“Vail, now I tell you what I do. I found out de public schools open for de season next Monday morning. Vail, next Monday morning I take you up to de public school in Fifty-first Street, and I get you aidmitted. And now I tell you what I do. If you study real hard, and get A-number-vun marks, and cratchuate all right when de time comes—vail, den I send you to college! Me and Solly, we talked it all ofer, and dot's what we made up our minds we oughter do. Dere ain't nodings like a good education, Kraikory; you can bet ten tousand tollars on dot. When I was your age I didn't haif no chaince at vun; and dot's why I'm so eeknorant. But now you got de chaince, Kraikory; and you go ahead and take advaintage of it. My kracious! When I see you cratchuate from college, I'll be so prout I von!t know what to do.”
I leave you to form your own opinion of Mr. Finkelstein's generosity, as well as of the gratitude that it inspired in me. Next Monday morning I entered the public school in Fifty-first Street, and a little less than two years later—namely, in the spring of 1874—I graduated. I had studied “real hard,” and got “A-number-vun” marks; Mr. Finkelstein was as good as his word, and that same spring I passed the examinations for admission to the Introductory Class of the College of the City of New York.
Well, there! In a couple of sentences I have skipped over as many years; and not one word about the hero of my story!
“But what,” I can hear you ask, “what of your Uncle Florimond in all this time? Had you given up your idea of going to him? had you forgotten your ideal of him—had he ceased to be a moving force in your life?”
No; to each of these questions my answer must be a prompt and emphatic no.
I had not by any means given up my idea of going to him; but I had, for reasons that seemed good, put off indefinitely the day of my departure. Two or three weeks after my arrival at Mr. Finkelstein's I wrote Uncle Florimond a letter, and told him of the new turn that my affairs had taken. I did not say anything about my Uncle Peter's treatment of me, because I felt somehow reluctant to let him know how unjust and unkind his own sister's son, my own father's brother, could be, and because, also, I thought it would be scarcely fair and above-board for me to tell tales, now that our bygones were bygones. I simply said that I had left Norwich, and come to New York, and gone into business; and that my purpose was to earn a lot of money just as quickly as I could, and then to set sail for France.
I received no answer from him till about six months afterward; and in this he said that he was glad I meant to come to France, but he thought it was a pity that I should go into business so early in my youth, for that must of course interrupt my education.
I hastened to reply that, since I had written my former letter to him, my outlook had again changed; that my kind and liberal employer had sent me to school, where I was working as hard as I knew how, with the promise of a college course before me if I showed proper zeal and aptitude.
I had to wait more than a year now for his next epistle; but it came at last one day towards the close of the vacation that intervened between my graduation from school and the beginning of my career at college.
“I have been ill and in trouble, my dear little nephew,” he wrote, “since the reception of thy last letter so good and so gentle; and I have lacked both the force and the heart to write to thee. At this moment at length it goes better; and I seize the first occasion to take my pen. The news of the progress which thou makest in thy studies gives me an infinite pleasure, as does also thy hope of a course at the university. And though I become from more to more impatient to meet thee, and to see with my proper eyes the grandson of my adored sister, I am happy, nevertheless, to force myself to wait for an end so precious. That thou mayst become a gentleman well-instructed and accomplished, it is my sincere desire; for it is that, I am sure of it, which my cherished sister would most ardently have wished. Be then industrious; study well thy lessons; grow in spirit as in body; remember that, though thy name is different, thou art the last of the la Bourbonnaye. I astonish myself, however, that thy Uncle Peter does not charge himself with the expenses. Is it that he has not the means? I have believed him very rich.