University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
LITTLE KATY'S LOVER.

KATY was fifteen and a half, according to the
family Bible. Katy was a woman grown in
the depth and tenderness of her feeling. But Katy
wasn't twelve years of age, if measured by the development
of her discretionary powers. The phenomenon
of a girl in intellect with a woman's passion is not
an uncommon one. Such girls are always attractive—feeling
in woman goes for so much more than thought. And such a
girl-woman as Kate has a twofold hold on other people—she is
loved as a woman and petted as a child.

Albert Charlton knew that for her to love was for her to
give herself away without thought, without reserve, almost
without the possibility of revocation. Because he was so oppressed
with dread in regard to the young man who walked
and boated with Katy, courted and caressed her, but about
the seriousness of whose intentions the mother seemed to have
some doubt—because of the very awfulness of his apprehensions,
he dared not ask Kate anything.

The suspense was not for long. On the second evening
after Albert's return, Smith Westcott, the chief clerk, the agent
in charge of the branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co., in

Metropolisville, called at the house of Plausaby. Mr. Smith
Westcott was apparently more than twenty-six, but not more
than thirty years of age, very well-dressed, rather fast-looking,
and decidedly blasé. His history was written in general but
not-to-be-misunderstood terms all over his face. It was not
the face of a drunkard, but there was the redness of many
glasses of wine in his complexion, and a nose that expressed
nothing so much as pampered self-indulgence. He had the
reputation of being a good, sharp business man, with his “eyeteeth
cut,” but his conversation was:

“Well—ha! ha!—and how's Katy? Divine as ever! he!
he!” rattling the keys and coins in his pocket and frisking
about. “Beautiful evening! And how does my sweet Katy?
The loveliest maiden in the town! He! he! ha! ha! I declare!”

Then, as Albert came in and was introduced, he broke out
with:

“Glad to see you! By George! He! he! Brother, eh?
Always glad to see anybody related to Kate. Look like her
a little. That's a compliment to you, Mr. Charlton, he! he!
You aren't quite so handsome though, by George! Confound
the eigar”—throwing it away; “I ordered a box in Red Owl
last week—generally get 'em in Chicago. If there's anything
I like it's a good cigar, he! he! Next to a purty girl, ha!
ha! But this last box is stronger'n pison. That sort of a
cigar floors me. Can't go entirely without, you know, so I
smoke half a one, and by that time I get so confounded mad I
throw it away. Ha! ha! Smoke, Mr. Charlton? No! No
small vices, I s'pose. Couldn't live without my cigar. I'm
glad smoking isn't offensive to Kate. Ah! this window's nice.
I do like fresh air. Kate knows my habits pretty well by this

time. By George, I must try another cigar. I get so nervous
when trade's dull and I don't have much to do. Wish you
smoked, Mr. Charlton. Keep a man company, ha! ha! Ever
been here before? No? By George, must seem strange, he!
he! It's a confounded country. Can't get anything to eat.
Nor to drink neither, for that matter. By cracky! what nights
we used to have at the Elysian Club in New York! Ever
go to the Elysian? No? Well, we did have a confounded
time there. And headaches in the morning. Punch was too
sweet, you see. Sweet punch is sure to make your headache.
He! he! But I'm done with clubs and Delmonico's, you know.
I'm going to settle down and be a steady family man.” Walking
to the door, he sang in capital minstreal style:
Yah! yah! Plague take it! Come, Kate, stick on a sun-bonnet
or a hat, and let's walk. It's too nice a night to stay in
the house, by George! You'll excuse, Mr. Charlton? All
right; come on, Kate.”

And Katy hesitated, and said in a deprecating tone: “You
won't mind, will you, Brother Albert?”

And Albert said no, that he wouldn't mind, with a calmness
that astonished himself; for he was aching to fall foul of Katy's
lover, and beat the coxcombry out of him, or kill him.

“By-by!” said Westcott to Albert, as he went out, and
young Charlton went out another door, and strode off toward
Diamond Lake. On the high knoll overlooking the lake he
stopped and looked away to the east, where the darkness was
slowly gathering over the prairie. Night never looks so strange

as when it creeps over a prairie, seeming to rise, like a shadowy
Old Man of the Sea, out of the grass. The images become
more and more confused, and the landscape vanishes by degrees.
Away to the west Charlton saw the groves that grew
on the banks of the Big Gun River, and then the smooth prairie
knolls beyond, and in the dim horizon the “Big Woods.”
Despite all his anxiety, Charlton could not help feeling the
influence of such a landscape. The greatness, the majesty of
God, came to him for a moment. Then the thought of Kate's
unhappy love came over him more bitterly from the contrast
with the feelings excited by the landscape. He went rapidly
over the possible remedies. To remonstrate with Katy seemed
out of the question. If she had any power of reason, he might
argue. But one can not reason with feeling. It was so
hard that a soul so sweet, so free from the all but universal
human taint of egoism, a soul so loving, self-sacrificing, and
self-consecrating, should throw itself away.

“O God!” he cried, between praying and swearing, “must
this alabaster-box of precious ointment be broken upon the
head of an infernal coxcomb?”

And then, as he remembered how many alabaster-boxes of
precious womanly love were thus wasted, and as he looked
abroad at the night settling down so inevitably on trees and
grass and placid lake, it seemed to him that there could be no
Benevolent Intelligence in the universe. Things rolled on as
they would, and all his praying would no more drive away
the threatened darkness from Kate's life than any cry of his
would avail to drive back the all-pervading, awsome presence of
night, which was putting out the features of the landscape one
after another.

Albert thought to go to his mother. But then with bitterness
he confessed to himself, for the first time, that his
mother was less wise than Katy herself. He almost called her
a fool. And he at once rejected the thought of appealing to his
step-father. He felt, also, that this was an emergency in which
all his own knowledge and intelligence were of no account.
In a matter of affeetion, a conceited coxcomb, full of flattering
speeches, was too strong for him.

The landscape was almost swallowed up. The glassy little
lake was at his feet, smooth and quiet. It seemed to him that
God was as unresponsive to his distress as the lake. Was
there any God?

There was one hope. Westcott might die. He wished he
might. But Charlton had lived long enough to observe that
people who ought to die, hardly ever do. You, reader, can
recall many instances of this general principle, which, however,
I do not remember to have seen stated in any discussions
of mortality tables.

After all, Albert reflected that he ought not to expect
Kate's lover to satisfy him. For he flattered himself that he
was a somewhat peculiar man—a man of ideas, a man of the
future—and he must not expect to conform everybody to his
own standard. Smith Westcott was a man of fine business
qualities, he had heard; and most commercial men were, in
Albert's estimation, a little weak, morally. He might be a man
of deep feeling, and, as Albert walked home, he made up his
mind to be charitable. But just then he heard that rattling
voice:

“Purty night! By George! Katy, you're divine, by George!
Sweeter'n honey and a fine-tooth comb! Dearer to my heart

than a gold dollar! Beautiful as a dew-drop and better than
a good cigar! He! he! he!”

At such wit and such a giggle Charlton's charity vanished.
To him this idiotic giggle at idiotic jokes was a capital
offense, and he was seized with a murderous desire to choke
his sister's lover. Kate should not marry that fellow if he
could help it. He would kill him. But then to kill Westcott
would be to kill Katy, to say nothing of hanging himself.
Killing has so many sequels. But Charlton was at the fiercely
executive stage of his development, and such a man must act.
And so he lingered about until Westcott kissed Katy and
Katy kissed Westcott back again, and Westcott cried back
from the gate, “Dood night! dood night, 'ittle girl! By-by!
He! he! By George!” and passed out rattling the keys and
coins in his pocket and singing:

Then Albert went in, determined to have it all out with
Katy. But one sight of her happy, helpless face disarmed
him. What an overturning of the heaven of her dreams
would he produce by a word! And what could be more useless
than remonstrance with one so infatuated! How would
she receive his bitter words about one she loved to idolatry?

He kissed her and went to bed.

As Albert Charlton lay awake in his unplastered room in
the house of Plausaby, Esq., on the night after he had made
the acquaintance of the dear, dear fellow whom his sister
loved, he busied himself with various calculations. Notwithstanding
his father's “notions,” as his mother styled them, he
had been able to leave his widow ten thousand dollars, besides
a fund for the education of his children. And, as Albert

phrased it to himself that night, the ten thousand dollars was
every cent clean money, for his father had been a man of
integrity. On this ten thousand, he felt sure, Plausaby, Esq.,
was speculating in a way that might make him rich and respected,
or send him to State's-prison, as the chance fell out,
but at any rate in a way that was not promotive of the interests
of those who traded with him. Of the thousand set
apart for Katy's education. Plausaby was guardian, and Kate's
education was not likely to be greatly advanced by any
efforts of his to invest the money in her intellectual development.
It would not be hard to persuade the rather indolent
and altogether confiding Katy that she was now old enough
to cease bothering herself with the rules of syntax, and to devote
herself to the happiness and comfort of Smith Westcott,
who seemed, poor fellow, entirely unable to exist out of sight
of her eyes, which he often complimented by singing, as he
cut a double-shuffle on the piazza,
generally adding, “Ya! ya! dat am a fack, Brudder Bones!
He! he! By George!”

As Charlton's thoughts forecast his sister's future, it seemed
to him darker than before. He had little hope of changing.
her, for it was clear that all the household authority was
against him, and that Katy was hopelessly in love. If he
should succeed in breaking the engagement, it would cost her
untold suffering, and Albert was tender-hearted enough to
shrink from inflicting suffering on any one, and especially on
Kate. But when that heartless “he! he!” returned to his

memory, and he thought of all the consequences of such a
marriage, he nerved himself for a sharp and strong interference.
It was his habit to plunge into every conflict with a
radical's recklessness, and his present impulse was to attempt
to carry his point by storm. If there had been opportunity,
he would have moved on Katy's slender reasoning faculties
at once. But as the night of sleeplessness wore on, the substratum
of practical sense in his character made itself felt.
To attack the difficulty in this way was to insure a great
many tears from Katy, a great quarrel with a coxcomb, a
difficulty with his mother, an interference in favor of Kate's
marriage on the part of Plausaby, and a general success in
precipitating what he desired to prevent.

And so for the first time this opinionated young man, who
had always taken responsibility, and fought his battles alone and
by the most direct methods, began to look round for a possible
ally or an indirect approach. He went over the ground
several times without finding any one on whom he could
depend, or any device that offered the remotest chance of
success, until he happened to think of Isabel Marlay—Cousin
Isa, as Katy called her. He remembered how much surprised
he had been a few days before, when the quiet girl,
whom he had thought a sort of animated sewing-machine,
suddenly developed so much force of thought in her defense
of the clergy. Why not get her strong sense on his side?