University of Virginia Library

10. X.
CHEESY FINDS HIS UNCLE.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 731EAF. Page 109. In-line Illustration. Image of a boy standing in a corner while a man and a woman look at him.]

SATISFIED that he was not
pursued, Cheesy recovered
from his panic. The tremor
of fright was still on him,
however, when he emerged
from the alley. Glancing behind
him from time to time,
to see if his foe was in sight,
he came out upon the street
beyond, and looked anxiously
up and down, whimpering with
vexation. He was lost again,
— just as he had expected he would be, all along.

“What did he want ter go and do it fur?” he muttered, with
bitter feelings of resentment against Caleb. “I felt sure he was
gitt'n' me into a scrape. I don' know where I be, more 'n
nothing.”

There were a good many people passing, and Cheesy was confident
that some of them must be well enough acquainted in that
part of the town to direct him to his uncle's store. He accordingly
stopped a bland old gentleman, and inquired his way. The
bland old gentleman smiled, and, patting him on the shoulder, told

him that if he would cross the street, and enter the store opposite,
he would be able to learn all about Mr. Dabney's establishment.

Cheesy was doubtful of success in that quarter, but, after some
hesitation, he went over and put his dejected face in at the door.
To his surprise, he recognized a person with whom he had already
become slightly acquainted. It was the cross-eyed lad he had
seen taking down his uncle's shutters half an hour before; and, on
looking about him, he discovered, with some amazement, that the
place to which the bland gentleman had directed him for information
was the very place he wanted to find.

“By gracious!” muttered Cheesy; “'s queer I did n't know
Uncle Jesse's store. I thought 't was on t' other side of the
street.”

The boy was now comparatively happy. But he was still open
to the persecutions of Caleb, whom he expected every moment to
see coming after him, with fell intent to ruin his peace. A supercilious
smile on the countenance of the lad, as he dusted the counters,
also gave Cheesy a good deal of uneasiness. It caused
him to feel himself vastly inferior to city boys, and to realize the
awkwardness of appearing in the world without his jacket.

Two or three clerks — very smart-looking young fellows — soon
after made their appearance; and one of them — a tall, genteel-looking
individual, with a large shirt-collar and a handsome
whisker, whose deportment inspired Cheesy with awe — asked
him, in an imperious manner, as he stood by the door outside,
what he was rubbing his back against the wall in that way for;
did n't he see that he would wear a hole right through into the
store in a little while? The cross-eyed lad snickered convulsively
at the savage humor of this sally, thereby adding materially to
the embarrassment and discomfort of Cheesy, who gave a sullen

look behind him, as if to satisfy himself with regard to the hole,
and grunted forth the fact that he was waiting for his uncle. The
genteel clerk asked if it was Uncle John or Uncle Peter he
expected.

“Uncle Jesse,” muttered Cheesy, pouting and kicking the side-walk.

“Uncle Jesse!” repeated the genteel clerk, with an incredulous
smile. “Hold up your head, — there!” He placed his hand in
Cheesy's hair, and straightened his neck against the wall. “Look
me in the eye.” Cheesy gave him a lowering glance, in which
there was mingled fear and anger. “Tell me what your name
is.”

“Cheseb'o' Dabn',” mumbled the boy, struggling to get away.

“Do you mean to say Mr. Dabney is your uncle?”

Cheesy affirmed that such was the case; and the genteel clerk,
whose humor appeared to be a good deal chilled by the discovery,
began to question him in a less overbearing manner.

“I come to Boston with Mr. Mer'vale,” said the boy. “I got
lost from him, and I want ter see my uncle. I han't had no
breakfas' this morning.”

Thereupon the genteel clerk informed him that Mr. Dabney,
having been unwell the day before, would not probably come
down before twelve o'clock, if he did then.

“Is he up stairs?” Cheesy wished to know, with a distressed
look.

“Down town, I mean,” said the clerk, while the cross-eyed lad
giggled insultingly. “Perhaps the best way will be for you to
go up to the house. You 're sure he 's your uncle?”

Cheesy was really beginning to have serious doubts on the
subject, occasioned by the sneers of the cross-eyed lad, who

appeared to know so much more about his affairs than he did himself;
but he managed to reäffirm the fact quite stoutly, in a manner
to satisfy the genteel clerk.

“Jake,” said the latter, authoritatively, “go and show this boy
the way to Mr. Dabney's house.”

With a cynical look, the cross-eyed lad put away the duster,
rubbed down his cuffs, pulled up his dickey, and told Cheesy to
“come along.” Our hero followed with alacrity, glancing apprehensively
around for Caleb Thorne, as they went along, until the
alley, out of which he had expected to see that terrible and mysterious
being rush in full pursuit, was out of sight.

“That 's a perty slick kind of store of Uncle Jesse's,”
observed the boy, pressing close to his companion's side.

“O, it is, eh?” said Jake. “I 'm glad ye told me.”

“I 'd no idee Boston was such a big place,” continued Cheesy,
persevering in his efforts to conciliate the cross-eyed. “The
roads are perty narrer, some of 'em. You call 'em streets here.”

“Do we? Streets, are they? I 'm much obliged to ye,”
replied Jake, with a derisive grin.

“What does that 'ere sign mean?” asked Cheesy, pointing to a
notice on the wall — “Stick no Bills.”

“O, don't you know? I was in hopes you 'd tell me,” said
the cross-eyed. “I 've heard what it 's for, but supposed, of
course, you 'd know better 'n me.”

“What is 't fur?” inquired Cheesy, disregarding the lad's
irony in his determination to be sociable.

“You see,” returned Jake, “there 's a secret society —”

“Secret society! What 's that?”

“You don't know what a secret society is? I 'm surprised at
it! Shall I tell you what I think it is? Well, a company of

desperate men have some mysterious object to put through, generally
something against the law, and so they get together in a
dark room, and swear to stand by each other to the last, and work
for the cause night and day, in all kinds of weather, rain or
shine, Sundays not excepted.”

“Sho! is that it?” cried Cheesy.

“There was one society,” continued Jake, “that banded
together to burn every house within nine miles of Boston that was
more 'n 'leven story high.”

“Do tell me if they did!” exclaimed Cheesy.

“Yes; and there was another that used to ketch old bachelors
over seventy-five, and old maids over sixty, and marry 'em by
force, and threaten to kill 'em if they did n't live together affectionately
afterwards, or if they complained of the society.”

“What did they do that fur?”

“For the fun of the thing, I suppose. But it 's a fact that any
quantity of happy marriages have been made, and some of the
most beautiful families in the city have been grown up in this
way.”

“I want to know!” ejaculated Cheesy.

“The last society that was started was the `Secret Seven,'”
Jake went on, very gravely. “They held their meetings in a
cave, dug out for the purpose, under one of the first Orthodox
churches in the city. They was all church-members, of the hottest
kind; and they used to attend prayer-meetings in the vestry, and
talk pious, — then, when it was getting late, they 'd slip out, one
by one, into a dark passage, go through a trap-door, which opened
by a spring, and drop down into the secret cave.”

“You don't say!” cried Cheesy.

“Certainly,” said the cross-eyed. “The society was discovered

by the sexton, who touched the spring by mistake, one night, after
a prayer-meeting, and tumbled in on 'em through the trap-door,
as if he 'd been sent for.”

“By gracious!” burst forth Cheesy. “He did n't though, did
he?”

“O, yes; that was all in the newspapers at the time,” affirmed
Jake, winking and coughing. “The sexton was jest about scar't
to death, too. But the Secret Seven was worse off 'n he was, or
else they 'd have made mince meat of him without stopping to
think twice. They supposed he was the Devil, and scrambled out
of the trap-door like mad, leaving behind 'em their seven black
masks, their seven short daggers, and all the records of the
society's doings.”

“That an't all true, though, is it? What did the Secret Seven
do in the cave?”

“Why, it was there they laid their plans for assassinating
every person of the name of William, or Bill, that they could find.
They had a partic'lar grudge against that name, it seems; and at
one time there was so many stabbed in dark alleys and by-streets
that the city tried to put a stop to it, by posting the notices, —
`Stick no Bills.' I had a cousin killed by these fellows.”

“You 're trying to fool me,” rejoined Cheesy, with a perplexed
look.

“O! am I?” cried Jake, sarcastically, looking at Cheesy with
one eye, and at a barber's pole with the other. “I 'm glad you
told me — it 's news.”

Dreading his resentment, Cheesy hastened to recant his infidelity;
whereupon the cross-eyed punished him by relating the most
outrageously absurd stories, and compelling him to acknowledge
an orthodox belief in each and all of them. In this entertaining

and useful manner they traversed the streets, which contained so
much novelty and interest for the fresh and innocent Cheesy.
Several trifling incidents occurred to add variety to the scenes.
Jake beguiled his companion into out-of-the-way places; or hid
away from him around corners and in convenient door-ways, while
Cheesy walked on, talking loudly, supposing his guide was at
his elbow; in order to enjoy his perplexity on discovering that he
was deserted and betrayed. The cross-eyed was never without an
excuse for these pleasantries: he ran into a shop to speak to his
Aunt Susan, or darted up an alley to call after Dan Blake, or
retired under a door-way to cough; and Cheesy was fain to
express himself satisfied with these explanations. Jake also met
acquaintances, and appeared mysterious. With one he jabbered
inarticulately, using discordant combinations of consonant sounds,
which he pretended was Spanish. With another he conversed in
pantomime, exchanging the most ridiculous and grotesque gestures
and grimaces with him, of which the feat of pointing first to
heaven, then to the sidewalk, afterwards to the wondering Cheesy,
and finally down their own expanded throats, was perhaps the
most frequent and remarkable. This individual Jake styled the
Junior Professor of Deaf-and-Dumb in Jog College. Of a third,
the cross-eyed inquired for the health of certain intimate friends,
among whom he numbered the governor of the state, the mayor,
and several aldermen, with their wives and daughters, winking
and throwing his thumb over his left shoulder, in a manner which
he assured Cheesy was a high point of etiquette in genteel circles.
To a fourth, he said, in a mysterious whisper, loud enough for
Cheesy to hear, that he would send a carriage for him at eleven
o'clock that evening, and that he wanted him to have the short
swords in readiness, and the pistols carefully loaded. After that,
the cross-eyed hinted darkly to his companion about a duel, until
they arrived at Mr. Dabney's house.

“Don't you tell 'em I come with ye,” he cried, running up the
stone steps. “Wait here till somebody comes to the door. I 'll
ring for ye.”

So saying, Jake, with a diabolical expression of mischief, jerked
the bell-handle three times with all his might, and ran down the
steps, laughing maliciously, and doubling Cheesy up with a blow in
his stomach as he passed. The boy had scarce recovered himself
when the door opened, and a young woman, with a scowl, demanded,
angrily, if he meant to pull the house down, ringing in
that way.

“I want ter see my Uncle Jesse,” faltered Cheesy, in his
bewilderment.

“Is it Mr. Dabney ye mean?” asked the young woman,
sharply.

“Yes 'm,” replied Cheesy.

As she withdrew, he passed into the hall, and awaited, with a
cowardly sinking of the heart, the decision of his fate. Had the
appearance of the house been plain and homely, he would not
probably have experienced any lack of courage. But the handsome
brick front, the stone steps, and the hall, with its showy
walls and elegant stairs, had impressed him singularly. In all
his life he had not dreamed of such magnificence. It seemed to
him impossible that an uncle of his should be the proprietor of so
grand a residence. And, even were that the case, he felt but
faint hopes of being received and owned by that mighty branch of
the Dabney family. He was anxiously thinking what he should
say for himself, wondering how he could excuse his dirty, jacketless,
guilty poverty, in the eyes of his uncle, when he heard footsteps

approaching. It was a delicate, middle-aged lady, who came
forward from the basement stairs, and regarded him with a look
of amazement.

“What boy are you?” she asked, criticizing him from head to
foot.

“Nobody's, — that is, ma's boy, — I mean,” faltered Cheesy,
shrinking miserably into the corner, “Uncle Jesse 's my uncle.”

“Your uncle!” echoed the delicate lady, incredulously.

“Yes 'm — Uncle Jesse,” returned Cheesy, rubbing his hands
up and down his fustian trousers, and twisting one leg around the
other in his embarrassment.

“What is your name, and where did you come from?” demanded
the lady, a smile of kindly humor dawning upon the wonderment
of her face.

Cheesy, beginning to cry, stammered forth imperfect answers
to these questions, protesting that he never would have left home
had it not been to escape death at the hands of his step-mother.
The lady listened with interest, and seemed to soften a good deal
towards the fugitive; but, before she could assure him of her protection,
a third person, in dressing-gown and slippers, made his
appearance on the scene. She immediately stepped aside in a
deferential attitude, and the gentleman advanced, scowling at
Cheesy in a manner which caused him to glance hurriedly around,
with a view to dodging out of the door, and running for his
life.

“Who is it rings in that fashion?” growled Mr. Dabney.
“What boy is this? Who are you, sir, calling yourself my
nephew?”

“Uncle Jesse — 't wan't me, — I mean, I did n't ring,” began
the terrified Cheesy.

“It was n't you? Who was it, then? Who is it calls me
uncle? I have n't got a nephew in the world, that I know of.”

“You had a brother Cheseboro', I have heard you say,” suggested
the lady, in a timid tone of voice.

“Well, I had; a fellow without energy or pride of any kind,”
said Mr. Dabney, devouring Cheesy with ferocious looks. “This
is n't a son of his, is it?”

The boy regarded his aunt with a lugubrious, pleading face, as
she repeated, in a gentle and conciliatory manner, the statement
he had made concerning his individuality. His uncle's frown
grew blacker; and, in utter dread and brokenness of spirit, Cheesy
burst forth in a fit of weeping. This display of weakness did not
much improve his appearance; still less did it soften his uncle's
heart.

“This is pleasant!” said the latter, through his teeth.
“You 're a pretty young gentleman to run away! What will
become of you, do you think? But I 'll attend to your case, sir!
I 'll have you sent home, this very day! Do you know where
my store is?”

“I jes' come from there,” blubbered Cheesy.

“Well, just go back again,” said Mr. Jesse Dabney. “I 'll be
down and attend to your business soon,” — opening the door and
pushing Cheesy out. “Be sure and come to the store. Your
case shall be attended to, sir, depend upon it!”

The door was closed, and Cheesy found himself alone on the
steps. He was crying drearily. But out of the cloud of his
despair there shone ever so faint a ray of comfort. He would
be sent back to his step-mother's. That was the worst that could
happen. And, after the wretched experience he had had of city
life, he felt that he would be content to return home, submit to

the chastisement that awaited him there, and spend the remainder
of his days in the peaceful obscurity of his native village.

So Cheesy staggered away under the heavy burden of his woes.
Yet his grief had not altogether silenced the demands of appetite.
He was wondering whether his uncle would give him anything to
eat before sending him home, when the train of thought which followed
was suddenly thrown off the track by an obstacle, and
dashed to pieces. That obstacle was the unforeseen impossibility
of ever finding his way back to the store, amid the mazes through
which he had been guided by the lad of oblique vision. He
paused, checking his tears, and looked about him in an effort to
rally all his energies for that trying moment. But, discerning
no hope of help in his bitter necessity, he gave way once more,
and uttered himself in sobs and lamentations.

Relief came when least expected. A young woman accosted
him as he stood there, bemoaning his unhappy lot.

“What?” he drawled forth, looking over his sleeve, with a
face contorted and oozy with sorrow. “Do ye want me?”

“Mrs. Dabney wants ye,” replied the young woman.

Cheesy recognized her who had admitted him into the house,
and his soul brightened. He set out to follow her with alacrity,
recalling his aunt's benevolent countenance and kind tones, and
rejoicing in the thought that deliverance from his trials was at
hand. The young woman did not take him up the stone steps,
but led the way through an arched passage which communicated
with the rear of the house; and, while Cheesy was still wondering
what was going to be done with him, he found himself in Mrs.
Dabney's kitchen.

That lady met him at the door, and received him kindly, asking
him to sit down, stop crying, and tell her the whole story. Her

goodness only made him cry the more freely, out of gratitude;
but in a little while he managed to control his feelings, and
commenced a rather confused and disconnected narrative of his
adventures, frequently interrupted by the passage of his sleeve
over his face.

“Then you have n't had any breakfast?” said Mrs. Dabney,
viewing Cheesy's pitiful plight with pleasant humor, tempered
with compassion.

“No 'm; I han't eat nothing since yes'day noon, nuther, 'cept
an apple,” replied the wretched Cheesy.

“Maria,” resumed Mrs. Dabney, addressing the cook, “make
haste and get a little breakfast for the poor boy. Use this
table. Hannah,”— to the young woman who had brought him
in,— “go up and tell Miss Sophronia that I have got something
for her down here. Not a word in presence of Mr. Dabney, you
know.”

She then prepared a basin of water, with towels, at the sink,
and invited Cheesy to wash himself. There was certainly need
enough of this little ceremony, and the boy went through with it
readily, using great deliberation and a large quantity of soap. His
appearance received marked improvement thereby, and he began
to look quite bright and handsome, comparatively speaking,
although his eyes were still red, and streaks of dirt, scarcely
touched by soap and water, shaded the side of his nose, and lay
along the borders of his hair.

Cheesy was rubbing his face very hard with both hands, when
Sophronia made her appearance, and Mrs. Dabney, laughing,
introduced her as his cousin. Sophronia — a lively young girl of
seventeen, with a fair complexion and merry blue eyes — regarded
Cheesy with a momentary expression of amazement and doubt,

then burst into a gay peal of laughter. Cheesy, on the other
hand, looked over the towel at Sophronia with an expression of
wonder, completely dazzled and bewildered by the vision of
beauty which flashed so unexpectedly upon him.

“How do you do, Cheseboro'?” said Sophronia, recovering
herself, and offering to shake hands.

“Perty well, thank ye; how do yeou do?” stammered Cheesy,
grinning, turning awkwardly, and rubbing his hand first on the
towel, then up and down his pantaloons, to prepare it for the
honor his brilliant cousin condescended to confer upon it.

Sophronia said she was very well and glad to see him, at the
same time casting a curious, gleeful glance at her mother, which
said, quite plainly, “Who is this funny being, and where did he
come from?”

In reply to this silent appeal, Mrs. Dabney repeated what she
had gathered of Cheesy's adventures, adding that there was no
mistake but he was indeed her cousin. Sophronia laughed at
every trifling incident in the description, and seemed to regard
him as the most amusing curiosity in the world.

Cheesy regarded her as the most wonderful. Her bright blue
eyes made him feel strangely uncomfortable, yet he could not
help looking at them. Of the beautiful Lillifoo, in Martin's great
Romance, he had formed a high opinion; but that ideal bore no
comparison with the real charms of his cousin Sophronia. He
wished her away, however, when he sat down to eat the chop and
drink the cup of coffee Maria had prepared for him,— she made
him feel so ill at ease; and, for the first time, he experienced all
the inconvenience and awkwardness of appearing in society in his
shirt-sleeves, and with his tight fustians bursting open in divers
places. Yet he managed to make a comfortable repast; after

which Mrs. Dabney gave him a silk waistcoat and a handsome
frock-coat to put on, having been to search for those articles
while Sophronia entertained him at table.

The waistcoat was so very long, and the coat so very large, that
Sophronia laughed more heartily than ever at Cheesy, after he
had got them on. The contrast between these garments and his
soiled cotton shirt and pinching trousers was ludicrous in the
extreme. Even Mrs. Dabney, who had been chiding her daughter
all along, in her mild manner, for being so rude, gave way to an
uncontrollable fit of mirth, and laughed with tears in her eyes.
Cheesy, who was delighted with his new dress, expressed his gratification
by holding his arms out stiffly from his side, and grinning
at himself as he turned around for the criticism of his fair
friends.

“I wish I wan't going back,” he observed, at length, a shadow
crossing his face. “I shall hate ter, the wust way. Say, now,
would n't it be a good plan for me to git inter some business, now
I 'm here?”

It was so absurd to think of Cheesy's finding employment in
that ludicrous plight, that Sophronia and her mother joined in
another fit of laughter at his expense. Yet Mrs. Dabney had
deeper feelings awakened within her for the boy.

“I will see what can be done,” said she, in her usually mild
and pleasant way. “You shall stay with us until Monday, at all
events, and make a visit. You must have a clean shirt to put on,
the first thing, and I will try to find some clothes that will fit you
better than these appear to. Sophronia, see if your father is going
out soon. I shall not dare take Cheseboro' up stairs while he is
in the house.”

With a countenance beaming with pleasure and hope, the

admiring Cheesy watched his bright cousin as she went dancing
out of the room; then, wrapping the wide lapels and skirts of
the frock-coat about him, he looked at himself all down in front
and over his shoulder, and chuckled with irrepressible glee at his
unexpected good fortune.