Two men :: :: University of Virginia Library

When Jason Auster married Sarah Parke he was
twenty years old, and a house-carpenter. As he was
not of age, he made some agreement with a hard father
by which liberty was gained, and a year's wages lost.
He left his native village filled with no adventurous
spirit, but with a simple confidence that he should find
the place where he could earn a living by his trade, and
put in practice certain theories concerning the rights of
men and property which had already made him a pest
at home. The stage-coach which conveyed him thence,
traversed a line of towns that made no impression from
his point of view—the coach window; but when it stopped
to change horses at Crest, a lively maritime town,
and he alighted to stretch his cramped legs, he saluted
Destiny. Its aspect, that spring day, pleased him; he
heard the rain of blows from broad-axes in the ship-yards
by the water's edge, and saw new roofs and
chimneys rising along the irregular streets among the
rows of ancient houses, and concluded to stay. He unstrapped
a small trunk from the stage-rack, carried it
into the tavern entry, and looked about him for some
one to address. A man who had been eying the trunk

advanced towards him with a resolutely closed mouth,
and hands concealed in his pockets.

“Do you keep this tavern?” Jason asked; “and do
you want a boarder?”

“Yes siree,” the man replied, in a loud cheerful voice.

“What is board now?”

“Three dollars per week.”

“I think I will stop here. My name is Auster.”

“I agree; but maybe you had rather go to the other
tavern where they sell liquor, with flies in it. I keep a
temperance house.”

“Good,” answered Jason, pulling off his overcoat. “I
have got a temperance lecture in my trunk; I wrote it
last winter. I'll lend it to you to read.”

“I ain't much of a hand at reading handwriting,” the
tavern-keeper replied with a dubious look; but catching
sight of Jason's carpenter's rule, his face brightened.
“Guess you are a carpenter,” he exclaimed; “just the
place for you. We are growing like the mischief since
whale-oil is so high.”

The arrangement for board was concluded, and Jason
began life in Crest with ten dollars, two suits of clothes,
and a few articles, which consisted of several shirts, two
books whose titles were “Man's Social Destiny,” and
“Humanity in Limbo,” a pin-cushion with Forget Me
Not embroidered upon it, and the temperance lecture.

Before night he had taken the bearings of Crest, and
was satisfied that he had made a good choice. The week
following he sent to a boss-carpenter a novel design for
mantle-pieces, which proved the means of an engagement
to work with a gang on the inside of a Congregational
church about to be built. With the whistling of

his plane he began to air his theories of Socialism, Abolitionism,
and Teetotalism, and amused his fellow-workmen,
who never mistrusted that he intended to be
believed, or that he was in earnest, for his manners belied
his words. He appeared shy, cold, and indifferent,
self-forgetful, and forgetful of others.

As the church progressed it became a place of resort,
especially in the fine summer afternoons, when groups of
young women perambulated the aisles, sat in the doorless
pews, or hung over the unfinished gallery. One day
two ladies went up the pulpit stairs, while Jason was at
work on its moulding below; looking up to caution them
against stepping on certain loose boards in the flooring,
he saw that he was too late, for the lady in advance was
already half in the cavity under the floor, and only kept
herself up by a clutch on the desk. Jason bounded up the
stairs and extricated her; as he did this he heard a shrill
laugh from her companion, which made him laugh too.

“I wish it had been you, Sarah Parke,” she exclaimed.
“Thank you, sir,” she said stiffly to Jason, without looking
at him.

“You are welcome to my help,” he answered quietly.
“Of course, I owed it to you.” And he returned to his
work.

“Who was the black-eyed girl that didn't fall in?”
he asked of one of the workmen, named John Davis.

“Squire Parke's grand-daughter,” he answered. “It
would be worth your while to walk into her affections;
but she don't look at carpenters, I tell you.”

“She looked at me,” Jason said grandly.

“How could she help it?” replied John satirically;
“you have got such eyes!”

“Why shouldn't she look at carpenters?” Jason persisted.

“The Parke family are next to the Lord, in this county,
though it is not what it was once. One of 'em
knocked off his heel-tap on Plymouth Rock the day the
Pilgrims came ashore; one of 'em was a governor; one
of 'em settled here—cheated the Indians, I guess, out
of the pine woods that belong still to the old Squire, and
died universally unlamented. I never heard any good
of the name, nor any thing so very bad. There's a
streak in the family; one or two in every generation
are all streak—which means that they go to the devil.
I must say though, that most people have a good word
for the old Squire; he ain't meddlesome. I wonder
what has come over this Sarah lately? I see her about
with folks, as if she was tired of being by herself.”

“The Parkes, I take it, have not understood the correct
balance between Man and Wealth.”

“Oh yes, they have, and have got all the wealth from
every man they ever had any dealings with!”

“Such men delay the progress of social harmony.”

“Speaking of harmony, will you go to the sing to-night,
with all hands? Miss Jane Moss, the girl you
pulled up from the pulpit just now, is the head-singer in
our choir. I sit behind her in the gallery, and pass cloves
and cardamom seeds over to her every Sunday.”

“What are you going to sing?”

“We are getting ready for the Dedication.”

“If you will come round to the tavern for me, I'll go.”

John consented, and, at seven o'clock, made his appearance
dressed in his best, and found Jason in his best
also. But notwithstanding the change of clothes, there

was a strong piney odor about them; also a dryness of
complexion, a roughness of hair and whiskers, and a
cracked condition of the hands, which suggested beams,
boards, and shavings. Jason had been nicknamed “The
Lath.” The physiognomy of “The Lath” promised to
be interesting, if the soul should ever awaken; eyes of
light blue, fringed with thick black lashes, now somewhat
vague and wandering, would then flash with conquering
power, or diffuse, tender, appealing rays. At
present, Jason was not handsome; neither was there
any fascination in his bearing, attitudes, gestures, or
speech.

He did not confess on his way to the singing-meeting
that he knew nothing of music, but when he arrived
took a seat among the singers, and turned the leaves of
his music-book at the proper instant. Opposite him, in
the place of honor, sat Jane Moss and Sarah Parke; he
soon discovered that Sarah was no more of a singer than
himself, though her lips moved, and her eyes followed
the notes. She looked at him in the middle of a prolonged
“Amen,” and perceived that he understood the
sham; she turned her head away to conceal a smile,
turned back again, and learned, as the choir burst out
again, that he was an accomplice in her fraud.

John Davis informed him, when the meeting broke
up, that he had about made up his mind to ask Jane
Moss if he might escort her home, though he didn't
know but that it would make her mad.

“Go in,” said Jason; “I'll support you.”

John, with a stiff “Good-evening,” thrust his elbow
out before Jane, and she condescendingly placed her
hand inside it. A moment after, Jason was introduced

to Sarah, and shook hands with her modestly, and
walked beside her without attempting conversation; he
waited for her to address him. His deportment was so
unexceptionable, that when he left her at her door, she
expressed a hope of meeting him again.

It was known in Crest soon after that Jason had called
at Squire Parke's. Then it was rumored that he spent
whole evenings there, playing backgammon with Sarah,
or whist with the Squire. And finally the town was
surprised to hear that Jason and Sarah were to be married.
It charitably said that she must be bewitched to
marry a poor carpenter, and that he knew which side
his bread was buttered on, but that he might not find it
so pleasant to go up in the world after all. But it was
not allowed to be present at the marriage ceremony,
which was performed one evening in the Squire's west
parlor. Two persons besides the minister were present;
the Squire and Elsa Bowen, the housekeeper. The next
morning Jason took his place at the breakfast-table, as
an inmate of the family. The household consisted now
of six persons; the Squire, Sarah, his grand-daughter,
Elsa Bowen, a middle-aged woman who had lived with
the second wife of the Squire for years, as housekeeper,
friend, and fourth cousin, a hired man, “Cuth,” who
had been in the Squire's employ from a boy, a youth
named Gilbert, and Jason himself.