 | Life in the open air |  |
BRIGHTLY'S ORPHAN.
A FRAGMENT.
[The author had only written two chapters of this story
when he joined the Army. It was the last thing his hand
was engaged upon when the call for volunteers summoned
him to the field. He said of it, “I am tired of writing of
crime and wrong; this shall be cheerful and sunshiny, if I
can make it so.” In its unfinished state it has been thought
worthy of preservation.]
1. CHAPTER I.
John Brightly jumped out of bed. He filled
his short and stout pantaloons with a pair of legs
proportionable, and ran to the window.
Nothing to be seen through the thick frost upon
the panes, until he had breathed himself a round
eye-hole bearing upon his thermometer.
That erect little sentry had an emphatic fact
to communicate to the scrutinizing eye of John
Brightly. It was a very frigid fact, and made the
eye that perceived it shiver a little. But the temperature
of Brightly's mind was perpetual summer.
The iciest ideas admitted into his brain became
warmed and melted by the sunny spirits there;
and so it was with this cold fact which the cold
mercury fired at him through its cold glass barrel.
“Zero!” said he, “a sharp zero, Mrs. Brightly!”
A pretty, delicate, anxious face, lifted itself from
the pillow by the side of its fellow, still depressed
in the middle and high at the sides as her husband's
head had left it.
“Zero!” rejoined a voice sweet, but feeble. “I
the earliest bluebird. I have half a mind to go into
a rage with you, John, for being so utterly contented.”
“When you have your first rage, Mary Brightly,
I shall have my first discontent. But I cannot
scold Zero when I see what a wonderful artist he
is. Look at this window. See this magic frost-landscape.
It is a beautiful thought that such
exquisite fancies are always in the air waiting to
be discovered.”
“The chill finds the latent pictures, as sorrow
makes poets sing.”
“Well said! We each owe the other one. And
what did you dream of last night, Mrs. Brightly?”
“Nothing.”
“Yes; you must have dreamed of the tropics,
and breathed out palms and vines and tree-ferns in
your dreams.”
“As the girl in the fairy-tale dropped pearls and
diamonds when she spoke. Perhaps I did. But
how did you detect me?”
“Here they are all upon the window, just as you
exhaled them. Here on this pane is a picture,
crowded as a photograph of a jungle on the
Amazon. Here are long feathery bamboos, drooping
palms, stiff palms, and such a beautiful bewilderment
of vines and creepers by a river sparkling in
the sunshine. And here, hullo! here is an alligator
done in ice, nabbing an iced boa-constrictor.
Delicious! Do come and see, Mary!”
“Zero forbids,” said she, with a pretty shiver.
“I 'll see them with your eyes, John.”
“Well. And while you were dreaming out this
enchanted vision, I must have been snoring forth
my recollections of the forests of Maine. Here
they are on the next pane by way of pendant and
contrast. `This is the forest primeval.' Here
are pines in full feather and pines without a rag
on their poor bare branches, pines lying on the
ground, and pines that fell half-way and were
caught in the arms of brother pines. Pines, hemlocks,
and the finest arbor-vitæ I ever saw, all
crusted with glittering ice and hanging over a
mountain lake. I think I like this better than the
tropics. Do come, Mrs. Brightly.”
“Zero doubly forbids my going to a colder
climate. But it is delightful to be here, warm and
comfortable, and listen to your raptures.”
“Mary,” said Brightly, turning to her with a
grave and tender manner.
“What, John?”
“I find a different picture on the next pane. Do
you remember our two dear little ones?”
“Do we remember them?” she asked with tearful
eyes.
“God knows we do! and here among these
lovely frost-pictures I find a memorial of them.
Shall I describe it?”
“Yes, dear John,” said she, by this time weeping
abundantly.
“I see a little promontory jutting into a great
top is nearly clear. It is a graveyard, Mary. In
one corner, under a hemlock heavy with snow, and
within a railing, I see two simple white stones,
such as are put over children's graves. It is
strangely like a scene that we have looked at very
sadly together. Shall I read the names I almost
fancy I decipher upon the stones?”
“Do, dear John,” she said between her sobs.
“All memories of them are beautiful to me.”
“John, son of John and Mary Brightly, drowned
at eight years of age, while endeavoring to rescue
his drowning sister Mary. `In death they were
not divided.'”
Brightly took his wife's hand very tenderly, as
in this grave, formal way he recalled their domestic
tragedy.
“We do not repine, my love,” said he.
He was a singularly sturdy, bold, energetic-looking
man; almost belligerent indeed, except that
an expression of frank good-nature showed that,
though warlike, he would not wage war unless on
compulsion, and when peace was impossible. His
face was round and ruddy, his hair light, his eyes
dark blue, his figure of the middle height, and
solid as if he was built to carry weight. Evidently
a man to make himself heard and felt, one to
hit hard if he hit at all. It was a shrewd and able
face, and if it had a weakness, it was that there
was too much frankness, too much trustfulness,
too little reserve in it. A rough observer would
man of thirty of so much delicacy of feeling and
tenderness as he had shown in this interview with
his wife.
“We do not repine, my love, for their loss,” he
repeated.
“I am sometimes very lonely, John, she hesitatingly
said. “Our little Mary was growing just
old enough to be a companion to me; and John
too, — I do not know which I loved best.”
“I must find you,” said Brightly, in his cheerful
tone, “a nice little maiden or a fine little fellow to
adopt.”
“O if you would!” she exclaimed.
“Which shall it be?” he asked with a business
air. He occupied himself in erasing with his
breath the picture which had recalled their bereavement.
As the frost vanished, the scenery without
appeared. No very vast or very attractive view.
Most of the respectable citizens of New York have
similar landscape privileges. Brightly's bedroom
window was perforated in the front of a handsome
precipice of brown freestone. It looked down
upon a snowy ravine, planted alternately with
lamp-posts and ailanthus-trees; opposite was another
long precipice of brown stone, evidently
excavated into dwellings for the better class of
troglodytes.
“Are you serious, John?” asked Mrs. Brightly,
drying her tears.
“Certainly,” says he. “What do I live and
work for except that my wife shall have everything
she wants?”
“Don't claim to be too disinterested! I am
sure you are dying to have me approve your
scheme.”
“I think we are both growing excited about it.
But let us come to a conclusion. Which shall it
be, boy or girl?”
“Boys are so merry and noisy in a solitary
house,” said Mrs. Brightly, thinking of her son.
“Girls are so gentle and quiet,” Brightly returned.
“But then I am so afraid boys will get riotous
companions, and be taught to smoke pipes.”
“And girls must learn music and flirtation.”
Each parent was evidently trifling away tears.
The loss of their children was a bitter chapter in
their history. They dared no more than glance at
it, for fear their childless life should seem but idle,
aimless business.
“We must draw lots,” said Brightly, assuming
a serio-comic air.
Mrs. Brightly, still couchant, watched smiling,
while he took a clothes-broom and selected two
straws.
“Graver matters have been decided by lot,”
said Brightly. “Draw, Mary. If you get the
shorter straw, it 's a girl; if the longer, a boy.”
She coquetted a little, and finally selected her
straw. They compared them carefully.
She had drawn a girl.
“I do hereby bind myself and mortgage my
property,” said Brightly, holding up his hand, as
if he were taking a judicial oath, “to present to
Mrs. John Brightly of the City of New York, on
or before the 31st of December instant, one attractive
and intelligent damsel not over fourteen years
of age; to be by her, the said donee Brightly,
adopted and brought up to the best of her knowledge
and belief, either as daughter, step-daughter,
companion, or handmaiden, as to the said Brightly
may seem good. And thereto I plight thee my
troth.”
Mrs. Brightly laughed at this pledge. “But
how are you going to find her, John?” she asked.
“I always find the things I look for; unless
they find me as soon as they know I 'm in search
of them.”
“Success will spoil you some of these days.”
“Not if I lose what I prize success for. But
this new child of ours shall be a new spur to me.”
“She must be an orphan, John, or she will not
love us as much as we shall love her.”
“An orphan of course. I think I shall put an
advertisement in the paper to this effect: — Wanted
to adopt. An orphan of poor but respectable
parentage, beautiful as a cherub, clean as a new-laid
egg, with a character of docility and determination
in equal parts; eyes blue, voice tranquil,
laugh electric; one whose heart sings and heels
dance spontaneously; a thing of beauty willing to
be a joy forever in the house of a prosperous
mistress and spoiled from dinner to bedtime by the
master. No Irish, orange-girls, or rag-babies need
apply.”
“It is impossible not to be in good spirits where
you are, John,” said the little wife. “How doleful
I should be all day, unless you compelled me to
begin my morning with a course of laughter!”
“I don't know any better medicine,” said he.
“I take all I can get, and give all I can. Well;
you approve of my advertisement?”
“As a description of what we want, it is perfect.”
“I will pop it into the paper to-day, and to-morrow
morning there will be a deadlock of dirty children
in this street, and a deadlock of dirty parents
up and down the cross streets, for half a dozen
blocks, — parents and children all waiting to be
adopted. By the way, Mary,” Brightly rattled on,
“you must plunge into Zero, and dress and give
me my breakfast in a hurry.”
“O John, when will you have made money
enough not to be in a hurry any more?”
“When I have hurried through my hurries. But
I must be early in Wall Street this morning, for
another reason. This talk about advertisements
reminds me that I have advertised for an office-boy.
I dare say there are a hundred juvenile noses flattening
against my windows already. It will be
deadlock there, too, by the time I get down. I am
afraid poor Broke will be quite bewildered out of
his wits, if he arrives first.”
“Is Mr. Broke coming to dinner to-morrow?”
“Yes; he would not miss his Christmas with us.
The others are all coming, I suppose?”
“Every one. The two Knightlys, Uncle Furbish
and Amelia, Dr. Letherland, and Mrs. Purview and
her son.”
“And I hope you mean to have a good dinner for
us, Mrs. Brightly.”
“Certainly. Did I ever fail? And your Christmas
dinners, John, for all the poor people that
expect them from us, are they ordered?”
“Not yet. That is another reason for me to despatch.
The pick of the market will be all gone,
if I am late. Now, then, my dear, one spasm, and
you are up.”
2. CHAPTER II.
Of all the luxuries of town life on this globe,
there is no luxury greater than a rattling walk
down Broadway on a cold winter's morning.
So John Brightly thought as he strode along on
that day before Christmas.
It was early, but the shops had all opened their
eyes wide, and put on their most seductive smiles
in honor of the season. Everything that the brain
of man has fancied and the hands of man have contrived,
had taken its stand at the windows to persuade
passengers to stop and admire, and then to
their gloomy merchandise under the counter for
this day only, and displayed nothing but coquettish
articles of half-mourning and the subdued purples
of departing grief and awakening joy. The
toy-shop windows chuckled and grinned with jolly
toys. The print-shops had taken down their battlescenes
and death-bed scenes, and, instead of blood
and tears, nothing but comedy and sentiment was
to be seen. The photographers exhibited their
smuggest men and smirkiest women. Nothing
could be gayer or brighter or more party-colored
than the confectioners' show-cases, where, under
bowers of cornucopias, the tempting wares were
arrayed, as if there was somewhere in fairy-land
a planet all pink and white and blue and yellow
sugar from centre to pole, and this was a geological
cabinet of its specimens.
John Brightly ran this amicable gantlet at a
great pace, conscious of its love-taps, but proof, as
if he were a Princess Pari Banou, to its attempts
to arrest him.
Only once he felt a little pang as he rattled along,
electrified by the keen air. A sharp sunbeam, reflected
from a pair of skates, struck him in the eye.
He thought of his drowned son, drowned last summer,
and for an instant fancied him skimming along
on the ice, as the father had taught him. But
Brightly, though greatly softened by this sorrow,
was not a man to let it rankle in his heart and
enfeeble him.
“I am very happy,” said he to himself, “that
Mary has so easily consented to this scheme of
mine. I have long seen that her patient grief was
wearing her away. Now, perhaps, if I can provide
her a new object of interest and love, she
will recover tone. Man can work; but woman is
in danger of brooding.”
And so, with his busy brain full of schemes for
his wife's happiness, full of schemes for comforting
and helping all the people he knew who needed help
and comfort, full of schemes for bringing the great
powers and untiring energies he was conscious
of to bear, to ease, speed, and better the world,
Brightly hastened down Broadway.
The early clerks, seeing him pass, a knot an hour
faster than they were travelling, nudged each other
and said: “Hallo, there 's Brightly! Early bird!
No wonder he 's making his fortune quicker than
any man in Wall Street, lucky fellow!”
As everybody is aware, one end of Wall Street
drowns itself in a river lately from Hellgate, the
other end terminates in a church, and runs up a spire
into heaven. Or it might be said that Wall Street,
like many a man's career, begins with the sign of
the cross up in the pure sky, tumbles down away
from the church as fast as it can, and then rushes
up hill and down, with Mammon on both sides of
the way, until it suddenly finds itself plumped into
a tide that is making full speed for Hellgate.
That ornate and flowery plant, the spire of Trinity,
with its tap-root in a graveyard and its long
spiritual office of monitor, has a temporal office of
time-keeper to perform. It certainly keeps the
time of Wall Street; probably it keeps that Via
Mala's conscience also, since kept in the street it
evidently is not.
The clock of Trinity marked a quarter before
nine, when Brightly could see its dial through the
branches of the mean trees stunted by the unwholesome
diet they found in the churchyard.
“I have beat Broke this morning by fifteen minutes,”
said he, and turned down the street.
A block before he arrived at his corner, he saw
that a regiment of boys had collected in answer
to his advertisement. “Wanted immediately, an
office-boy, by John Brightly, Wall Street,” — this
notice had called out from their holes and caves
fifty or sixty chaps of all sizes, shapes, tints, and
toggery.
Brightly's office was on a corner, three steps
below the level of the street. The throng of aspirants
completely blockaded the door and filled the
sidewalk. Brightly passed around them and took
his stand on the high steps to the first floor of the
building. From this vantage point he could inspect
the troop he had evoked, and reduce it to manageable
proportions, by mental subtractions.
It was an amusing sight, as all crowds are, unless
the looker-on turns up his nose so much at
vulgarity as to obstruct his vision.
It was a compact little crowd, well snugged together
hustle was going on in it. The hustle might have
been ill-natured scuffle except for that spontaneous
police which always keeps the peace and looks after
fair-play in crowds that are not mobs. The brutal
boys who would have pounded the weakly boys, and
rendered them ineligible by black eyes and bloody
noses, neutralized each other. Besides, emulation
among so many could not develop into hostility.
Every boy knew that he had only one fiftieth of
one chance of success, and that each boy within
reach had only a fiftieth. The natural dislike of
competitors, subdivided into fractions with such a
denominator, lost intensity, and expended itself in
nudges of the elbows and shoves with the hips, instead
of running down into the hands and electrifying
them into pugilistic fists, or filling the boots
with the idea, kick. It is not until two or three of
a field distance the others, and are neck and neck
within a dozen leaps of the winning-post, that hatred
begins to expand in their souls, if they are
hateful.
As Brightly had one boy to choose, and no time
to spare to be philanthropic, he began to decimate
the throng with his eye.
First, he rejected all who disdained or neglected
the primal use of the pocket-handkerchief.
Second, he set aside all the irreclaimable ragamuffins.
Third, he counted out those who would be constitutionally
unsavory.
Fourth, all who would fill their desks with pies,
peanut-shells, and story-books to match.
Fifth, several who would drop in nonchalantly
at irregular hours, and regard the office only as
an agreeable lounging-place, which their presence
honored.
Sixth, the sons or scholars of thieves.
Seventh, chronic upsetters of inkstands.
Eighth, a mean, stunted man of twenty-five,
shaved close and disguised in jacket and turn-over
collar, with forger and picklock in his face.
Ninth, a boy with a pipe, a boy with a “dorg,”
and a boy whistling as if his lungs could take
breath only in the form of music.
By these successive expurgations, made rapidly
by Brightly from his post on the steps, the number
of applicants to be noticed was reduced to five or
six, all decent, earnest little fellows, and clustered
near the door as if they had come early.
One of these was seated against the door, with
his head leaning upon the knob. For all the cold,
he had dropped asleep in this position. His next
neighbor was faithfully defending him from the
pokes and pinches of the others.
“One or t' other of that pair will probably be the
man,” thought Brightly, descending the steps and
elbowing his way toward the basement door.
The boys at once perceived that this gentleman,
whom they had seen surveying them from above,
was the advertiser. All felt a little detected. All
made quick attempts to reform their manners and
thumbs under their fingers. The boy with a pipe
pocketed it and bore the burn like a Spartan. The
boy with a “dorg” obscured his bandy-legged
comrade. The whistler shut his lips hard together,
and breathed stertorously through his nose.
There were symptoms of a rush as Brightly unlocked
his door. He repelled it, however, selected
the most promising subjects for further examination,
and dismissed the others. Most of them,
conscious of demerit, abandoned the field at once.
A few, with feeble pertinacity, remained sitting on
the cold steps and hoping for another chance. The
curious ones stayed about the windows peering in
to watch who might be the successful candidate,
and with a view, no doubt, of learning what was
his peculiar charm. Two or three truculent urchins
amused themselves with shaking their fists at the
insiders, and ferociously threatening them, if they
were preferred. The “dorg” boy, finding that he
was a failure in his capacity of boy, presented himself
as “dorg” merchant, and withdrew indignant
when he learnt that dog spelt with an “r” was
unsalable thereabouts.
Meantime Brightly had conducted his selection
within, and after a question or two to each, had
taken two of them into his inner office for closer
examination. This was the pair who had been
nearest the door.
The sleeper was now wide awake, and looking
about observingly. No face could be honester or
biological fact that the very red-haired and freckled
tend to honesty. Nature compensates them by the
gift of Worth for the want of Beauty. The brown
splashes arranged themselves on this little chap's
face as if each was a little muddy puddle to water
the roots of a future hair of his future beard, and a
series of them fell away from the bridge of his nose
very dark and precisely drawn, and suggesting that
his moustache, when it came, would come there
instead of under his uplifted nostrils. A merry,
trusty, busy fellow he was, and to see him was to
like him.
“What is your name, my lad?” asked Brightly.
“Doak, sir. Bevel Doak.”
“And yours,” continued the banker, turning to
the other.
“Bozes, sir.”
“Bozes?” repeated Brightly.
“I did n't say, Bozes, sir. I said Bozes, — Bozes.”
“O Moses! Well, Moses what?”
“Dot Bozes Watt. By dabe is Shacob.”
“Moses Jacob?” says Brightly.
“Shacob Bozes, sir,” replied the boy.
His speech bewrayed him. His name bewrayed
him. His nose, his ruddy brown skin, his coarse
black hair, his beady black eyes, his glass breastpin,
all bewrayed him.
“A Jew,” thought Brightly, “and a shrewd one.
A fellow with such a nose as that must open his
way.”
It was a droll nose. Side view or front view,
his face seemed all nose. It was a nose well buttressed.
His cheeks began at the ridge of it, and
filled up the hollows on each side so that a straightedge
would have touched everywhere. This feature
had absorbed the whole countenance. It was
not large; not a beak nor a snub, — in fact, not
a classifiable nose; its nostrils did not expand so
as to promise a stereoscopic vision of its owner's
brains. Indeed, taken per se, it was not unlike
some other noses in Jewry or even in Christendom.
But it refused to be taken per se. There was no
isolating it. Every part of his face tended to nose.
You could not say where it began, any more than
you can say where Mount Etna begins on the landward
side.
“Have n't I seen you before?” said Brightly,
trying to analyze the boy's chief feature as the last
sentence has done.
“Yes,” replied Moses. “I sold you thad dubbrella.”
“And you propose to try a new business?”
“Yes, sir. Gades is all out of fashion.”
“What are `gades'?”
“I did n't say gades; I said gades, — gades.”
“O, canes! they are out of fashion, eh? But
how about umbrellas?”
“The soft ads has put dowd the ubbrellas. Besides
bed is gidding bore badly dow and does n't
bind weddings.”
“`Men are more manly,' — that is good news.
their weddings all the more.”
“I did n't mean weddings with wives; I meant
weddings with wader. But adyhow, tibes is dull,
and bein' you wanted a boy, I thought I would like
to go into business with you.”
The boy's perfect simplicity, perfect self-possession,
and an air of entire honesty and courage,
greatly amused and pleased Brightly. He saw he
had found a character.
“So you think you would like to go into business
with me,” he said.
“If agreeable.”
“I cannot pay a boy much salary, you know.”
“Id is n't the zalary; id 's the coddection.”
“You flatter me,” said Brightly, his sense of
humor more and more tickled with the other's
seriousness.
“I speag the drooth. There 's dot mady med in
the sdreet I 'd drust. I 've sold 'em all gades ad
dubbrellas, ad I know 'em all.”
“But you look pretty prosperous now, Moses.
Why change?”
“I have to dress well od aggout of the hodels.”
He was attired to suit the hotel taste, in Chatham
Street's most attractive styles. “Very neat,”
“Very chaste,” and “Le bon ton,” or some similar
label, inscribed in gold on a handsome white card,
had not long since decked each article of his
raiment.
“But this bredspid,” continued he, touching it,
chaids is pitchback.”
Bevel Doak had been feeling his own hopes of
employment dwindle while the pedler was stating
his case. Poor Bevel had been greatly appalled
by the fine jewel that glittered on the other's
breast. What person of either sex could resist
the gleam of that mountain of light, surrounded
by knobs of light and secured in the flamboyant
scarf of Mr. Bozes by a chain to the right, a
chain to the left, and a chain aloft? Bevel brightened
greatly as the breastpin under its wearer's
avowal began to grow dim, — the diamonds dowsing
their glim, and the mainstay, forestay, and bobstay
transmuting themselves from gold to pinchbeck.
Brightly now thought it time to give the other
the floor; so he said, “Well, Doak, Mr. Moses has
told us the object of this call. How is it with
you? Have you a fancy, too, for changing your
business?”
“I want to make a little for mother and the
children.”
“You have no father?”
“No, sir. He was the carpenter that the other
carpenter fell on from the top of the house in
Trinity Place last summer.”
“I saw 'em,” Moses interjected. “Both was
sbashed.”
“I remember,” said Brightly. “And how many
children are there, Bevel?”
“There 's me, sir, Bevel, — father gave us names
out of the carpenter's trade, — and Plane and Dove;
— Dovetail was his name; but we took off the tail.
And then there 's the two girls. Five, sir, besides
mother.”
“Are the girls named out of the carpenter's
trade, too?”
“No, sir. Mary and Jelling is their names.”
“And you want to make a little money to help
them?”
“If mother was n't sick and the children was n't
hungry, I should stick to my trade,” replied Bevel,
with an independent air. “I can handle tools already
pretty well, for a boy. But times is dull,
and 'prentices can't make money; so last night,
Mrs. Sassiger —”
“I 'be aggquainded with her,” says Mr. Moses.
“She zells the faddest durkeys in the Washington
Market.”
“That 's her,” rejoins Doak. “Well, Mrs. Sassiger
showed mother the advertisement of `Boy
Wanted'; and says Mrs. Sassiger, `Mrs. Doak, my
eyes was drawed to that Wanted.' `How?' says
mother. `By the name, Brightly,' says Mrs. Sassiger.
`A wide-awake kind of a name,' says mother.
`What you state is correct,' says Mrs. Sassiger;
`but it 's suthin' else that drawed my eyes to that
name. Do you remember the day Mr. Doak was
fell on?' Mother, bein' weakly, could n't speak
for crying, so says I, `Yes, Mrs. Sassiger, she
does remember it, and will remember it so long
Sassiger, `the day Mr. Doak was fell on, I got
uneasy in my mind about the ways of Providence
in puttin' so many burdings on one family. I felt
as if things was n't equal, the way they ought to
be. I don't say it was right, mind you,' says she,
`but that feelin' had got into my head. So, to see
that the Doaks was n't the only people in affliction
in the world, I took the paper and read about the
great fire and loss of life, and about twelve persons
killed or mutilated by the explosion of the steamboat
Torpedo, and about the awful calamities and
sudden deaths. By and by I come,' says she, `to
a teching tale how two children of Mr. John
Brightly, up the North River, was drowned together,
— the boy tryin' to save the girl. I cried
a great deal over that,' says Mrs. Sassiger, `and
somehow it made me feel softer, and not so much
of a rebel again' the Lord. Now, Mrs Doak,' says
she, `my eyes has been drawed to this call, “A boy
wanted by John Brightly,” and I motion that Bevel,
not havin' any payin' work to do, and writin' a
good hand, and a hard winter comin', — I motion,'
says Mrs. Sassiger, `that Bevel be the first boy at
that John Brightly's door to-morrow morning.'
That motion was kerried quite unanimous, and here
I was, sir, at sunrise, and about three minutes before
Moses, — Mr. Moses. That 's a long story,
sir,” Bevel perorated, a little abashed at himself;
“but I got going, and could n't stop.”
Brightly looked very kindly at the earnest little
with a critical ear, he asked: “Well, Moses,
what do you think of Doak's application?”
“I reside,” replied Moses.
“You resign!”
“I reside,” repeated the umbrella-merchant, with
composure. “The sbashed father is dothing. Like
as dot by father was sbashed. The sick bother is
dothing. By bother is dead — if I ever had ady.
The boys can take gare of theirselves. I 've toog
care of byself. If there was only one girl, I bight
insist. But there 's two. How old is Bary, Bister
Doak!”
“Thirteen and a half.”
“Thirdeen ad a alf. Just the age for the orridge
and apple business. I could set her up byself,
if gapital is wanted. Id 's daggerous business
for the borals; but the borals of good girls
takes gare of theirselves. I could n't reside od
Bary's aggout. But there 's Jelling. How old is
she?”
“Eight,” replied Bevel.
“Eight is just the age for the batch business;
ad id reguires very liddle gapidal, though the
profids is small. Batches without sulphur is dow
id deband. But the batch business is low and
ibboral. I dever dew a girl in the batch business
who got into good society, ad into the brown stode
Wards. Jelling had better be kepd ad hobe. I
reside id her favor.”
“What do you propose to do?” asked Brightly,
you definitely abandoned the cane and umbrella
business?”
“I have offered all my stock to my glerk. I
shall spegulate around generally. I can always
bake boney. I could go into Chaddam Sdreet, into
the ready-made line. I 'b thought to have a hadsome
taste in gents' clothing.”
Mr. Moses glanced at his own habiliments. They
were, as was before suggested, somewhat more
showy than our grave and colorless civilization approves.
His race still retains much of the Oriental
love for what we name barbaric splendors.
“Or,” continued he, “I could do a good thing
id watches and chewelry. Young bed of good
badders are always wanted to attract young ladies.”
“How old are you?” asked Brightly, all the
while amazed and amused at the calm, precocious
youth.
“By barber thinks I bust be about sixteed by
the dowd od my chid. I 'b probised a beard by
dext winter.”
“Now, Doak,” said Brightly, “what do you
think of Jacob's resignation in your favor for Jelling's
sake, subject to my approval, — for I must
be allowed a voice in the matter?”
“It 's very generous, sir.”
“It is gederous!” said Moses, loftily. “I abaddon,
dot the chadce of baking by fortune, — thad is
a drifle. I cad bake fortunes without drubble. Bud
office-boy has a social bosition whidg all the
ready-made id Chaddam Sdreet ad all the chewelry
of the origidal Zhacobs caddot cobbad.”
All these speeches of the young Jew were delivered
with entire self-possession, seriousness, and
good-faith.
| Life in the open air | |