University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
ARTHUR BLAGUE IS INTRODUCED TO A NEW BOARDING-HOUSE,
AND DAN BUCK IS INTRODUCED TO THE READER.

We left Arthur Blague, some chapters back, sitting
on his bed in the long lodging-hall at Hucklebury Run,
having the previous evening left his bed and board at
the house of the proprietor, under circumstances that
forbade his return. The lodgers had all turned out, and
were commencing their work in the mill. The more
Arthur thought of the uncomfortable night he had
passed, and of the low and degrading associations of the
human sty into which circumstances had forced him, the
more unendurable did his position seem. There were
others at the same moment thinking of, and endeavoring
to contrive for, him, and when, at his leisure, he entered
the mill, he found three or four men, including Cheek,
gathered around Big Joslyn, and apparently urging
upon that eminently cautious and impassive individual
some measure of importance. As Arthur came up,
they made room for him, and then Cheek, as the readiest
spokesman, announced the matter in hand. “We've
been trying,” said he, “to make Joslyn take you into
his house, and board you.”

Joslyn was overshadowed by a great doubt. He
“didn't know what the woman would say;” and the
setting up of his will over hers was a thing he never
dreamed of. Like gentlemen with delegated authority,
acting under instructions, he found great difficulty in
appearing to act on his own personal responsibility,
and, at the same time, keeping within the limits of his
power.

“I'll agree to any thing that the woman will,” said
Joslyn; and it was at last arranged that Arthur should
walk home and breakfast with the discreet husband and
father, and make his application in person.

On this conclusion, Cheek took Arthur aside, and
touching him significantly over the region of the heart,
said, “Are you loose here?”

“What do you mean?” inquired Arthur.

“Have you hitched on anywhere yet?” said Cheek.

“I don't understand you,” replied Arthur.

“I mean have you got a girl?” exclaimed the young
man. “You see,” continued he, “all we factory fellers
have a girl. We may marry 'em, and we may not;
but we are all kind o' divided off, and when we go out
anywhere, we have an understanding who we are going
to wait on.”

Arthur smiled, and said that, so far as he knew, he
was without any incumbrances of the kind.

“Well, all I want of you is not to go to hitching on
to Joslyn's oldest girl,” said Cheek. “She belongs to
me. She isn't grown up yet, but I spoke for her when
she was a little bit of a thing. You see, when I was a
boy, I used to hold her in my lap, and have all sorts of
talks with her, and then she told me she was going to

wait for me; and, by George! I've always stuck her to
it! I tell her of it now, whenever I get a chance, and
she's got so big that she begins to blush about it. Oh!
she's right, I tell you, and she's got one of the mothers
—regular staver.”

“I give you my pledge,” said Arthur, “not to interfere
with any of your rights.”

“That's the talk,” said Cheek. “If I was going to
be cut out, I'd rather have you do it than any of these
other fellers; but I've set my heart on it, and I'm
bound to win. Now mind—none of your tricks,” said
Cheek, with a good-natured shake of the finger; and
then he went off down stairs whistling to his work.

When the breakfast bell rang, Big Joslyn rolled
down his sleeves, took off his apron, and intimated to
Arthur that he was ready. All the way to his house
Joslyn did not speak a word. He felt that he was running
a great risk in taking a stranger to his breakfast-table,
without first consulting “the woman,” as he always
called his wife. As he raised the latch, Arthur
heard from the inside the caution—“Sh-h-h-h!” Instantly
the husband and father rose to his toes, and
entered his door as noiseless as a cat. Arthur had seen
Mrs. Joslyn before, and shook her hand in silence, as if
he had come in to attend a funeral. “The woman”
gave him a polite greeting, and then directed to her
husband a look of inquiry. Arthur's eyes hastily surveyed
the breakfast apartment. Every thing was as
neat as wax, and as orderly as the little clock that ticked
in the corner.

“I have brought him home to breakfast, and he

wants to talk with you about board,” said Joslyn, in an
undertone.

“Jenny, get another plate, and another knife and
fork,” said Mrs. Joslyn, and straightway the little girl
that was “waiting” for Cheek—a second edition of her
spirited and enterprising mother—obeyed the command,
and the family at once sat down to their meal. Jenny
was the only one of the large family of children visible;
the remainder were not allowed to wake up until Mr.
Joslyn could be got out of the way for the morning, and
she was only permitted to open her eyes because she
could assist her mother.

Mrs. Joslyn was one of those high-strung creatures
that are occasionally met with in humble life, endowed
with quick good sense, indomitable perseverance, illimitable
endurance, administrative faculty sufficient to set
up a candidate for the federal presidency, and abundant
good-nature, whenever she could have every thing her
own way. Besides, she was good-looking, and only
needed to have been born under kinder stars, into a
more gentle and refined circle of society, to make a
splendid woman. Gods! What an apparent waste of
valuable material there sometimes is in such places!

Now the moment her husband announced the nature
of Arthur's errand, she had scanned the possibilities of
her little dwelling, rearranged the beds of the children,
got a room cleared in imagination, fixed upon the exact
number of palm-leaf hats that the price of Arthur's
board would relieve her from braiding, and was ready
with her answer before her phlegmatic husband had
helped Arthur to a plate of the humble morning
fare.

“If Arthur Blague can take us as he finds us, we
can take care of him,” said Mrs. Joslyn decidedly.

“Just as you say,” responded Joslyn, greatly relieved;
and so the matter was regarded as settled.

Joslyn and his wife ate their breakfast, Arthur
thought, with unexampled rapidity, and pushed back
from the table, leaving him alone. “Don't you mind
any thing about us,” said Mrs. Joslyn. “I've got to
attend to this man's head, and this is the only time in
the day I have to do it.” So she drove her husband
back into a corner, ran a wet cloth over his bald crown,
wiped it dry, and then brought the hair up over it from
the temples, and braided the ends together in an incredibly
short space of time.

“I do hate to have my husband look like a great, bald-headed
baby,” said Mrs. Joslyn, “and it all comes of
his wearing his woolen cap in the mill. I wish men
knew any thing. There! Off with you! The bell is
ringing. Sh-h-h-h!”

Mr. Joslyn went out on tiptoe, leaving Arthur to
arrange matters with his wife. She wished to have
him understand definitely, what the size of his room
would be, what privileges he could have in the family,
how late he could be admitted at night, and how much
she expected for his board. While she was talking,
her children, who seemed to understand exactly when
they were expected to wake up, came tumbling in, one
after another, in their night-dresses, until the room
seemed to be full. The last fat little fellow that appeared
came in crying. He was hardly old enough to
walk, yet the enterprising mother said, “Sh-h-h-h! don't
wake the baby!”

“Do you like children?” inquired the prolific
mother.

“I like them—yes. You know I have not been
much used to them,” replied Arthur.

“I was going to tell you that there's but one way to
do in this house,” she continued, “if you don't like 'em,
and that is, not to pretend to like 'em. They'll be all
over you like leeches when you've been into the river,
if you make much of 'em. Less racket! Sh-h-h-h!”

Arthur departed, uncertain as to whether the place
would be entirely to his liking and convenience, but quite
certain that he would be more comfortable there than in
the house of the proprietor, or at the short commons of
the boarding-house, with the accompanying lodgings.

While these operations were in progress, there was
an animated and angry consultation going on between
Mrs. Ruggles and her hopeful daughter Leonora. “I
tell you we want to get father real wrathy over this,”
said Mrs. Ruggles. “The more I think about it, the
madder I get. I never took such imperance from anybody
in my life, and to think that that great saucebox
that we took in, and tried to do for, should persume to
set himself up to put us down, and then to say that
both of us was fools! As for that Hammett girl, if we
don't make Crampton too hot to hold her, then it 'll be
because she's got brass enough in her face to make a
kettle, that's all. I tell you, I won't be put down—not
by a couple of factory hands, I tell you. I know what
belongs to my persition, and I'll allow no understrapper
to call me a fool, nor to say, Why do ye so?”

Leonora was quite as angry as her mother, but
when thrown directly upon her own resources, was

wiser—at least more cunning. She had made up her
mind to write to her father in New York, a discreet
account of the occurrences which we have recorded, insisting
particularly on the wound which Arthur had inflicted
upon her feelings by calling her a fool. She
would not mention the fact that the same epithet had
been applied to her mother, because she knew that that
would rather please than offend him, and because she
knew that the more she mixed her mother's name with
the affair, the more reason he would have to suspect that
Arthur's insult was not altogether without excuse.

The letter was written and despatched—decidedly
the most powerful and well-considered literary missive
that had ever left Miss Leonora's hand. The shot told
admirably, and produced the precise effect desired. Old
Ruggles, as he sat in the little dirty hotel which he always
lived in when in New York, read the letter, and
was very angry. The result of his anger made itself
manifest in a letter he wrote to Arthur, directing him
to meet the Crampton stage-coach on a certain day,
with two seats in the wagon.

Eight or ten days after Arthur had become a member
of Mrs. Joslyn's family, he started for town with
the two-seated wagon to meet the returning proprietor,
and such individual or individuals as he might bring
with him. He arrived at the Crampton hotel just as
the stage came in. The coach was not wont to be
crowded, and it was not overburdened on this occasion.
Mr. Ruggles enjoyed a monopoly of the inside, while
a highly-dressed, stylish-looking young man occupied
the box with the driver. Arthur watched the alighting
of the young man with a good deal of interest. There

was nothing about him of the Crampton stamp. He
wore a sort of jockey cap, and downward, as if carrying
out an idea begun in the cap, a jaunty coat, under which
flamed a very jaunty waistcoat of red velvet. In his
hand he carried a bamboo cane with an ivory top,
carved in the form of a pointer's head. His face was
not offensive, nor was it prepossessing. The chin was
heavy, and the nose Hebrew, while the eyes were of
that undefinable color that is sometimes found in connection
with the finest characters, and sometimes with
the coarsest—a kind of dirty gray—but they were
small, uneasy, and wicked.

Ruggles did not affect delight at meeting Arthur.
The old, taunting manner that he was accustomed to
wear when angry with him, he was either too tired to
assume, or he thought it of too little consequence. Yet
Arthur would have been glad to shake hands with him,
and approached him, ready to respond to any greeting
that the proprietor might extend. Ruggles was cross;
in fact, the long ride had half-killed him. He had travelled
directly through from New York, without stopping,
according to his old custom; and the event had
shown him more than any thing else how much his
shock and sickness had shattered him.

The young man on the box dropped his glossy boot
to the wheel, and leaped to the piazza of the hotel, and
then walked up and down, whipping his trousers with
his bamboo cane, and sucking the pointer's head, and
surveying Crampton common.

“Both of those trunks go,” said Ruggles to Arthur,
and both of them Arthur lifted to the wagon. As between
himself and the young New Yorker, Arthur felt

that he was at a decided disadvantage. He was not
well-dressed, and the consciousness of the fact somehow
stole away, for the time, half of his manhood. There
is nothing that will so disarm and depress certain sensitive
natures as conscious inferiority of dress. Until a
degree of familiarity with the world has been acquired,
and a man has learned that he has a recognized place in
it, his dress either holds him up in his own self-respect,
or compels him into adject self-contempt. There was
nothing in the young stranger's face that indicated the
gentleman, yet his dress was something to be respected,
and Arthur felt so shabby by his side that it seemed as
if the stranger must look upon him as an inferior.

“Come, Buck, get in,” said old Ruggles, sharply.

“Ah! This is your dog-cart, eh? Gad! How
lame I am!” exclaimed Mr. Buck, as he raised himself
slowly into the wagon, and took his position by the side
of the proprietor on the back seat, and stuck the pointer's
head into his mouth. “Now, two-forty! Hold
him in, and let him trot,” said he, by way of announcing
that he was ready for the ride to Hucklebury Run.

The “two-forty” horse started off at any thing but
an ambitious pace, and Mr. Buck had sucked his cane
but a short time, when he said very familiarly, “Driver,
how much can you get out of him?”

It was the first time that Arthur had ever been addressed
by this title, and he did not deign a reply.
“Ruggles,” said Buck, “what is this driver's name?
Introduce me to him.”

“Mr. Arthur Blague,” said old Ruggles with mock
politeness; “this is Mr. Dan Buck, of New York.”

“Plague, how are you? How's your ma'am?'

“Buck, how are you? How's your doe?”

“Eh?”

“How's your doe?”

“Don't hear you,” responded the imperturbable Buck,
and then burst out pleasantly into the familiar refrain:
“Speak a little louder, sir, I'm rather hard o' hearin'.”

“Plague! I say! Plague!” called out Mr. Buck.
Arthur made no reply.

Old Ruggles chuckled. “Blague,” said he in a low
voice. “His name is Blague.”

“Blague! I say! Blague! Who made your
boots?”

“None of your business. Why?”

“Speak to a gentleman like that again, and I'll
knock your hat off,” said Buck, without the slightest
show of anger. “I was only going to ask you if you
supposed he would have any objection to your kicking
that horse with 'em. Kick him smart, and I'll give you
a cent.”

“I'll kick you for half the money,” said Arthur.

“Eh?”

“I'll kick you for half the money,” said Arthur
again, without turning his head.

“Speak a little louder, sir, I'm rather hard o' hearin',”
responded Mr. Buck, with another tuneful explosion;
and then, subsiding for a moment, he burst out
with, “Blague! Hullo! Blague! Where did you get
your manners?”

“I borrowed them,” replied Arthur, “of a fellow
just in from New York.”

“Well you'd better return 'em then,” said Buck.

“I'm doing it as fast as possible,” replied Arthur.

“Good boy! Good boy!” exclaimed Mr. Dan
Buck, tapping Arthur on the shoulder with the tip of
his cane. “You're some, that's a fact; but tell me, oh!
tell me before I die, what's the price of putty?”

“Ask Mr. Ruggles,” replied Arthur. “He has
just brought home a very large piece.”

“Who the devil have you got on this front seat
here?” said Mr. Dan Buck, turning to the proprietor,
who had sat very quietly, enjoying the low impudence
of his companion, and wondering what new spirit was
in possession of Arthur. “Who the devil is this?”
said Mr. Dan Buck. “I shall have to lick him, positively;
sorry to do it—great sacrifice—but necessary.”

“He's the fellow,” replied Ruggles in a low tone
that did not escape Arthur's ear, “that I told you
about.”

“S-h-o!” responded Dan Buck, with a look of surprise.

For the remainder of the ride to Hucklebury Run,
the young man devoted himself entirely to Mr. Ruggles.
Although he had made nothing by his onslaught
upon Arthur, he was as cool and self-satisfied as if he
had annihilated him. There was no sensitiveness—no
sense of shame—that could possibly find manifestation
through the mask of brass that encased his face. Arthur
was amused to hear him pour into the proprietor's
ear the tales of his exploits by flood and field. He had
sailed as the captain of a packet, with no end of perquisites;
won five thousand dollars on a horse-race; was
on familiar terms with Washington Irving; had slaughtered
innumerable buffaloes among the Rocky Mountains;
had been partner in a large jobbing firm, and, on

one occasion, when hard pushed, had said grace at table.
This last achievement seemed to strike him as one of
the funniest pieces of business he had ever been engaged
in. “Gad!” said he, “I never was so near floored in
my life. Lot of women, you know, all round the table,
with their heads down, and the whites of their eyes
rolled up. I sat at the head, you know, and the old
woman of all down to the foot. `Mr. Buck,' says she,
putting down her head lower, and rolling up her eyes
higher, `Mr. Buck, will ask a blessing?' Well, I vow
I didn't know what to do. There they were, you know
—heads all down—eyes all rolled up—and every darned
one of 'em with a sort of squint on me. So, says I to
myself, `Dan Buck, where's your pluck? go in!' Well,
sir, I went in—didn't say much, you know, but it answered.
All I could do to keep on a long face. Oh! I
vow, I never had such a time in my life. I thought I
should have died laughing after I got out. Wasn't it
great, though?” and Mr. Dan Buck laughed uproariously
with the memory of the rare and eminently
funny exploit.

How much of this stuff old Ruggles believed, did
not appear, but as Mr. Dan Buck had flattered him on
all convenient occasions during the journey home, he
felt bound to appear as if he believed the whole of it.
As for Arthur, he knew that Dan Buck was lying, and
Dan Buck knew that Arthur understood him perfectly,
though he was entirely undisturbed by the fact.

Arriving at the factory, the proprietor alighted, and
told Arthur to go on to the house with Dan Buck and
the trunks. As the horse slowly climbed the hill, Dan
leaned forward to Arthur, and pointing over his shoulder

with his ivory pointer's head, said, “Cussed old hunks,
how shall we manage him?”

“How will he manage us? is the question, I believe,”
replied Arthur.

“Gad! when I can't manage my boss, I leave, I
do,” said the young man decidedly.

“You'll find this one a hard customer,” said Arthur.

“Soap's the word, my boy; soap's the word.
Lord! I can stuff his old carcass so full that he won't
know his head from a bushel-basket. I've tried it, and
got his gauge.”

“What are you going to do here?” inquired Arthur.

“Well, I'm going to sort o' clerk it, I suppose,” responded
Dan Buck. “Ruggles says you've been abusing
his dry-goods, and he's going to promote you.”

“You are to take my place, I presume,” said Arthur,
“and I am to go back into my old tracks. I understand
it.”

“I reckon that's it. Now tell a feller: is there any
chance to knock down?”

“Knock down!” repeated Arthur with a tone of
inquiry. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Ah! green's the color, eh? very! I understand.
By the way, who is that fat old lollypop in the door
yonder?”

“That is Mrs. Ruggles—your landlady, and the
wife of the proprietor.”

“Come to my bosom, my own stricken deer!” exclaimed
the young man in a low tone, and with such a
feint of an embrace, that Arthur laughed in spite of
himself, while Mr. Dan Buck's face had never been

longer than at that moment. “Now,” said Buck, in an
undertone to Arthur, “see me do it.”

As the wagon drove up to the door, Mr. Dan Buck
leaped from it, and rushing up to Mrs. Ruggles, seized
her hand, and shaking it very heartily, exclaimed:
“Why, Mrs. Cadwallader! How did you come here?
I'm delighted to see you—perfectly delighted.”

Mrs. Ruggles was quite overcome. The greeting
was so unexpected, and so violent, that, to speak figuratively,
she was fairly carried off her feet. All she
could say was: “You've got the advantage of me.”

“You don't pretend to say, Mrs. Cadwallader, that
you don't remember me? That's too cruel;” and Mr.
Dan Buck looked as if he were about to wilt utterly
under the crushing disappointment.

“You've made a mistake,” said the woman amiably.
“My name's Ruggles—Mrs. Ruggles. I never was a
Cadwell.”

“Is it possible that two ladies can look so much
alike, and not even be sisters? I would have sworn
you were the wife of my friend, General Cadwallader.
Then you are Mrs. Ruggles, and I'm to be a member
of your family! It is very pleasant, I assure you, for
me to meet a face that so much reminds me of one of
my dear friends, here among strangers.”

“Be you the young man that's going to live with
us?” inquired Mrs. Ruggles, with patronizing sweetness.

“Yes, I be,” replied Dan Buck, with the pointer's
head between his teeth, and his eye half-shut, looking
over his shoulder at Arthur Blague.

“Well, walk right in then, and make yourself to

home,” said Mrs. Ruggles, heartily; and turning about,
she sailed into the house, calling, “Leonora! Leonora!”

Dan Buck gave Arthur a comical look, followed her
in, and was introduced to Leonora, who received him
with a most profound courtesy. In the mean time,
Arthur had deposited the trunks upon the piazza, and
driven off.

“Who is this insolent fellow that drove us over?”
inquired Mr. Dan Buck.

“Now you don't say,” said Mrs. Ruggles, in alarm,
“that he has been treating you to any of his imperance,
do you? It ain't possible, is it?”

“Never was treated so in my life—thought the fellow
was drunk or crazy. I cut one man all to pieces
with a bowie-knife once, on a smaller provocation than
he gave me to-day; but Mr. Ruggles was in the wagon,
you know, and I would not make him witness such a
scene. But, gad! I'll chastise him—I'll lick him before
I've been here a week, if he gives me any more of his
jaw.”

“I wish you would,” said Leonora savagely.

“You leave me alone for that. Don't bother your
little head about it, now! I'll take care of him.”

Mrs. Ruggles' heart was full. Leonora felt attracted
to the gallant and stylish stranger at once.

She would achieve a grand triumph over Arthur
Blague through him, or die in the attempt.

Dan Buck was delighted with his new home; and
before Mr. Ruggles had made his appearance within his
own door, he had succeeded in establishing the most
cordial relations between himself and that portion of the
family which he had collectively designated as the “dry-goods.”

The mother reminded him more and more of
Mrs. Gen. Cadwallader, as the acquaintance grew. The
peculiar smile—the tone of voice—the manner—the
style of carriage—each brought forth from the enthusiastic
young man an exclamation of wonder, that two
women who were not only without blood relation to
each other, but without any knowledge of each other,
could be so much alike. The measure of “soap” was
filled, at last, by his assurance that “in her day, Mrs.
Gen. Cadwallader was the most splendid woman in New
York.”

Leonora was a fac-simile of his own sister Carrie, of
whose personal charms and accomplishments he bragged
as if she had been a favorite horse. “Gad!” exclaimed
Dan Buck, “don't the fellers open their eyes when she
comes out? But they know me—they do; and they
know I won't stand any of their humbug. Oh! you
ought to see 'em hang round, and try to get introduced.
I was counting 'em over the other day, just before I
started, and I'll be darned if I wasn't surprised to find
ninety-five bottles of brandy that these fellers had sent
to me to get me to introduce 'em to my sister. No,
you don't, says I. I'll take your liquor, but visitors
are requested not to muss the goods unless they wish
to purchase.”

Mr. Dan Buck expected that he should call Leonora
“Carrie” half the time; and he begged her not to
be offended if he should do so. If she would only regard
him as a brother, his happiness would be complete.
When supper came on, and all sat down at the table,
the young man began and executed a series of romances,
in which he invariably personated the central figure,

that quite eclipsed any thing of which the Ruggles family
had ever heard. He laughed immensely at his own
wit, and as every thing he uttered was interlarded with
choice bits of flattery, tossed in about equal proportions
to father, mother, and daughter, the meal was one of the
most delightfully memorable ever enjoyed in that little
mansion. Arthur Blague was lugged in on all convenient
occasions, to illustrate some ludicrous point of a
story; and the voluble drollery of the fellow kept the
whole family in irresistible laughter. Finally, Mrs.
Ruggles assured him that she regarded him as a “valuable
accusation to the society of Hucklebury Run,” at
which he said “Very,” with a wink at Leonora, which
made that young lady spill her tea with giggling.

The next day old Ruggles undertook to introduce
the young man to his duties. It is not to be denied
that the proprietor had very serious misgivings about
his new clerk, who was altogether too talkative—too
familiar—too presuming. He did not like being called
“Ruggles” by any one in his employ, or to have any
assumed superiority over himself among his dependents.
He saw that the fellow who had palmed himself off upon
him in New York as a “struggling young man, ready
to undertake the humblest employment for the sake of
honestly earning his bread,” had no element of reverence
in his composition, and that he could not be “snubbed.”
In vain were all his endeavors to establish any distance
between the young man and himself. It was—“Look
here, Ruggles,” “What do you say, Ruggles?” or,
“Hadn't we better do so and so,”—as if he had just become
a partner in the concern, and had brought in and
invested a hundred thousand dollars in the business.

Mr. Ruggles was irritable and sick. His journey
had overtasked him; and when he saw how orderly
matters had been conducted by Arthur in his absence,
he cursed his stupidity in yielding to the importunities
of his daughter. He was the more vexed and disgusted
because he felt that his old energy was gone—that he
was in a great degree a broken man—that he could not
be again the omnipresent, all-sufficient power in his own
concern that he had been. He found no difficulty, however,
with Arthur's assistance, in making Mr. Dan Buck
acquainted with the details of his business. The young
New Yorker was ready with his pen, and though apparently
without a great degree of business education,
possessed a quick and ready insight into business affairs,
that gave him a command of his duties at once.

Arthur at once resumed, with a degree of cheerfulness
which he did not himself anticipate, his old duties
as a regular operative in the mill. It was a relief to be
less confined to the society of the proprietor. Though
their relations to each other had been greatly changed,
he had never learned to respect the man whom accident
and helplessness alone could make tolerable, but always
felt oppressed and uncomfortable when in his presence.