University of Virginia Library

11. XI.

The funeral was over, and it was almost night when Mr.
Randall returned from the country, having availed himself more
largely of the horse and buggy than he at first intended, by
taking several widely separate points, where errands called him,
in his route. Mrs. Randall came too, and with her the great
basket, but not empty, as she had taken it.

The poor animal had been driven mercilessly, and, dripping
with sweat, and breathing hard, gladly turned to his young
master and rubbed his face against his caressing hand.

It was no very cordial greeting which the son gave the
parents, and they in turn were little pleased with him, for any
special liking is not to be concealed even from the commonest
apprehension, and the attachment of Helph and Jenny had
lately become an unquestionable fact.

“What in the devil's name are we to do with that girl, mother?
she don't earn her salt,” said Mr. Randall.

Their first inquiries on entering the house had been for Jenny,
and Helph, with provoking purpose, had simply said she was
not at home. Words followed words, sharper and faster, until
Mr. Randall, with an affirmation that need not be repeated, said
he would suffer his house to be her home no longer; if she
could not be trusted with the care of it for a day, she was not
worthy to have any better place than the pig-sty in which her
parents lived.

“I always told you,” interposed the wife, “that girl was a
mean, low-lived thing; and it was none of my doings, the taking

her from the washing-tub, where she belongs, and making her
as good as any of us. I tell you them kind of folks must be
kept down, and I always told you so.”

“You always told me great things,” said the husband, coloring
with rage; “what in the devil's name is there you don't
tell me, or you don't know, I wonder!”

“Well, sir,” she answered, speaking with a subdued sullenness,
“there is one thing I did not know till it was too late.”

With all his blustering, Mr. Randall was a coward and
craven at heart, and turning to the sideboard he imbibed a
deeper draught of brandy than usual, diverting his indignation
to Jenny, whom he called a poor creep-louse, that had infested
his home long enough.

“If you were not my father,” answered Helph, who had
inherited a temper capable of being ungovernably aroused,
“I'd beat you with as good a will as I ever beat iron to a
horse-shoe.”

“What in the devil's name is the girl to you, I'd like to
know?”

“Before you are a month older you will find out what she
is to me,” replied the youth, drawing himself up to his full
height, and passing his hand proudly across his beard.

“My son, your father has a great deal to irritate him, and
he is hasty sometimes, but let bygones be bygones; but what
business had the girl away?”

And with a trembling hand, Mr. Randall presented a glass
of brandy as a kind of peace-offering to his son. But, for the
first time in his life, the young man refused; he had seen its
brutalizing effects the previous night, saw them then, and had
determined to be warned in time. In answer to the question respecting
Jenny, however, he related briefly and simply the melancholy
event which had called and still detained her from her
usual employments.

“A good thing,” said Mr. Randall; “one brat less to be
taken care of; but that's no reason the girl should stay away;
if the young one is dead, she can't bring it to life, nor dig a
hole to put it in, either.”

Mrs. Randall, having adjusted her lace cap, and ordered

Aunt Kitty to keep the basket out of the reach of the big
boys, and to remember and not eat all there was in it herself,
ascended the stairs to ascertain how Jenny had progressed with
her shirt-making.

Such family altercations, it is to be hoped, are exceedingly
rare; but I have not exaggerated the common experience of
these specimens of the “self-made aristocracy.” Ignorant, passionate,
vulgar—nothing elevated them from the lowest grade
of society but money, and this was in most cases an irresistible
influence in their favor.

In all public meetings, especially those having any reference
to the poor, Mr. Randall was apt to be a prominent personage;
on more occasions than one he had set down large figures for
charitable purposes; in short, his position was that of an eminently
liberal and honorable citizen, when, in fact, a man guilty
of more little meannesses and knaveries, a man in all ways
so debased, could scarcely anywhere be found. The drunkard
whom he affected to despise had often a less depraved appetite
than his own, and though he did not reel and stagger and
lie in the gutter, it was only an habitual indulgence in strong
drinks which rendered him superior to their more debilitating
effects. He lay on the sofa at home, and swore and grumbled
and hiccuped, and drank, and drank, and drank. His
children did not respect him, and how could they, when the
whole course of his conduct was calculated to inspire disgust
and loathing in every heart endowed with any natural ideas of
right. The two bullying and beardless sons who had grown up
under his immediate influence, were precociously wicked, and
possessed scarcely a redeeming quality, and the younger ones
were treading close in their footsteps.

Helph, however, had some of the more ennobling attributes
of manhood. He was blunt and plain and rustic to be sure,
but he was frank and honest and sincere, industrious, sober,
and affectionate, alike averse to the exactions and impositions
of his mother, and the pitiful penuriousness of his father.
He was neither ashamed of the toil-hardened hands that earned
his daily bread, nor proud because his mother's earrings dangled
to her shoulders, or that her dress was gay and expensive,

or that his father was president of a bank, and lived in a fine
house. Independent and straightforward, and for the most part
saving enough, so that he might give himself some trouble to
find a lost shilling, yet where he saw actual need, he would give
it, with as much pleasure as he had in finding it.

Toward evening Jenny returned home, pale and sad and suffering,
but there were no little kindnesses, nor any softness of word
or manner to greet her; she was required at once to resume her
work, and admonished to retrieve lost time, for that crying
would only make her sick, and do no good; Helph, however,
subdued his bluff gentleness into tenderness never manifested for
her before, and his occasional smile, through tears, was an over
payment for the cruelty of the rest.

Mr. Randall and his wife began to be seriously alarmed, lest
a hasty marriage of the parties should bring on themselves
irretrievable disgrace. A long consultation was held, therefore,
and it was resolved to postpone, by pretended acquiescence,
any clandestine movement, until time could be gained to frustrate
hopelessly the design which was evidently meditated by
the son.

“We have been talking of our own love,” said they; “how
hard we should have thought it to be parted; and seeing that
you really are attached to each other, we oppose no obstacle;
a little delay is all we ask: Jenny shall go to school for a year,
and you, Helph, will have, by-and-by, more experience, and
more means, perhaps, at your command.”

Much more they said, in this conciliatory way; the dishonesty
was successful; and that night, instead of stealing away
together as they had proposed, Helph slept soundly in his
country home, and Jenny dreamed bright dreams of coming
years.