By the boys who formed his chief customers Grizzly was popularly supposed to be very rich, and the one fault they had to find with him was that he hoarded his gains in a miserly fashion, spending not a cent more than was absolutely necessary to provide himself and his aunt with the simple necessaries of life. Here, however, they misjudged Ephraim, for though it was true that he scraped and pinched and denied himself to put aside some small proportion of his not very extensive means, yet there was a purpose in what he did, and his motives were very different from those which the boys in their thoughtless way ascribed to him.
The fact was that poor Ephraim’s soul was fired with one strong and overmastering ambition. He longed to rise in the world. He dimly recognised his own powers, and felt within himself a capacity for progress which he could not but see was denied to the bulk of his fellow-workers. His shrewdness early taught him the value of money as a means to this end, and while others spent and squandered, he added dollar after dollar to his little hoard, and watched with keen satisfaction the slowly accumulating pile.
He was known to almost everybody in Staunton—there being few homes which did not possess some proof of his skill in handicraft—and he was a general favourite on account of his unfailing good-nature. For though careful, or mean as some called it, with his money, he was always willing to give the work of his hands, and many were the small boys whose happiness had been rendered unbounded by the acquisition of some precious plaything, for which they could not afford to pay, but which Ephraim had not the heart to deny them.
Still, though many sought his acquaintance, Grizzly allowed himself the luxury of but one friend, the only boy, perhaps, in all Staunton who thoroughly understood and properly appreciated him, Lucius Markham. And him Ephraim simply worshipped. The contrast between the two was almost absurd, for Lucius was what is called a gentleman, and with his fair hair, blue eyes, and aristocratic bearing, stood out in curious relief beside the rough working-lad whom he had selected for his crony. Yet the two were inseparable, and Lucius, who was three years younger than Ephraim, and high-spirited and self-willed, would listen to no remonstrances on the part of his parents, who looked askance upon this ill-assorted companionship, but spent as much of his spare time as he possibly could by Ephraim’s side, often in the latter’s little workshop, where he watched admiringly the processes which neither could his head understand nor his hands execute.
As for Ephraim, Lucius was his hero, and he adored him with a dog-like affection, which the other, though he certainly returned it, yet received with a lofty air of patronage, as became the son and heir of so important a personage as Mr Markham of Markham Hall.
When the war broke out, the enthusiasm of the two lads knew no bounds. The Staunton artillery, in which Mr Markham held a commission, had been almost the first to take the field, and had played an important part in the capture of Harper’s Ferry and the arsenal. Lucius had therefore a personal interest in the war from the very beginning, and great indeed was his delight when he was allowed to pay a visit to his father at the camp at Harper’s Ferry, where the impetuous young Southerners were receiving their first lessons in the art of real war from generals and captains who were afterwards destined to write their names large upon the scroll of Fame.
On his return to Staunton, Lucius flew to the house of his friend, burning to impart his new experiences.
‘Hello, Aunty Chris!’ he shouted, bursting into the little cabin where the old woman sat darning Ephraim’s socks. ‘Where’s Grizzly?’
‘Hyar I am,’ said Ephraim, coming out of his den with a jack-plane in one hand and a piece of walnut wood in the other. ‘How ye comin’ along, Luce?’ he added, his eyes beaming affectionately upon his friend.
‘Oh!’ cried Lucius, not troubling to return the salute, ‘I tell you I’ve had such a time at the Ferry. They are all there—father, and General Harper, and General Harman, and Captain Imboden, and all the rest of them; and Major Jackson of the Military Institute way down in Lexington has been made a colonel and put in command over the whole lot of them. They didn’t like it at first, but they’ve got used to it now, and my! don’t he just make them work. They were having a picnic before he came, but I guess he didn’t help to whip the Mexicans for nothing.’