University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

But friendship, like other good things, has enemies. One of the most
dangerous of these is a third person. These beings are among the most
inconvenient and troublesome upon earth. Not often do confidential
conversations take place in a company of three, especially conversations
appertaining to friendship or love. When sentiment, hot from
the heart, has to move in triangles, it must often meet with hindrances
and cool itself before it has reached its destination. As in mathematics,
between two points, so in social life between two hearts, the
shortest way is a straight line. A third person makes a divergence
and a delay. Third persons have done more to separate very friends
and lovers than all the world besides. They had gotten between
other persons before, and now one of them had come to get between
Miss Spouter and Miss Pea.

Adiel Slack had left his native Massachusetts, and from going to
and fro upon the earth, came in an evil day and put up at the inn of
Jacob Spouter. He was tall, deep-voiced, big-footed, and the most
deliberate-looking man that had ever been in Dukesborough. He was
one of those imperturbable Yankees that could fool you when you were
watching him just as well as when you were not. When he said that
he was twenty-eight his last birth-day, his fresh-looking hair, his unwrinkled
and unblushing cheek, and his entire freedom from all signs
of wear and care, made one believe that it must be so. If he had said
that he was forty-five, the gravity of his countenance, the deliberation
of his gait, and the deep worldly wisdom of his eye would have made
one believe that he spoke truly.

The mere arrival of such a person in that small community must
necessarily create some stir. He was decidedly the most remarkable
of all the passengers who came by that morning's stage. While they

ate their breakfast with that haste which is peculiar to the travelling
public, he took his time. The stage went away and left him at the
table eating his fifth biscuit, while Mrs. Spouter's eyes were fixed upon
him with that steadfast look with which she was wont to regard all
persons who ate at her table more than she thought was fair. He
took another biscuit, looked about for more butter, and attempted to
open a conversation with that lady; but she was not in the mood to be
communicative, so he set to the work of studying her. He made her
out to be a woman of a serious turn of mind, less attentive to dress
than her husband, but at the same time aspiring, and possibly with
propriety and with success, to be the head of the family. After breakfast,
he stood about, sat about, picked his teeth (“with a ivory lancet,
blamed if it weren't,” Mr. Spouter said), then took his hat and strolled
about the village all the forenoon. He went into both the stores, got
acquainted with the doctor, and the blacksmith, and the shoemaker,
found and bargained for the rent of a room, and at dinner announced
himself a citizen of Georgia and a merchant of Dukesborough. In
less than a week a small stock of goods had arrived, and were neatly
arranged in the room, over the door of which hung a sign-board, painted
by himself, which made Mr. Boggs and Messrs. Bland & Jones wish
either that they had never had sign-boards, or that Adiel Slack, dry-goods
merchant, had never come there.

Being a single man, Mr. Slack boarded at the hotel of J. Spouter.
Now, no sooner was it settled that he was to become a citizen, than
Miss Spouter, according to ancient usage in such cases, felt herself to
be yielding to the insidious influences of yet another love. Who
knew, she thought, that the fond dream of her life was not destined
now to become a blissful realisation? The fact that Mr. Slack had
come from afar, made her sentimental soul only the more hopeful.
How this was so she could not tell; but it was so, and the good girl
began at once to bestow the most assiduous cultivation upon every
charm which she thought she possessed. Mr. Slack soon began to be
treated with more consideration than any of the boarders. He had
within a week moved from Mr. Spouter's end of the table up to Mrs.
Spouter's, and become, as it were, that lady's left bower, Miss Angeline
being, of course, her right. The hot biscuit were always handed first
to him, and if anybody got a hot waffle, it was he. People used to
look up towards Mrs. Spouter and get occasional glimpses of little plates
of fresh butter and preserves that tried to hide behind the castors or

the candlestick. When there was pie, Mr. Slack was helped first;
because, among other things, he was the more sure of getting another
piece, if the pie, as it sometimes would happen, in spite of precaution,
should not go around the second time.

The servants did not like him because he never gave them a kind
word nor a cent of money. But let any one of them omit to hand the
best things to him first. Oh, the partiality that was shown as plain as
day to that man! Everybody saw it, and spoke of it among confidential
friends. Some said it was a sin; some said it was a shame; and some
went so far as to say it was both.

Among the boarders was one whom we have seen before. For Mr.
Bill Williams had now been installed in his office, and had already
begun to take new responsibilities. When this conduct towards the
new-comer had become notorious, he was heard by many persons even
to swear that he'd “be dinged ef he had had a hot waffle, even when
thar was waffles, sense that dadblasted Yankee had moved up to old
Miss Spouter's eend. As for the second piece of pie, he had done
gin out ever hearin of the like any more, thro'out the ages of a sorrowful
and ontimely world.” He spoke with feeling, it is true; but he was
a clerk in Mr. Bland's store, and he thought that if he could not take
some responsibility, the question was who could. “Consequenches
mout be consequenches,” said Mr. Bill, “be they now or at some futer
day. I takes the responsibility to say that the case ar a onfair, and
a imposition on the boarders and on the transhent people, and it war
also a shame on Dukesborough, and also —” Mr. Bill shook his
head for the conclusion.

But in spite of everybody and everything, Mr. Slack kept his place.
He soon discovered Miss Spouter's weakness and her passion. Flattering
as it might be to find himself the favored object of her pursuit,
yet the reflection that her only capital was a head of curls which in
time would fade, caused him to determine, after making his calculations,
that no profit was to be netted in being caught. It was not to be overlooked,
however, that there would be, if not an entire saving of expense,
at least a postponement of its payment in keeping his thoughts to
himself and in seeming to be drawing nearer and nearer the vortex
which was ready to swallow him up. The terms of board at Mr.
Spouter's included monthly payments. These did not suit calculations
which were made upon the principle of collecting his own dues at once
and postponing his payments as long as possible, and if possible, to

the end of time. Now, he guessed that great as were Mr. Spouter's
needs, that affectionate father would not be the man to run the risk of
driving off his daughter's suitor by worrying him with dues for a little
item of board, which might all come back again into the family. In
addition to this, he was not insensible to the advantage of maintaining
his seat at the dinner table, where biscuits, waffles and pies, when they
came at all, were wont to make their first appearance. These several
matters, being actual money to him, were not to be overlooked by a
man who did nothing without deliberation. After deliberating, therefore,
he determined to so conduct himself before the Spouters as to
create the hope that the time would come when he would solicit the
hand of her who long had been willing to bestow it upon somebody.
But he was careful to keep his own advances and his meetings of advances
without the pale of such contingencies as he had learned were
accustomed in the South to follow breaches of marriage contracts.
If there was anything that Mr. Slack was afraid of, it was a cane, or
perhaps a cowhide. He maintained his place at the table, therefore,
and took what it afforded in the manner of a man who was very near to
being one of the family. He chatted in a very familiar manner with Mrs.
Spouter, and sympathised with her and Mr. Spouter's complaints of
the high price of everything except board. He lounged in the parlor,
where he told to Miss Angeline touching stories of his boyhood's home.
He bestowed due admiration upon those curls which, every time he
saw them, reminded him of a portrait of his mother (now a saint in
heaven), taken when she was a girl eighteen years old. Then he spoke
feelingly of how he had been a wanderer, and how he began to think
it was time he had settled himself for good; how he had never felt
exactly ready for that until since he had come to Dukesborough; and
how — and how — and how — embarrassment would prevent him
from saying more. But whenever he got to this point, and Miss Angeline's
heart would be about to burst, and she would be getting ready
to cast herself upon his faithful bosom, he would change abruptly,
become frightened, and go away and stay away for a week.

At their first meeting at the breakfast table after such scenes, Miss
Spouter would appear quite conscious, hold herself yet straighter, and
endeavor to show that she had spirit. But before she had carried it
far, she would conclude to stop where she was, go back and begin
again.