University of Virginia Library

2. IV.

I noticed one evening that Clarence was unusually dejected.
I heard him speak to Frank in a low tone, and heard her
answer, “Oh never mind, Clarence—there are four little kittens
in a barrel in the refectory, come and see them.” But he lighted
the tallow candle, and took up a book.

While I was wishing that I could comfort and encourage
him in some way, there was a rap at the door. “Miss Matilda,
you are looking well, yes you are so; you are looking exceedwell;”
I heard a voice say. “Ah,” she replied, “I do n't know
how it can be—I have such cares—to keep two young girls,
you know, within the bounds of female propriety, is a task that
is wearing me down. Do n't I look pale?”

“Yes, Miss Matilda, you look pale”—and then to be quite
assured that he agreed with himself, he repeated, “Yes, you
do look pale, and it is so.”

Here was a blessed opportunity to escape; Matilda would
not think of me while Mr. Kipp remained; and as for the mamma,
she sat in state, and with her eyes closed, as usual: that
is, she had the largest number of soiled ribbons about her,
and a snuff-box and piece of burnt pound-cake in her hands. And
Frank was busy in an obsure corner, trying to pull down her
stockings, so as to conceal the holes in the heels. Under such
a combination of circumstances, I actually eluded an arrest in
my passage from the parlor to the kitchen. A part of the
afternoon and all the evening the rain had been falling, and as
neither roof nor windows of the kitchen were water-proof, the
old place looked more dismal than common. There were
damp patches in the wall, and puddles standing in the floor,
and the little fire was dying out under the gradual dropping.

Clarence sat at the desk where I had left him, the book open
before him; but he seemed not to be reading, nor yet to be
aware that the gathering rain was falling on him where he sat.
At first he was shy and incommunicative, but I was interested
in him, and more than willing to do him service, so, after
a while I won my way to his confidence.

I laid the embers together, and we drew our chairs to the

hearth, and while the rain pattered its lullaby, he told me the
story of his life.

His mother, whom he scarcely remembered, was dead; his
father, a profligate and thriftless man, hired him about in one
place and another, while he was yet a boy, and now that he
was grown to manhood, still lived mainly upon his wages.

Kept always at servile employment, and deprived of the
little compensation he should have received, his spirit had been
gradually broken, and his ambition lost. No one cared enough
for him to say do this, or that, or why do you thus or so?
He had drifted about, doing what chance threw in his way;
and was now standing on the verge of manhood, aimless and
hopeless. He liked books, and read, but without system or
object; to work, or “draw water in a sieve,” were all one to
him; “It matters not what I undertaken,” he said, “I can't get
along.”

“Your heart is not in your duties,” I answered.

“No—how can it be? look at me; I have no clothes but
these.”

“You can easily get others.”

“No: whether I earn much or little it is taken from me Saturday
night—all except, indeed, enough to clothe me as I am,
and to pay for the miserable pittance I have here.”

“And where do you sleep?”

“On the waste paper in the printing office.”

A sorry enough prospect, I felt, but there was hope yet. I
could not advise him to abandon his parent, altogether, though
I thought it would not be wrong for him to do so; but I urged
him to retain for himself a portion of all he earned, and to
obtain somewhere else meals that would be a little more substantial.

At this suggestion he hesitated and blushed; there was no
need of a confession—he was more than half in love with
Frank.

What a mystery, I thought; she is so unlike him; but on
consideration the riddle was revealed—she had been as kind
to him as she knew how to be. I am but an indifferent comforter
and counsellor, I fear, and yet it was astonishing to see

how the youth rallied; it must have been a sense of sympathy
that helped him: nothing else.

At ten o'clock, or thereabouts, our conference was broken
off by the abrupt entrance of Matilda. Her astonishment, on
seeing us both seated on one hearth, though the hearth was ample
enough to accommodate a dozen persons, was so great that
she fainted, or at least fell into the arms of Clarence, and said
she swooned.

The lecture I received for this indiscretion I need not repeat,
but I may say that I never discovered any unwillingness on the
part of Miss Matilda Hamersly to converse with Clarence
Howard or any other man, old or young, wise or witless. It
was a disagreeable duty, she said, that of entertaining gentlemen—Frank
being a mere child, and mamma sixty-odd. “Oh,
I wish you girls were old enough to take the responsibility,”
she was in the habit of saying, when visitors came, “I am so
adverse to gentlemen's society.”

This awful outrage of propriety, that is, the confidential conference
which Clarence and I had in the kitchen, resulted, in a
day or two, in the dismissal of Clarence from the house.

“And yet,” said Matilda, “there is one thing I like the boy
for—he never speaks to me.”

This ejectment was painful to Clarence, I knew, but he endured
it better than I had hoped; he had now a prospect of a few
shillings ahead, and there is no influence that stays up the hands
like this.

“You must not forget me, Frank,” he said in a voice that
was a little unsteady, and holding her hand close in his.

“Oh no,” she replied ingenuously; “our milk-man was gone
once two years, and when he came back I knew him; but
do n't squeeze my hand so, Clarence.”

He left his books on the shelf till he should find a new home,
he said; but rather, I suspected, as a sort of link that bound him
to the cottage.

In the course of Miss Matilda's perigrinations about town, she
became acquainted with an impish youth, who interested her,
she said, for reasons—in fact—in short—really, she did n't
know—he had one great fault—he liked the ladies—a disposition

that should be curbed by somebody—and who could do it
but she. They were so unprotected—only females in the
house—for their safety, it was necessary to have a man about,
of nights. She wished she was like other women—less timid,
and less averse to—but she could n't help it.

All this Miss Matilda conveyed to the knowledge of Mr.
Kipp; and also hinted, that the new man would more than supply
the place of Clarence in the office of the Illuminator, and at
the same time he could take tea and breakfast with them, and
so afford the protection that woman must have, however averse
her feelings were to so much as the touch of a gentleman's
finger, even, to her apron string.

“But does he know anything of types?”

“Oh, I forgot to say I heard he was half a printer.”

“Well, Miss Matilda,” said Mr. Kipp, “your advice is always
good, and I should not be surprised if I saw the person you
speak of as I was coming here to-night—tall, was he, Miss
Matilda?”

“No, Mr. Kipp, he was short.”

“My name is Josephus, Tilda. And you say he is short?”

“Yes, Josephus.”

“And has he black hair?”

“No, Josephus, red.”

“And his face is pale, ain't it?”

“No, Josephus, red and brown.”

“Well, I 've seen him—at the Springs, or Governor Latham's,
or somewhere. Yes, I have seen him—yes, I know I
have seen him. Miss Matilda!”

“Josephus.”

“I've seen him, Miss Matilda.”

The night following, the impish young man sat in the parlor,
conversing with all the wisdom of gray hairs, with Miss Matilda.
She was no doubt trying to wean him from his liking for
the ladies. And poor Clarence—under the weight of his new
discouragement, was heavy enough at heart.

We were gathering berries, Frank and I, in the woods adjoining
Randolph, when we discovered Clarence sitting on a decayed
log, his eyes bent on the ground, and his cheek hollow and

pale. When he saw us, he did not approach, as we expected,
but turned instead into the thicker woods.

We playfully rallied him, for thus abandoning two unprotected
females, and finally succeeded in making him laugh.

He had been idling about for several days, not knowing and
scarcely caring what was to become of him. I encouraged him
to new efforts, and he grew cheerful and hopeful, and promised
when we parted from him at night, that he would try once
more. But I am now inclined to think it was Frank, who had
said nothing, rather than I, who had said much, who induced
the brave resolution. He found difficulty in executing it, however.
There were opportunities enough for other lads, who
seemed to have nothing special to recommend them, but when
he applied, employers hesitated.

“You are the boy who was with Kipp, they said. “Why,
he is a good fellow, could n't you get along with him?”

Of course, Clarence could only say Mr. Kipp had always
been kind and generous to him; thus taking on himself all
the fault of his discharge from the editor's service.

The employers then said they would think of his proposal,
or that they had partly engaged another lad, or they made
some other excuse, that sent him sorrowful away.

At last his quest was successful; he obtained in the Randolph
post-office a situation as clerk.

For a fortnight or so all went on well. Clarence looked
smiling and happy; a new hat and new pair of boots took the
places of the old ones; his cheek was growing rounder, and his
eyes losing something of their melancholy.

The postmaster said, so it was reported, that he never
wanted a better boy in his employ than Clarence; the young
women smiled when they met him, and the sun to his vision was
a great deal bigger and brighter than it had ever been before.
That was the little heyday of his life.

There was great excitement in the town of Randolph one
morning. Groups of men were seen talking at the corners of
the streets and before the doors of groceries; at first in whispers,
but gradually louder and louder, till there was one general
hum. Young lads, who had never been known to smoke,

bought cigars, which they both gave away and used freely
themselves: they felt suddenly lifted up into the importance
of manhood, and bitter denunciations fell from many a beardless
lip.

A dozen or more women might have been seen leaning from
the windows of their homes, half way into the street, and one
of them was Miss Matilda Hamersly.

And among the lads who were smoking, and throwing more
stones at the stray dogs than usual, was Miss Malinda's protegé,
Ebenezer Rakes—“Neeze,” as the patroness called him. At
length, in answer to the beckoning of her lily hand, he approaches,
and as she leans still lower from the window, informs
her that Clar Howard has been took up and shot up in jail, for
abstracting a thousand dollars from a letter, which was lying in
the Randolph post-office.

“Good heavens!” exclaims Matilda; “I always expected as
much—he had such a bad look in his eyes! Did you see the
constable take him?”

“Yes, I seen him took, but he was n't took by the constable;
he was took by the sheriff's warrant; they tied his hands with
a rope, and he tried to hide 'em under his coat as he went
along, but he could n't come it.”

“Did he seem to feel bad?” asked Matilda.

“He shed some crokadile tears, I b'leeve,” said “Neeze,”
“but them as took him would n't ontie him for that. If I had
had my way, I'd a strung him up on the nearest tree, and
made an example of him.”

“It's a wonder,” says Matilda, “that he never took anything
here; he was among us just as one of the family, just as you
are, Neeze.”

Neeze says he would advise an examination of the valuables
belonging to the house, and Matilda hopes he will be home
early at night—they are so unprotected—she shall be afraid if
a little mouse stirs. And with this appeal, in her tenderest
tone, she withdraws that portion of her person into the house
which has previously been in the street, counts the teaspoons,
and repeats the news; after which she runs across the garden,

and by the back way enters the domicile of Mrs. Lowe, who is
still looking and listening.

“Frank, my child, move my chair a bit nearer the wall,”
says Mrs. Hamersly; and this is her only demonstration of
interest in the matter.

“I wonder if it's dark, where he is?” says Frank, “and what
Mr. Kipp will say?”

Mr. Kipp, as publisher of the Illuminator, is the one man of
all the world, to her; there will be a paragraph in his journal;
she will read it with more interest than she feels in similar
paragraphs generally, for that Clarence used to live with
them. So, having wondered what Mr. Kipp will say, she
takes the milk pan to the “court,” and the lean cats breakfast
from it.

In the course of the day, Matilda took the books which
belonged to Clarence from the accustomed shelf, with the
express intention of burning them. It required all my efforts
to dissuade her, but I did so at length, though she would not
listen to my assurance that he would reclaim them before long;
for I could not be persuaded of his guilt.

Agreeably to the promise obtained of his patroness, Neeze
came home early that night, and it seemed that the two would
never have done talking of the robbery.

Half past nine came, and Mrs. Hamersly, as usual, eyed the
clock through her glass; but Matilda would not see it; ten
came, and still they talked—five, ten, fifteen minutes more.

“My child, I shall go into convulsons,” said the mamma, in
her customary passionless tone.

“The saints protect us!” cried Matilda, and she held up her
apron as a screen.

From this night forward, the wrinkled face of Matilda was
often seen near the downy cheek of the boy, Neeze. There
was evidently a great and growing interest between them,
partly based upon the accusation of poor Clarence, and partly
on the rumor that Mr. Kipp was suddenly enamored of a rich
and beautiful girl of twenty.

This last report, if true, was fatal to all the lady's hopes,
though she often said she could not believe it, inasmuch as he

had ever seemed to sympathize so perfectly with all her feelings,
especially with her aversion to the marriage state.

But facts are truly stubborn things, and will make head
against a great many probabilities and possibilities, and Miss
Matilda's faith in Mr. Kipp's celibate intentions was broken at
last—utterly dissipated, under the following circumstances.

After a cessation of visits for a time, Mr. Kipp once more
honored Mrs. Hamersly's house with his presence.

“You must have been very happy of late—I hope you have
been, I am sure;” said Matilda, seating herself further from the
illuminated gentleman than she was wont, and speaking without
her usual affectations—she was too much in earnest.

“Well, yes, Miss Matilda; I met my friend Doane this
morning, one of the richest men in town here. Do you know
Doane?”

“I do not.”

“Well, Miss Matilda, I 'd been writing letters before I set
out: one to Mr. Johnson, of Massachusetts, and one to somebody,
I forget who. Well, I met Doane, and he is a good-natured
fellow, Doane is; and says he, `How are you Kipp?'
and says I, `Doane I 'm glad to see you;' and says he—no,
says I, then—no, I forget what I said; and then says he, `You
look happy, Kipp.' And I laughed, and Doane laughed.
Doane is a shrewd fellow, Miss Matilda—he's independent.”

“Ah!” said Miss Matilda.

“Yes, he is a cunning fellow; yes, he is so.”

A long silence.

“Miss Matilda,” says Mr. Kipp, at last.

“Well, sir,” she answers, biting her lip.

“Miss Matilda.”

“Well, sir,” more decidedly.

“I think there will be rain, Miss Matilda.”

“I do not, sir.”

“Well, nor I, Miss Matilda; I would n't be surprised if it
did n't rain for a month: No, I would n't. Miss Matilda.”

“Say on sir,” she said, with a voice and look, into which
were thrown all the dignity of the Hamerslys.

“I would n't be surprised.”

“What would surprise you, Mr. Kipp?”

“Why, for instance, Miss Matilda, it would surprise me if
you were to get married!”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Why, Miss Matilda, I mean—in fact, I mean, it would not
surprise me in the least.”

“I suppose you think you could get married?” said Matilda,
“and I am sure I do n't care how soon you do so.”

“No, Miss Matilda, I could n't get married if I wanted to.”

“What, Mr. Kipp?” in tones slightly softened.

“I could n't Miss Matilda—nobody would have me.”

“How strange you do talk,” said the lady, a little tenderness
thrown suddenly into her voice.

“It 's a fact.”

“Now, Mr. Kipp, you know better!” in quavers positively
sweet.

It 's a fact, Miss Matilda.”

“Mamma, wake up, and look at naughty Mr. Kipp, and see
if he ain't crazy. I do believe you are out of your head.” And
she stooped over him gracefully, and laid her hands on his forehead.

“Well, Miss Matilda, what do you think?”

“Really, Josephus, I do n't know—it seems so queer—I
wish mamma would wake up—I can't tell whether men are in
their head or not; mamma's sixty-odd, and she—oh, she knows
a great many things: but Josephus, look right in my eyes, and
tell me why you can't get married.” And she bent down very
fondly, and very closely.

One moment of blessed expectancy, and the last venture
was wrecked. Mr. Kipp could n't marry, because he had already
taken the pretty and rich young lady “to hold and to keep.”

“I am sure I wish you well,” Matilda said, with her former
asperity of manner—“I would n't lay a straw in the girl's way
if I could.”

Her hands dropt from the forehead of Mr. Josephus Kipp, as
she made this benevolent declaration; and she all at once
remembered that Mr. Rakes had not yet had supper!

“I am sure,” she said an hour afterwards, to that wise young

person, “Mrs. Kipp, as I suppose she calls herself, ought to
have money; she had n't much else to recommend her.”

That night the gossipping was more bitter, and of longer continuance
than before. Matilda believed, she said, there was
not a single woman in Randolph but who would get married if
she could, and that was all she wanted to know about them;
for herself, she wished all the men had to live one side of the
town and all the women the other; and she appealed to
Neeze, to know if it would not be nice; upon which Neeze
threw the cigar from his mouth, and drew his chair up to Miss
Matilda, in order to favor her with the expression of his
opinions on this interesting topic.

Mrs. Hamersly was again outraged. She did n't care, she
said, if they sat up all night, and kept the house in an uproar,
when she was dead; they need only wait till she was decently
buried; that was all she asked.

At last Mrs. Hamersly chanced to open her eyes one night,
and see the hand of Matilda, that pattern of propriety, around
the neck of Ebenezer Rakes! The lady's spirit was now fully
roused, the dignity of the house must be maintained, and she
would maintain it at some little cost. Mr. Rakes was summarily
dismissed from the premises, and Matilda's clothing carefully
locked away, and the door of her chamber nailed up every
night.

I need not linger over details; a night or two of this imprisonment,
and Frank and I awoke from sleep one morning, to
find the bed-cord dangling from the window, and Matilda gone.
Mr. Rakes was found missing too. That, “with an unthrift
love they had run from Randolph,” there could be no doubt.

Frank wondered what Mr. Kipp would say when he heard
of it, and stepped into Matilda's place in giving drawing lessons;
and said she thought there would be some way to get
along.

Clarence was soon at liberty, for there was no proof of
his guilt discovered, but he could not be free from the stigma
that attached to him.

The town's folks were distrustful, and looked upon him curiously
as he went abroad; few would employ him, and those

who did, watched him narrowly. He could not live so, and
formed the resolution, which, under the circumstances, was a
very brave one, of going into a strange place, to seek his
fortune.

When he told us, Frank and I, she said it would be a nice
thing, and I could not dissuade him, nor encourage, more than
to say “the world was all before him, where to choose,” and I
wished him heartily success and happiness.

It was useless to say there were other places as good as Randolph,
and that he would make other and better friends: he
knew no other world, and all he loved was there.

A mile to the south of the village stood the stump of an elm
tree, white as silver, for the bark was gone, and it had been
bleaching there many years.

“Go with me to the elm stump,” he said, when he was ready
to set out. It was night—for he had waited, that no one might
remark his going—damp and cloudy, nor moon, nor star in
sight. Over his shoulder he carried a budget, containing a few
books and all the clothes he had. The road was dusty, and we
walked on in silence, for there seemed nothing more to say;
so the tree was reached before we had exchanged half a dozen
words.

He looked toward the next hill, as we paused, as if he would
ask us to proceed, but presently said, “No, it 's no use, I would
never be ready to go on alone.”

While we stood there a beggar passed, looking lean and
hollow-eyed. He reached his hand toward us, and Clarence
seeing his rags, sadly said to us, “I shall look that way one
of these days.”

Before we separated, he untied the bundle spoken of, and
taking out two old and worn volumes, gave each of us one,
saying, as he wiped them with his hand, “They will remind
you of me sometimes, maybe.”

With many of the best qualities of the heart, and the finest
instincts of intelligence, poor Clarence, it was easy to see, had
little of that bravery of nature which is indispensable to success
in the world; and observing with what spirit he set out
on his quest for fortune, it was easy to perceive that there was

really no brightness before him, so that this twilight parting
which he had arranged with my friend Frank and myself, was
indescribably sad to me, who felt far more anxious for the
youth's happiness than Frank had ever felt, or was capable of
feeling.

Poor Clarence! there was a defect in his nature—a very
common defect—fatal to all growth, and destructive of every
element of success, or even of nobleness in aspiration or in
conduct. Like many young men encountered every day, lagging
behind ambitious crowds, he had some fine instincts, with
vague perceptions of beauty, and generous affections; but of
one thing he was lacking still, and always, Will, the parent of
faith and energy. How frequent are the instances in which
a single brave and persistent effort would raise one's life from
all the quicksands and shoals which environ the youth of so
great a majority, into the clear sea, over which blow forever
prosperous gales! Cowardice, despondency, inertia, were never
startled from their ascendency in Clarence's soul by even a
half-trial of his powers; and it might have been foretold,
therefore, that his going out into the world would be in vain.
When, in emergencies which most demand it, we see evinced
no will—such as has that power the Master said belonged to
faith—it is well to put on our mourning: it were quite as well
with the poor, if, instead, there were an end of life.

Long after Frank was asleep that night, I lay thinking of
Clarence—wondering how far he had got now, and now; and
saying, now, that he might come back, and be with us again in
the morning. But he never came back.

Though I so perfectly understood his infirmities, which forbade
any reasonable expectation of a happy future for him, his
better qualities so deeply interested my feelings, that in fancy
I still shaped out a bright future for him—of his sometime coming
home to Randolph, a great man, whom the people could
not praise and honor enough.

It was one day in the following spring, that, tired of working
in the flower-beds, I stopped to rest in the faint shadow of the
newly budding lilac. A scrap of newspaper held my flower-seeds;
I emptied them in my lap, and, as my habit is, read,

to amuse my idleness, whatever the fragment contained; and
thus, by such chance, I learned all I have ever learned of Clarence's
fate: he had died months before in one of the southern
cities.

As I planted my flowers, I wished that I might plant them
on his grave; but their frail leaves could not have sheltered
him better than he was, and is.

The postmaster of Randolph was ultimately convicted of the
theft attributed to his clerk, whose name, too late, was freed
from a blot.