University of Virginia Library

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16. CHAPTER XVI.
A DECISION.

Extracts from Harry Davis's Letters.

“Dear Mother:

It is now three months since
I have been with Mr. Bent; and, excepting
my poor father's death, life has been all smooth sailing
with me. You have been getting on so nicely!
Clapham Hale giving such complete satisfaction to
Mr. Norton, and you and Annie — as appears by
your last letter — surprised with his improved appearance
and manly bearing. Does he not seem like one
of us?

“I have reason every day to feel grateful to Mr.
Nevis for my situation at Mr. Bent's. He is a model
in his department of mercantile life. He requires

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of his clerks a strict performance of their duty.
They must be up to the mark; and there is the
strictest supervision of them. They sign a contract
not to go to the theatre, nor to any public places
of amusement, excepting during their holidays, when,
he says, their parents or guardians take the responsibility
from him. They all have salaries in proportion
to their capacities for business. Mr. Bent is
quite as exact in his duties to them as in his requirements
from them. He watches over them like
a parent. If a lad is drooping, he gives him a
holiday. If he detects a fault, he gives a secret and
kind admonition, as if it were his own child he was
dealing with. He sees himself to the young men
having eligible boarding places; he permits no extra
hours, or over-work, unless it is inevitable; he pays
all the salaries on the first of each month; he subscribes
himself, for the clerks who themselves are
not able to subscribe, to the Mercantile Library; he
gives a kind word of approbation where it is due,
and I think never blames undeservedly; he permits
no puffing of the goods, no false shows of any sort;

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we must be assiduous to his customers, civil and
devoted, but never importunate; there is but one
price in his shop. In short, dear mother, he spares
no pains to give us upright characters, and gentlemanly
deportments, and thus prepares us for an honorable
career. He does well the duty nearest to him.”

“My evenings are passed so pleasantly, mother!
Mr. Lyman has been ill in bed for the last month,
and I have had the pleasure of making some return
to him for all his kindness to me, by finishing, gratuitously,
the drawing of plans he had begun. I am
always delighted when I have drawing, for then
Mary Hale reads to me. You cannot imagine how
curious she is to see Clapham, ever since she discovered
that he was a distant relation of hers. Not
so very distant either, as that Mr. Felix Hale was
a brother of her grandfather; so they are second
cousins. `Blood is thicker than water,' say the good
aunts; `and Clapham shall be just as near to us as
any of our nephews.'

“The poor little blind child has been frightfully

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ill, and Mary Hale was her nurse. I wish, mother,
you could have seen the care she took of her, and
heard her, when she was getting a little better, and
was rather fretful, singing long ballads to her in the
dead of the night, and telling her story after story.
I think, dear mother, you would have loved her as
well — no, not so well as I do; no one ever can
love as I love Mary Hale!

“There it is! a secret that has been for months
burning in my heart, and I could not tell it, even
to my mother! Don't laugh at me! don't; don't
reason with me. I know very well that I am not
quite seventeen, and Mary Hale not quite sixteen;
and I do not know whether Mary feels at all as I
do. I sometimes guess and hope; but, dear mother,
one thing I am sure of, I shall never be worthy of
her.”

In another letter, of three months' later date, Harry
says, “Dear mother, this letter will both surprise and
grieve you. Mr. Bent has failed. After fifteen years
of untiring and successful industry, after the most

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“Our salaries have all been paid. Mr. Bent, with
an expression of approbation that did not make it
easier to part with him, mother, told me he had
secured me a place with a friend of his, and an
advance of a hundred dollars upon my present salary.
You will stare, as did Mr. Bent, when I tell you
that I have taken the offer into consideration till
to-morrow.”

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“I have declined the clerkship, and renounced
city life and mercantile life forever. `Your reasons,
Hal?' You shall have them, my dear mother. From
the beginning, city life has been utterly distasteful to
me. While I was living here, I could not be so
unmanly as to make you uncomfortable with my discontents,
and therefore I said nothing about them;
and, in truth, my discontents were rather prospective,
rather from the belief that my destiny was cast in
a city than from my present experience. No country
home could have more social virtue than this to
which a kind Providence guided me; to say nothing
of the rose in my path in perpetual bloom, sweetness,
and freshness. But the everlasting noise and turmoil,
to one who was bred under the shadow of Rhigi,
with no sounds but sweet musical ones from dawn to
dawn; walls of brick and mortar, instead of a boundless
horizon of beauty; narrow streets, for our planted
fields, our lovely Salisbury lakes, mother, our hill sides,
and our brook; noisome smells, for the pure, sweet
air; and little, wretched yards, for ample space, —
and all their country blessings are common bounties,

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“From my first experience of retail life in New
York, I took a dislike to it — perhaps from the dose
I took at Holson's. I presume it will not be denied
that men are physically superior to women, and therefore
they should have employments to develop and
exercise their mortal frames, and leave the retailing
of silks and laces, &c., to women and girls, who are
really more competent to this business than we are.
And what can be more demoralizing, mother, than
life in such a shop as Holson's? There are very
few, I trust, with such rascals for their proprietors;
but there are too many debased by unremitting labor,
by eager, selfish competition, by petty frauds and false
showings. Reason No. 2.

“But there is a commercial life that affords a
field for high intelligence, extensive information, and
munificent action. Yes, but exposed to unforeseen,
inevitable, and cruel reverses. Perhaps my opinions
are affected by the shock of my kind friend Mr.
Bent's misfortunes. Be it so. The uncertainty of

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“I might, perhaps, attain a large fortune in New
York, but I am not ambitious. I do not think I
have an average share of the go-ahead furor of my
countrymen. I never dreamed of being president of
the United States, governor, judge, or even a member
of Congress, — the prize in most men's lotteries. I
never desired to rise above the condition in which
I was born. That may be your fault, dear mother;
you have been so contented with your lot, and have
made it so respectable and happy. I do not mean
any disrespect to my poor father, but I had early
some teaching on foregoing actual competence for
possible wealth.

“I take after you, dear mother. I am content with
the station in which I was born. My purpose and
hope is to give to it, by moderate labor, the competence,
dignity, and happiness, of which it is susceptible.

“Mary Hale and I were building castles in the
air some weeks since. She said that, build how she

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“Dear mother, I have received an answer to a
letter which I wrote to Mr. Norton on Monday. He
accepts, most cordially, my proposition to become his
apprentice; and offers me, besides, the place of book-keeper,
which, in his concern, is a light business, but
will give me a support, and the means of adding
something to my dear mother's comforts. With Mr
Norton's letter came one from Clapham. The fellow
is half wild with joy.”

“Dear mother, do not blame me. I could not
help it. We went down to Greenwood — old Mrs.
Bland, Nannie, and Mary and I; and somehow
Mary and I strayed away by ourselves; and we were
by Sylvan Lake, and the words leaped from my heart
to my lips, and I told her I loved her; and she
confessed she loved me, and was not ashamed of it.”

“Don't think this is child's play, or youthful

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The blessing came, by return of mail, and they
were happy.