh. Next thing I heard was Sam Budd's voice, pitched in a mocking, defiant key, “Say, Gregory, stump ye to go in.” I looked at Sam. He was already beginning to undress.

No; under the circumstances—with that man as a witness—I could not refuse the challenge. My reputation, my character, was at stake. I knew that the water would be as cold as ice; I knew that the force of its current involved danger to a swimmer of a sort not to be laughed at. Yet my pride had been touched, my vanity had been aroused. I could not allow Sam Budd to “stump” me with impunity, and then outdo me. “You do, do you?” I retorted. “Well, come on.” And stripping off my clothes in a twinkling, I plunged into the flood, Sam following close at my heels.