University of Virginia Library

20. XX.
THE PROGRESS OF CHEESY.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 731EAF. Page 289. In-line Illustration. Image of a boy running with a stick in his hand like a spear. Behind him a soldier is running with a trumpet.]

ROMANCE is the twinsister
of Reality. The
two cannot be separated;
they are united by a ligature
as fatal as that
which gives zest to the
exhibition of the Siamese monstrosities.
Yet you can see them any day
of your life, free of expense, if you
will but take the trouble to open your
eyes in the street, in proudest or in
humblest homes, even in the kitchen
where your puddings are baked. The one, a creature
ethereal and angelic, whose face is ever upturned
in the glory of the ideal life, unattainable in
the heavens, and whose castle gleams pendulous in
air, amid sweet gardens steeped in purple mist, and leaping fountains
of light, and rainbows soft as love, and streams, and groves,
and mountains, all of cloud, with only a Jacob's ladder leading
thereunto, “walks up and down our earthly slopes,” side by side
with her dwarfed and limping brother.

We have seen how, in the case of Martin, Reality, plodding
and practical, kept pace with his aspiring sister, dragging heavily
after, with sad and wearisome footsteps, when she would have flown.
Thus it is ever. Romance cannot go far alone. Reality holds her
back. Even in affairs of love, when ofttimes her lame brother is
quite lost sight of, he keeps close by her side, creeping along the
earth as if ashamed, to arise, grim and relentless, towards the close
of the honeymoon, if not before. I saw this strange pair yesterday
at a funeral, and last night at a wedding. They move continually
before my eyes; yet seldom have I seen them well agreed. Instead
of working harmoniously together, — the one, whose mission
is use, ordering the necessities of life, and the other, whose province
is beauty, lending the charm which graces lowliest works, —
they seem at most times to be affected by jealousy and impatience.
If you pay your addresses too assiduously to the fair
sister, the sullen dwarf takes every occasion to trip your heels,
and push you into ditches. On the other hand, if you make
Reality your god, and scoff at his companion, she turns away her
face, sorrowful, and hides the light of those eyes which beautify
and sweeten life. Take both by the hand, accepting the mission
of each, and slighting neither, and mayhap you shall see the two
become one perfect form and spirit of beauty; for the legend runs
that Romance is but the soul of Reality, half divorced by the
discords of earth, and that, when Love and Truth prevail, she will
enter again, with her informing grace, into his ugly and distorted
body.

The uncultivated Cheesy, no less than the poet Martin, suffered
from these unhappy differences between the dwarf and his
sister. Even he, son of a Dabney, and fugitive from his step-mother's
roof, followed Romance with too ardent footsteps, and

received many a disastrous check and cruel fall, at the hands of
the malignant dwarf; until, at length, he gave up the chase in despair,
and sat down, angry and full of woe, to lament for the vanishing
Psyche, and to curse her hideous brother.

A place in a store was not quite the paradise Cheesy expected
to find it. Hoeing corn, pounding clothes and churning, were nothing
compared with the duties he now had to perform. He was the
drudge of the establishment, and every hard and particularly disagreeable
job fell to his lot. At first it had been nothing but fun
for him to open boxes, hoist up bales, and handle heavy goods; it
was when Romance smiled upon him over his work, and he
sprung up to meet her; but, having bumped his head repeatedly
against the dwarf's, which kept popping up before him at every
eager step forward, he became disheartened, and, as already said,
sat down to lament and curse.

Yet Cheesy would not have minded the hard work so much,
had he received anything like Christian treatment in his new situation.
Sniffenden, of Sniffenden & Co.'s. although a “stiff and
strong old fogy church-member,” as the under clerks called him,
was a glum, unbending tyrant. Whenever he entered the store, an
awful hush fell upon the cheerful clerks, and a deeper gloom
seemed to overshadow the walls; business became unusually brisk
and silent; and even Mr. Wilcox, the self-possessed head-clerk,
appeared to be not altogether at his ease. Also Mr. Tuffinham,
the “Co.,” — a watchful, obsequious young man, who had been
taken into partnership because Mr. Sniffenden wanted some interested
person to look after the business during his absence, — stood
in awe of him, like the rest.

Yet the senior partner had his jokes; he could now and then
unbend and be facetious; on which occasions Messrs. Tuffinham

and Wilcox were invariably susceptible of fun, and capable of
perceiving a vast deal more of the article in Sniffenden's hard,
forced humor, than any other person, independent of the establishment,
could have done. How they rubbed their hands, smiled
attention, and doubled up with laughter, when it was expected of
them to do thus much in honor of Sniffenden's jokes! At such
times a general good feeling prevailed in the house, and every
employé, with the exception of poor Cheesy, might venture to
listen for the point of the jest, and even to smile when it was supposed
to have come off.

The benevolent Sniffenden, as society named him, in consequence
of large donations to charitable objects, never kicked, nor
struck, nor spoke in savage tones, to the drudge of the house. He
scarcely ever looked at him, even. Yet the fearful weight of his
tyranny rested directly on Cheesy's shoulders. It was passed
down to him through the successive situations above him, from
that of Tuffinham and the head-clerk. These powerful individuals
took revenge for the despotism to which they were compelled to
submit, by oppressing all beneath them generally, and Cheesy in
particular. Mr. Dupper, the second, comforted himself in like
manner, by treating with arrogance all under him in general,
and Cheesy in especial. On the same principle did the third,
fourth, fifth and sixth, seek consolation for the superciliousness of
their superiors, in domineering over those below them, always
selecting Cheesy as an object of peculiar persecution. And of all
these tyrants, from Sniffenden and Co. down, the most acrimonious
and determined was young Civett, who, having served in
Cheesy's capacity before him, and experienced all the hardships
of the situation, felt bound to be revenged on his successor for all
that he himself had ever suffered.

Cheesy was but little better off at his boarding-house. His
greenness and awkwardness subjected him to such intolerable ridicule,
that it was no comfort at all for him to go home at night,
and he looked forward to breakfast and dinner only with misgivings
and sickness of heart. It was enough to spoil his appetite, at
any time, to think of the foppish Jenks sitting opposite him, at
the head of the table, and making fun of him, in whispers, for the
edification of the giggling girls. Every mouthful of food he took,
and the manner of taking it, seemed to be observed. Disdainful
eyes were on him ever; even Mrs. Quilby, the good-natured
and familiar landlady, treated him with contempt; and the
boarders, as a body, appeared to consider him an interloper, who
had no right to set foot in so respectable an establishment. And
the miserable Cheesy himself felt that he was guilty of unpardonable
presumption, whenever he showed his lugubrious face and
shrinking figure in presence of those smart young gentlemen and
gay young ladies.

Much of the incivility of which Cheesy considered himself the
object was doubtless imaginary. Generally, we may suppose, his
presence at the table was scarcely observed. The whispered conversation
of the sleek Jenks and the tittering girls was on topics
of far greater importance, probably, than the verdant boarder.
When the grinning Cargess passed him the bread, or asked if he
should help him to a piece of the veal, Cheesy had no reason to regard
his politeness as of the ironical sort. And when Miss Banks
inquired why he did not spend his evenings in the parlor, it was
unjust to suspect her of sinister motives. Yet, having once been
tortured with the conviction that he was a laughing-stock for the
company, he could not banish the uncomfortable notion from his
mind. Every laugh, every sly look, every allusion to things he

did not comprehend, every act of courtesy of which he was,
naturally enough, the object, he interpreted as having a direct
bearing upon his personal appearance. Hence he began to form
dilatory habits, coming later and later to his meals; until at
length he made it a matter of calculation to arrive home at dinner
about the time the last boarder was leaving the table. His
supper also he generally managed to eat alone. Breakfast was
not so easily disposed of; he was obliged to be early at the store,
and to wait for the rest was impracticable. He accordingly made
friends with the cook, and bribed her to give him his breakfast a
quarter of an hour before the regular bell rung, pretending that
his business required that despatch.

Cheesy's evenings were no less lonely and wearisome than his
days. True, after working hard in the store from seven o'clock
in the morning, he was tired enough, when night came, to enjoy
his rest. But Cheesy was horribly homesick; he needed sympathy;
his heavy sorrows would not let him sleep. Without a
friend in the world, without a companion into whose bosom he
could pour the story of his wrongs, he was, he firmly believed, the
most wretched being in the world; he saw nothing before him worth
living for; Romance was dead, and the ugly dwarf, Reality,
hugged him close in his churlish embrace. And now he looked
back, regretful, upon the peaceful village life he lately led. The
remembrance of old faces and kind hearts, whom he had left behind
him, haunted him sadly.

What jolly times he used to have at the store where the post-office
was kept, and in the bar-room of the village inn! How he
used to amuse everybody with his comic songs, and his imitations
of circus-riders! Ah, those good old times, those happy, golden
days, ere city-life was dreamed of; when he was innocent of running

away; when the height of his ambition was to play glibly
on the fiddle and keep a country tavern! There was no sacrifice
he would not have made to return, unscathed, to the choice
society he had so rashly deserted. There was Cole, the lame shoemaker,
who used to tell such dear, old, frightful ghost-stories to
the boys who came to his shop and brought him apples and
peaches, between sundown and dark; Jacobs, the jockey, renowned
for lying, whose daring and outrageous departures from truth had
a wonderful fascination for the young; old Mosely, the miller,
whose hearty good humor was so popular, that his venerable white
hat was honored and beloved through all the country round
about; Perkins, the blacksmith, a pious formalist, of whom the
boys stood somewhat in awe, although there were times when he
enjoyed a story or a horse-trade as well as any one; — these, and
a dozen others, farmers and mechanics, frequenters of bar-room
and store, — how vividly their images arose in Cheesy's brain,
and how he longed once more to join the happy group, of a winter's
evening! Then there were the boys, his mates, whose memory
was embalmed in sweet associations of grand sports on the village
green, — snow-fights and fox-and-geese in winter, and round-ball,
two-old-cat, and “old red lion, come out of your den,” in
summer. And recollections of moonlight nights, when he used to
climb out of the window, after his step-mother had gone to bed,
and join the band of youthful marauders, whose delight was to
scour the country in search of fun, — eating farmer's melons,
stealing grapes or peaches, and roasting green corn at midnight
fires on the borders of lonely fields, — filled Cheesy's disconsolate
soul. His step-mother was remembered with a sort of tenderness,
and many a time he wished himself sitting in her kitchen corner,
as of old, braiding whiplashes, or reading Robinson Crusoe, or
even at work on the dreaded churn. But this could not be; and
his only source of solace was to go to bed early, and lie thinking
of these things until, oppressed with an insufferable sense of grief,
he cried himself to sleep, like any homesick child.

This life became horribly monotonous, at length. Cheesy did
not get so tired during the day as when he first went into Sniffenden
and Co.'s store; he consequently enjoyed less the comfort of
rest and sleep, and his old love of adventure revived. Avoiding
still the boarding-house parlor, where others seemed to find so
much pleasure after dark, he began to spend his evenings abroad.
After swallowing his hasty supper, he would run out, and pace to
and fro, to and fro, lonely, in the street, even like his friend Martin
at that time, but from different motives, and with different hopes.

The sweet Sophronia had quite forgotten her country cousin.
His aunt, seeing that he was provided with decent clothes and a
place, neglected him thenceforward. “They feel above me,” the
poor boy used to murmur, in the bitterness of his heart. “I
should think they might a took me to board, seeing we 're related.
They might let me come and see 'em sometimes, anyway. It 's
real mean,” he would declare to himself, weeping desolately, and
whetting his face upon his sleeve. “Uncle Jesse — I 'll come
up with him some day; I 'll pay him off — the old ruffian! See
'f I don't!”

About this time, Cheesy began to run regularly with the
engines. A fire-alarm was his great delight. He would watch
and wait impatiently, standing around corners, on cold December
nights, longing to hear the shout and the clamor of bells. He was
among the first — often the very first — at his favorite engine-house,
when the alarm was given. He mingled with the crowd that ran
out the machine, and dragged it with clash and clatter through

the streets. The excitement was glorious. It caused him to forget
all his woes. It inspired him with exultation and courage.
It came like a flood, lifting him on joyous waves; it annihilated
Sniffenden and Co.'s, and drowned Mrs. Quilby's boarding-house in
oblivion. But when it subsided, — when the strong tide rushed
back with rapid ebb, — Cheesy was left stranded in the mud,
like an unhappy clam. He tried in vain to make the acquaintance
of the engine-boys; conscious of greenness and inferiority,
he lacked that assurance which commands recognition in aristocratic
circles. One night he lingered near the door of the engine-house
with two swaggering youngsters, whose friendship he
endeavored to cultivate. He listened while they talked about
their relatives and friends, and boasted of good times at home,
with mirth-inspiring allusions to jokes and incidents they had
enjoyed together. At length one said,

“Wal, I must put; the gals will be sett'n' up for me; good-night.”

“That reminds me,” the other replied, “that I han't been to
supper. Mother 'll have a corner of the table set for me, though,
and you better believe I shall have a good time over that cold beef
and fixins, with my feet on the stove! She 'll have some slices
of bread all ready to toast, the minute she hears my feet on the
door-step. Remember me to Jane Ann.”

“Of course. She 'll expect you over to-morrow night.”

“And I 'll be thar, certain. Good-night.”

And they parted: without a word to Cheesy, they parted, and
went to their comfortable homes; while he, rendered doubly miserable
by the visions of happiness their conversation called up,
retired, sighing and sobbing, to his cheerless bed in Mrs. Quilby's
house. No sweet Jane Ann expected him to-morrow night; no

kind mother kept a corner of the table for him, with a reserve of
toast, to-night.

Once in a great while, the homeless Cheesy saw his old friend
Martin, who always had a word of comfort and encouragement for
the heart-sick boy, whatever might be his own griefs at the time.
Aside from him, the luckless youngster had no friend. With one
exception. Old Grayle, the book-keeper in Sniffenden & Co.'s,
certainly deserved that distinction. He was so different from the
overbearing Wilcox and the rest; he was so quiet and humble, so
patient under the insults young Civett delighted to put upon him;
there was so much kindness in the subdued smile with which he
always bade Cheesy good-morning, that the boy learned early to
look to him for sympathy and friendship. It did him good to
pass by old Grayle's desk and receive that smile of recognition,
any time during the day. It was a satisfaction to be patted
kindly on the shoulder by that gentle hand of his, when the clerks
dispersed at night, and Cheesy was left to assist in shutting up.
What a tumult of emotion was awakened in his heart when the
book-keeper, observing the grief of his countenance, one evening,
spoke to him with glistening eyes, and in a voice tremulous with
feeling! —

“Keep up courage, my lad! There 's a good time coming.
You are young yet, thank Heaven! When you are as old as I
am, you 'll have plenty of time to think of sorrow.”

Cheesy's eyes overflowed. He could have embraced old
Grayle's neck, and wept upon his bosom. He went home comparatively
happy that night, thankful that there was one such
man in the world, and wishing there were a few more like him.

Perhaps the book-keeper saw how much good a kind word did
the poor boy's heart. Or, it may be that he himself wanted sympathy;

for the shadow of a deep sorrow rested upon his life.
However this might be, he never lost an opportunity now of bestowing
a smile or a cheering word upon Cheesy.

“Have you got a pleasant home?” he asked, one evening, as
the two left the store together.

“I han't got no home; that is, none wuth mentioning,” replied
Cheesy. “I board up to Mrs. Quilby's, here, in High-street.”

“Where are your friends, my son?”

“Han't got no friends, nuther.” Cheesy's voice began to
break. “I don't know nobody here in town; that is, nobody 't
cares for me.”

“Well, well; you must n't be down-hearted,” said old Grayle,
laying his hand kindly on the boy's back. “That 's just the way I
began life in town. I shall never forget how lonesome and home-sick
I was, at first. But it was all for the best. I could n't
sympathize with you, if I had n't been through with it all myself,”
he added, with touching humor; “that 's one good come from it.”

“I 've seen some perty hard times,” muttered Cheesy, with a
grievous contraction of the muscles of his mouth. “Everything
has gone wrong with me sence the day I come to Boston.”

“You never told me whether you found your friend from whom
you got lost that night, when you ran with the engine.”

“Who told you about that?” asked Cheesy, astonished.

“Your memory is n't so good as mine, or you would recollect
seeing me at the fire,” said old Grayle, with a smile.

“By gracious!” exclaimed Cheesy, “you an't the man, be ye,
that asked me what the matter was, and told me to follow the
ingine back that I come with?”

“I'm the very man,” replied old Grayle, with the same benevolent
smile, tempered with sadness.

“I want to know! I do remember ye now. And the fust
time I met ye in the store, I wondered where I 'd seen ye —
's queer I did n't think!”

“So it appears we are old acquaintances.”

“It appears so,” chuckled Cheesy.

“And, on the strength of that,” added old Grayle, “you must
pay me a visit. I live in Pleasant-street. Come in and spend
the evening with us, some time, won't you?”

“I should like to fust-rate, but —”

“Supposing we set to-morrow evening, if you have no engagement?”

“I han't no engagement,” said Cheesy.

“To-morrow evening it is, then,” replied old Grayle. “If
you 've got time, walk up with me now, and learn the way.”

Cheesy had plenty of time, and desired nothing better. He
accompanied his friend to the door of his residence, — an old
wooden tenement, with the gable on the street, and a side entrance
through a little yard, — and, having witnessed a happy meeting
between him and two bright children who ran out to the gate
to embrace him, returned to his boarding-place, elated with the
anticipation of his promised visit.