My Young Master: A Novel

by Opie Percival Read

"I am glad to find the weather so delightful," said the doctor. "I have just come from a place where icicles were hanging from the eaves."

"I should think that you would be likely to find places too warm," Bob spoke up.

The doctor glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. "Well, that depends," he replied, casting about for something else to say but not finding it upon demand. "Some of us are influenced by one thing and some by another," he added, still skirmishing. "But youth is often too much lacking in judgment to estimate its surroundings—the dangers that lie about, I might say. Talk comes early but sense follows very slowly along." He had evidently found something to please him for he smiled at Old Master, who, without a word, still sat looking at him. "Yes," said Young Master, "sense not being so light of foot has a hard time trying to overtake wordiness and there are cases where it does not succeed."

The doctor gave Bob a mere glance and addressed himself to Old Master. "Since I have been traveling about," said he, "and particularly when I have gone East, I have been compelled to listen to sharp criticisms passed upon Southern society. They say our life is most unnatural, our society, feverish; and they laugh at our intellectual intercourse—say that our conversation is more observant of color than of sense, and that our young men are taught to stride on sophomoric stilts. Of course I was strong in my defense, but I couldn't hide an inward acknowledgement of a part of these strictures. Our young men do attempt to stand off the ground when they talk."

"It makes no difference to me what an envious person may find fit to say," Old Master replied. "We of the South have our way of thinking and talking and are willing to grant that privilege to other men. Why the deuce don't these people come on to breakfast?"

From the rear veranda came the voices of Old Miss, Mr. Clem and the preacher. "Dan," Old Master commanded, "tell them to come on here."

I hastened away, glancing back to see Young Master boring the doctor with a look. Mr. Clem and the preacher were warm in an argument and Old Miss was standing near, supporting the views of the preacher, but was, I could see, persistent with suggesting that they give over the contest and go to breakfast. And when I stepped forward with the announcement that Old Master had sent for them, Mr. Clem said, "All right, soon as I blow out my tobacco," and ducking his head over the "banister," he snorted out his quid and swore that he was as hungry as either of the she-bears that ate up the forty children. The minister would have stayed to rebuke him for this irreverence, but being himself pinched by appetite, gave him merely a look of reproof and struck a trot for the breakfast table.

The doctor had met Old Miss and the two men earlier in the morning. He smiled at Old Miss, nodded at the preacher and addressing Mr. Clem, said that he had ever wanted to meet him. Mr. Clem made no reply until he had spread a napkin upon his knees, and then he said: "Well, sir, you see me now, not quite as good a man as I have been, perhaps, but pretty spry and ready to whet the edge of my judgment against every gritty substance I come across. What do you know about a horse, sir?"

"Not a great deal, although I have owned several racers," the doctor answered. Mr. Clem looked at him, moving back a little so that he could measure him from head to foot. And when the survey was completed to the satisfaction of the surveyor, he blurted forth his estimate: "The case of a man who hasn't improved his time very much, I reckon. But you like a good horse, pretty well, I take it."