University of Virginia Library

I--HOW THEY HEARD OF IT

BRUNDY was the deadest town in the United States; so all the residents of Brundy said. It had not even a railway station, although several other villages in the county had two each. It was natural, therefore, that manufacturers' capital avoided Brundy. There was a large woolen mill at Yarn City, eight miles to the westward, and Yarn City was growing so fast that some of the farmers on the outskirts of the town were selling off their estates in building lots at prices which justified the sellers in going to the city to end their days. At Magic Falls, five miles to the northward, there was water power and a hardwood forest, which between them made business for several manufacturers of wooden-ware, as well as markets, with good prices for all farmers of the vicinity.

But Brundy had only land and people. The latter, according to themselves, were as good as the people anywhere, but the soil was so poor that no one could get a living out of it without very hard work. There was no chance of any kind for any of the natives. Young men were afraid to marry, and young women were afraid to marry them; for what girl wanted to

go through the routine of drudgery in which she had pitied her own mother, and what lover wanted to ask his sweetheart to descend from the position of assistant at her old home to slave of all work in a new one?

The lack of a chance for any one had made itself manifest at Brundy many years before the date at which this story opens, so many of the natives had gone elsewhere to better their condition. The great majority of them had not been heard from afterward, so Brundy did not doubt that they had become too prosperous to think of their simple old friends and neighbors. Some, however, who had gone to great cities and the great West, had returned to the place of their birth to end their days, and they were so reserved as to how they had made their money, and how much they had made, that Brundy agreed that there were some great secrets of wealth to be discovered in the outside world, could the inhabitants of Brundy ever get away and search for it.

For instance, there was old Pruffett; he had gone to Chicago when barely twenty-one, remained there forty years, and been so busy all the while that he declared that he never had found time to look about him for a wife. He had made money, too; no one knew how much, and Pruffett never would tell, but as he paid cash for whatever he bought in the village and never haggled about prices, it seemed evident that he was very well off, for Squire Thomas, the richest native who had always remained at home, would never buy even a pound of butter until a penny or two of the price had been abated.

Sad though it be to relate, there were pretty and good young women in Brundy who would gladly have married old Pruffett for his money, and loving mothers who would have advised and helped them in that direction had old Pruffett given them any encouragement, but what could any one do with a millionaire--so they called him--who was satisfied to do his own work and do his own cooking in the cottage in which he was born, and which he had kept for years just as his mother left it when she died, and he had been too busy to hurry home to receive her dying blessing?

There was nothing mean about Pruffett; he contributed liberally to all church subscriptions, and when any neighbor chanced to fall into any trouble the old man was the first to offer counsel and substantial aid; still, why did he not be wholesouled and tell younger men how and where to find their chance in life--the chance which Brundy persistently denied every one?

One morning the entire village was thrown into a fever of excitement and sarcasm by the appearance of the following notice, which was posted on the bulletin-board in front of the town hall and on trees in the several streets:

"Everybody has a Chance

"A lecture on the above subject will be given at the town hall next Friday night. The lecturer has nothing to sell, nor any medicines or other goods to recommend, nor anything to advertise. It is to be a square talk by a square man, who can prove what he says.

No charge for admission; people who like the lecture may, if they desire, drop some small change into a box which will be at the door."

"Everybody has a chance, eh?" said the natives to one another. "That man doesn't know what sort of town he's coming to. If he is depending upon the collection at the door to help him to the next town he'll have to walk."

The more the lecturer's subject was discussed the more ridiculous it appeared, and as most people rather enjoy the spectacle of a man making a fool of himself the town hall was absolutely jammed on Friday night, half an hour before the usual time for the appearance on the platform of such strolling entertainers as did not know of the impecuniosity of the natives.

When the town clock struck eight the audience saw coming from the ante- room to the platform a middle-aged man with the garb and the eye of a well-to-do mechanic and the manner of a preacher, although he soon manifested an unpreacher-like disregard for grammatical rules. The lecture, too, although humorous enough at times to set every one laughing, was somewhat like a sermon in its general character.

"People talk about not havin' a chance," began the lecturer. "Why, if chances were eggs, none of you could move without steppin' on 'em. When a man says he hasn't got his chance in life he's talking about the particular chance he wants--that's all. What we

want most isn't always what we need most, my friends, though few of us are honest enough and smart enough to see it an' say so.

"I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut that the chance an' the only one--that every man in this room is simply achin' for, so that he won't look at any other, is the chance to make a lot of money! Did he ever see anybody that had made a lot of money? Did the rich man look any happier than other folks? If not, why not? Can any of you tell the difference between the rich and the poor by their faces? I can't, except that generally the richest man looks most anxious and most discontented."

By this time every one in the house was looking at old Pruffett, who was looking at the back of the seat in front of him, although the expression of his countenance did not imply that there was anything particularly cheerful and inspiring in the back of that seat. The lecturer continued:

"An old book which all of you have in the house, and which some of you profess to believe with all your might, says that 'A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth'; you can read the passage for yourselves, and correct me if I am wrong. That same old book tells of chances that came to lots of people that hadn't a cent, either before or after. There are just as good chances now, and Brundy's as full of 'em as any other place, an' the people that don't get 'em are the people who won't see 'em, though if the chances were bears they'd bite 'em, they're so close. A man's best chance is whatever

is closest to him; if it isn't also closest to his heart, that's the man's fault--not the chance's."

The lecturer went on in the same vein, and told of some of his own chances which he had missed, as well as of some in which he had, to use his own expression, "caught on"; and he told some stories of personal experience so well that he made a lot of people cry a little, and laugh much, and not a few were compelled to do some serious thinking

When the talk ended there was quite a melodious jingling of coin in the box at the door; and several members of the audience who were nearest to old Pruffett told their neighbors for a week afterward that the old man actually dropped into the box a ten-dollar bill, forty times as much as would have paid the lecturer's stage fare to the next town.

"Got any small change about your clothes, Champ?" asked Charley Wurring, a smiling youth, of Champney Bruff, a serious-looking man of about thirty years, who was exploring his vest pocket. Charley had abundant reason for smiling, for by his side, where she had been throughout the lecture, was Luce Grew, the handsomest girl in the village. "I didn't bring any money, for I came only to laugh, but I found my chance during the lecture, and here she is, eh, Luce?"

Luce looked rather bashfully toward Champ with her great dark eyes and strong face, and then, for relief, smiled pleasantly at Charley. Champ flushed a little under his dark brown skin, but mechanically extended a coin toward Charley, who took it and

dropped it into the box. Then he took Luce's hand, placed it on his arm, whispered something to the girl, which elicited a smile which Champ regarded fixedly, although the longer he looked the whiter and more fixed it became. Suddenly it appeared to him that old Pruffett was regarding him intently, and as he did not care to be looked at closely at that particular moment he abruptly left the hall and started homeward.

So Charley Wurring and Luce Grew had come to an understanding.

And Luce Grew was the one woman of Brundy whom Champney Bruff had ever thought he could love. Could love? Had he not loved her for years? He had not dared tell her so, for how could he? He was the oldest member of his father's family; his mother was dead, his father unfit for work; and the farm was one which required steady work and rigid economy if it was to support all of Champ's brothers and sisters. The farm would be better if he could clear and drain about twelve acres of marshy woodland that belonged to it, and to clear that land had been his special effort for two or three years; but after the usual farm routine had been gone through with, even in winter, he could find time to chop down only two or three trees a day, and after all the trees were gone there would still be the stumps, and after the stumps the ditching. When all this had been done, he would propose to Luce Grew, but now, evidently, his chance or his duty, which to the lecturer had seemed to mean the same thing, was the finishing

of that clearing--while Luce Grew loved another man and would marry him.

He heard footsteps behind him, and in a moment old Pruffett joined him with:

"Not a bad lecture, Champ?"

"Not for those who found their chances while the lecture was going on," was the reply, in words that sounded as if each had been savagely bitten off. There was a moment of silence before the old man said:

"I guess I know what you mean. I'm very sorry, too--for you. Yet Luce herself seemed to be happy; I suppose that's what you've longed to see her? You'd have done anything to make her happy eh?"

"Yes; anything in my power."

"Good. Now's your chance."

"What on earth do you mean, Mr. Pruffett?"

"Merely what I say. If you loved her, not yourself, or loved her more than you loved yourself, you can do a great deal to make her happy; far more than Charley Wurring can."

"I wish I knew what you were trying to say, Mr. Pruffett."

"Do you? Then I'll try to make myself understood. Charley is a well- meaning fellow, but nowhere near enough of a man to marry a girl like that. Splendid girls sometimes accept a husband of that kind after waiting a long time in vain for a better one; the range of choice in this town is rather small, you know. Charley's much the best of his family; indeed, he hasn't any bad habits of his own, and he

has learned to hate all that he might have inherited, but you know his fix; a father who has drunk himself into incapacity for anything, and a mother who is utterly discouraged and bad-tempered. Luce will have many occasions for feeling sorry for her choice; and Charley will often have to feel desperate, for what chance can he see, at present, of marrying and supporting a wife?"

"Well!" exclaimed Champ, savagely.

"Well, you know what the lecturer said about chances? Yours is right at hand--right now. Why don't you put Charley into that wooded marshland of yours, to clear it? Give him the wood in payment; you'd not lose a cent by that. Get his father to help him, the weakest man has enough romance in him to want to help his son to a good wife. Work is the best cure for drunkenness, and the fellow daren't and can't drink while his son is with him all the while. By doing this you would be improving a chance to greatly benefit three people; such a chance seldom comes to any one."

"And I would also help another man to marry the woman whom--"

"Whom you love? Well, for what do you love her? For her sake or for your own?"

Champ remained silent; the old man went on:

"You don't seem to know. It's well, then, that you didn't chance to marry her."

"Mr. Pruffett," exclaimed Champ--he almost roared it--"do you know what you are saying? Are you human? Are you a man, like other men?"

"I am, my boy," replied the old man calmly. "I

don't mind telling you, in strict confidence, that I loved Luce's mother--God bless her!--forty years ago. I never loved any other woman--I tried to, but I couldn't. I had an awful fight with myself, after Grew won her, and I got the worst of it, for I was obliged, as an honest man, to admit to myself that I loved myself more than I loved her. To reform myself, I determined to go on loving her, but for her sake only, and the way I did it was to do just as I am advising you. I hadn't any marshland to clear, and there was nothing in Grew's family history for the young man to be ashamed of, but I put him into the one good chance which I had here, and I went away to shift for myself. I don't deny that I hoped that something would happen to break their engagement, but there didn't. I wish Luce were my daughter, for there's no one I would rather see her marry than you, but there are some things which one can't change--some chances which a man loses. Your chance is just as I'm putting it; I'm advising only what I did myself, and what I never had cause to regret. I know, though, it isn't the sort of thing to press on a young man too hard, and I'm sure that, while you're in your present frame of mind, you don't care to listen to any more of this kind of talk, so--good-night."

"Good-night," was the response, as sharp as the crack of a rifle.

"Shake hands with me, won't you, Champ?" said the old man softly. "No one else knows so well how to sympathize with you. Don't forget that I loved her mother--and lost her."

They shook hands as they parted, but Champ's head was in a whirl, and his heart was thumping angrily. What? Help the man who had just taken from him the prize toward which he had been struggling for years? Pruffett had probably told the truth, but--well, men were not all of the same clay. Love Luce for her own sake? Why, what else had he thought of but what he would do to make Luce happy? Had not his delay been entirely because of his doubts and fears for her? What was most in his mind whenever he thought of her--himself? Never! He thought only of her--her great, deep eyes, her noble face, her womanly composure, her strength of character everything that was best in womanhood, so far as he knew women. He was sure that through his very admiration of all that was best in her, he knew best how to make her happy, while Charley, a mere good-natured, happy-go-lucky fellow, who had seemed to be in love with half-a-dozen other girls for no especial reason, would be utterly unable to comprehend the needs of so superior a nature.

Yet there was some truth in what old Pruffett had said about the ways in which Charley could be helped to become a more fit husband. If some one else could help him, well and good, but as to Champ--. He struggled hard with himself a few moments; then he suddenly stopped, bared his head, looked upward, and exclaimed:

"Heaven help me, I'll do it--for her sake! 'Tis my chance--but what a chance."