Harry Fenimore's Principles

by Isabel Thompson Hopkins

“I don’t know about it, though,” he added to himself, under his breath, as he discovered something to which he had been quite blind before, but which stood out so plainly now that he did not see how Tom could fail to see it for another moment. Everything had been going on swimmingly on his side, up to that moment; but there stood his queen in the very line of march of one of Tom’s bishops, and not a piece of any size to interfere! If Tom would only continue blind to his opportunity for one move more, till there should be time for a masterly retreat!

Poor little Tom! He did not look like an antagonist much to be dreaded, as he sat vis-a-vis to Hal, with not only an anxious, but a bewildered expression upon his face, first lifting a hand towards one of his pieces, and then withdrawing it, as if his uncertainty had only doubled by the movement. At last, in a sort of desperation, he made a plunge at his only remaining knight and moved it into a worse position than it occupied before. Then, still more hopelessly perplexed by Hal’s chuckle of triumph at the escape of his queen, and his taunting, “A’n’t you a bright fellow to play with!” he made two or three aimless moves, and Hal cried “Checkmate!” in a tone that completed his humiliation. It was very unpleasant somehow; he wondered if the player who did not checkmate always felt so. If he did, Tom certainly thought chess a very disagreeable game. So he slipped down from his chair and told Hal, who was still rejoicing in the conclusion of things, that he thought he must go.

“Don’t go,” said Hal, “let’s play another.”

“I guess I can’t; I guess I must go,” said Tom; and finding his hat, he got out of the front door, and heard it close behind him with a miserable feeling that seemed to run down to the very depths of his pockets, to the effect that Hal and himself had a clear understanding between them that he was a stupid little fellow, and that a good player was more than a match for him.

When Hal came back to the library, rubbing his hands with renewed triumph as he glanced at the chess-board, he also saw through the open door of the dining-room, that dinner had been brought in, and that his was the only vacant seat at the table.

So scrambling the pieces into their box, he made haste to take his place, apologizing for his tardiness by saying that he had been to the door with Tom.

“But, Hal,” said Mrs. Fenimore, as if a sudden thought struck her, “why don’t you sometimes invite one of the boys who know the game better? you seem always to have some little atom of a fellow who has not played three games in his life, and you have nothing to do but beat him.”

“That’s the very fun of it,” replied Hal; “I beat Tom all out just now, and sent him home feeling meaner than the fag end of nothing. That’s the way of course if you ever come across a fellow that isn’t smart enough to defend himself.”

“Why, Hal Fenimore! Do you say such a thing as that? You certainly never learned such principles at home, and I should be very sorry to think you had gathered them up since you came to be with your uncle and me.”

“I didn’t know it was principles,” said Hal, coming down a little from his high horse of complacency; “I never thought anything about it, in any way, only a fellow always likes to make another feel a little shabby if he can, because then he feels finer himself.”