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“Marry him—of course she will. I never saw her so pleased over anything as she was over that silk affair. Jimson is a good-hearted fellow, Berty.”
“Good-hearted, yes, but he doesn’t keep his promises. He hasn’t got those pigeon-boxes up yet.”
“What pigeon-boxes?”
“He promised to have some nailed on the shed for me. The boxes are all made, but not put up.”
“I’ll do it,” said Tom, generously. “I’ll come to-morrow.”
“To-morrow will be Sunday.”
“Monday, then. Monday afternoon as soon as the office closes.”
“Very well,” said Berty, with a sigh, “but you’ll probably forget. My friends don’t seem to be standing by me lately.”
“Your friends—why, you are the heroine of the city—confound it, what is that dog doing?”
Berty’s mongrel friend, taking advantage of Tom’s absorbing interest in his companion, had lain down on the grass behind him and had chewed a piece out of his coat.
“Look at it—the rascal,” exclaimed Tom, twisting round his blue serge garment—“a clean bite. What kind of a dog is this? Get out, you brute.”
“Don’t scold him,” said Berty, holding out a hand to the culprit. “He doesn’t know any better. He is young and cutting teeth.”
“Well, I wish he’d cut them on some other man—look at that coat. It’s ruined.”
“Can’t you get it mended?”
“Who would do it for me?”
“Send it to your tailor.”
“It’s too shabby—I just keep it for boating.”
“Ask your mother or Selina.”
“They’re too busy with fancy work. Selina is working peonies all over the place. She’s got to use up that pound of silk.”
“I don’t know what you’ll do, then,” observed Berty, in an uninterested way, “unless,” with sudden vivacity, “you give me the coat for a poor person.”
“Not I—I can’t afford that. I’ll tell you, Berty, I ought to get a wife.”
“Why, so you should,” said the young girl, kindly. “It’s time you were getting settled. Have you any one in mind?”
“I know the kind of a girl I want,” said Tom, evasively. “I do wish you’d help me pick her out.”
Berty shook her head with sudden wariness. “I forgot, I’m not going to meddle with match-making any more. You’re sure to get a snub from the person you’re trying hardest to benefit.”
“I promise you that the girl I choose will never snub you,” said Tom, solemnly.
“There was Selina,” replied Berty, bitterly, “I just loved her, and thought her beautiful and stately like a picture, and far above Mr. Jimson, and now she says I’m a child—a child!”
“It’s too bad,” said Tom, sympathetically, “but Selina was always a little bit wrapped up in herself.”
“I had even got as far as the engagement-ring,” continued Berty. “I thought a red stone—a garnet or a ruby—would be less common than the diamond that everybody has.”
“Would you prefer a red stone for yourself?” asked Tom, artlessly.
“Yes, I should think I would.”
“Well, you see Selina wants to choose for herself. You women like to manage your own affairs.”
“But Mr. Jimson is just as bad. He’s as stubborn as a mule when I want to advise him.”
“I guess we all like to run our own concerns,” said Tom, good-humouredly, “but to come back to my girl, Berty, I do wish you would help me. You understand women so much better than I do.”
“Didn’t I just tell you that I wouldn’t meddle with matrimonial affairs again—not for any one. Not even if dear Grandma were to ask me.”
“Well, now, we all have a great respect for Grandma,” said Tom, warmly, “but I scarcely think she is likely to think of giving you another grandfather.”
“Oh, you wretch!” said Berty, irritably. “I don’t mean for herself. I mean for Bonny, or you, or some of her young friends.”
“Well, as your decision is irrevocable, I suppose I mustn’t tease,” observed Tom, slowly getting up and looking out over the river, “but I would really like you to help me. Perhaps Margaretta will. Good-bye, Berty.”
“Grandma and I are going to have a cup of tea presently,” said Berty, staring out over the meadows without looking at him. “We’ve brought a kettle and some eatables. If you would like to stay, I know Grandma would be glad to have you.”
“Thank you, but I don’t think I’d better accept Grandma’s kind invitation. My mind is full of this important business of choosing a wife, and I want to find some one who will give me good advice. Margaretta will just about be going to dinner by the time I get back to the city. I’ll change my duds, and get over just about the minute that the third course goes in.”
“What kind of a girl do you want?” said Berty, staring up at him.
“A tall girl, much taller than you, or even Margaretta. Tall and flaxen-haired like a doll.”
“And blue eyes, I suppose,” said Berty, sarcastically.
“Oh, yes, blue as the sky, and tapering fingers—white fingers, not brown from boating and out-of-door life.”
“You want a hothouse plant,” said Berty, disdainfully.
“You’ve put my very idea in words,” said Tom, in an ecstasy, as he again sat down on the grass near her. “I’d admire to wait on one of those half-sick creatures. It seems to me if I could wrap her in a white shawl in the morning, and come back at night and find her in the same place, I’d be perfectly happy. Now these healthy, athletic creatures with strong opinions scurry all over the place. You never know where to find them.”
“Suppose you advertise.”
“I dare say I’ll have to. I don’t know any one of just the type I want here in Riverport, but I thought perhaps you might know one. It doesn’t matter if she lives outside. I wouldn’t mind going a little way.”
“There’s Matty DeLong,” replied Berty. “She has neuralgia terribly, but then her hair isn’t light.”
“I don’t want a neuralgic victim. It’s just a kind of general debility girl I want.”
“What about the doctor’s bills?”
“I’ll pay them,” said Tom, enthusiastically. “Give me domestic peace even at the expense of bills.”
“I expect I’d be a terrible termagant if I married,” observed Berty, thoughtfully.
Her companion made no reply to this assertion.
“If I asked a man for money, and he wouldn’t give it to me, I think I’d want to pound him to a jelly,” continued Berty, warmly.
“I expect he’d let you,” observed Tom, meekly, “but you’re not thinking of marriage for yourself, are you, Berty?”
“No,” she said, snappishly, “only when the subject is so much discussed, I can’t help having ideas put into my head.”
“I suppose you’d like a Boston man, wouldn’t you?” inquired Tom, demurely.
“I don’t know. Anybody that was a stranger and celebrated would do.”
“You’re like me in one respect. You want a brand-new article, not something you’ve been used to seeing since infancy.”
“I should like a President,” said Berty, wistfully, “but when men come to the presidential chair they’re all too old for me.”
“But it must be ennobling for you to have such an ambitious spirit,” observed Tom.
“It does make me feel nice—Hark! isn’t that Grandma calling?”
“Yes,” replied Tom. “Let us go see what she wants.”
“Berty, Berty,” the distant voice was saying, “isn’t it time to put the kettle on? We must get home before dark.”
“Yes, Grandma, dear,” called Berty. “Tom Everest is here. He will help me find some sticks. You please sit still and rest—come, Tom, and speak to her first,” and smiling and playing with the dancing mongrel pup, Berty ran up the slope.
CHAPTER XVI.
BERTY’S TRAMP
Berty was away out on the lonely road leading from the iron works to the city.
Grandma had not been well all day, and Berty had gone to ask Bonny to spend the night in the River Street house. Since the boy’s admission into Roger’s office he had virtually lived in Roger’s house.
Not that he loved Margaretta and Roger more than he loved his grandmother and Berty, but the Grand Avenue style of living was more in accord with his aristocratic tastes than the plain ways of the house in River Street. So the boy really had two homes.
Berty, who had been in the house with her grandmother all through the morning, had enjoyed the long walk out to the iron works, and was now enjoying the long walk home.
It was a perfect afternoon. “How I love the late summer,” murmured the girl, and she gazed admiringly about her at the ripening grain fields, the heavily foliaged trees, the tufts of goldenrod flowering beside the dusty road.
Away off there in the distance was a moving cloud of dust coming from the city. Nearer at hand, it resolved itself into a man who was shuffling along in a lazy way, and kicking up very much more dust than there was any necessity of doing.
Berty stared at him. She knew most of the citizens of Riverport by sight, and whether she knew them by sight or not, she could tell by their general appearance whether they belonged to the place.
This man was a stranger—a seedy, poor-looking man with a brown face, and he was observing her as intently as she was observing him.
Arrived opposite her, he stopped. “Lady,” he said, in a whining voice, “please give a poor sick man some money to buy medicine.”
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked, promptly.
“An awful internal trouble, lady,” he said, laying his hand on his side. “Intermittent pains come on every evening at this time.”
“You don’t look ill,” replied Berty, suspiciously. “Your face is as bronzed as a sailor’s.”
“The doctors prescribed outdoor air, lady,” he went on, whiningly.
“I haven’t any money for you.”
The man, from his station in the road, looked back toward the city, then forward in the direction of the iron works. There was not a soul in sight, and as quick as a flash an angry sentence sprang to the girl’s lips, “Let me by.”
“But, lady, I want some money,” he said, persistently, and he stood in her way.
She surveyed him contemptuously. “You want to make me give you some, but I tell you you couldn’t do it.”
“Couldn’t I, lady?” he replied, half-sneeringly, half-admiringly.
“No,” said Berty, promptly, “because, in the first place, I’d be so mad that you couldn’t get it from me. You’re only a little man, and I guess a gymnasium-trained girl like myself could knock you about considerably. Then look here,” and, stepping back, she suddenly flashed something long and sharp and steely from her head. “Do you see that hat-pin? It would sting you like a wasp,” and she stabbed the air with it.
The man snickered. “You’ve plenty of sand, but I guess I could get your purse if I tried.”
“Oh, how angry you make me,” returned the girl, with a fiery glance. “Now I can understand how one can let oneself be killed for an idea. You might possibly overcome me, you might get my purse, but you couldn’t kill the mad in me if you chopped me in a thousand little pieces.”
“Lady,” said the man, teasingly, “I guess you’d give in before then, though I’ve no doubt but what your temper would carry you considerable far.”
“And suppose you got my purse,” said Berty, haughtily, “what good would it do you? Wouldn’t I scream? I’ve got a voice like a steam-whistle; and the iron works close in five minutes, and this road will be alive with good honest workmen. They’d hunt you down like a rabbit.”
For the first time a shade of uneasiness passed over his face. But he speedily became cool. “Good evening, lady, excuse me for frightening you,” and, pulling at his battered hat, he started to pass on.
“Stop!” said Berty, commandingly, “who are you, and why did you come to Riverport?”
He lazily propped himself against a tree by the roadside. “It was in my line of march.”
“Are you a tramp?”
“Well, yes, I suppose I am.”
“Where were you born?”
“In New Hampshire.”
“You weren’t born a tramp?”
“Great Harry!” muttered the man, taking off his hat and pushing back from his forehead the dark hair sprinkled with gray, “it seems a hundred years since I was born. My father was a well-to-do farmer, young lady, if you want to know, and he gave me a good education.”
“A good education,” repeated Berty, “and now you have sunk so low as to stop women and beg for money.”
“Just that low,” he said, indifferently, “and from a greater height than you think.”
“What was the height?” asked Berty, eagerly.
“I was once a physician in Boston,” he returned, with a miserable remnant of pride.
“You a physician!” exclaimed Berty, “and now a tramp!”
“A tramp pure and simple.”
“What made you give up your profession?”
“Well, I was born lazy, and then I drank, and I drink, and I always shall drink.”
“A drunkard!” murmured Berty, pityingly. “Poor fellow!”
The man looked at her curiously.
“How old are you?” she asked, suddenly.
“Forty-five.”
“Have you tried to reform?”
“Formerly—not now.”
“Oh, how queer people are,” said the girl, musingly. “How little I can understand you. How little you can understand me. Now if I could only get inside your mind, and know what you are thinking about.”
“I’m thinking about my supper, lady,” he said, flippantly; then, as she looked carefully at him, he went on, carelessly, “Once I was young like you. Now I don’t go in for sentiment. I feed and sleep. That’s all I care about.”
“And do you do no work?”
“Not a stroke.”
“And you have no money?”
“Not a cent.”
“But how do you live?”
“Off good people like you,” he said, wheedlingly. “You’re going to give me a hot supper, I guess.”
“Follow me,” said Berty, suddenly setting off toward the city, and the man sauntered after her.
When they reached River Street, she opened the gate leading into the yard and beckoned to him.
“I can’t take you in the house,” she said, in a low voice, as he followed her. “My grandmother is ill, and then our house is very clean.”
“And I am very unclean,” he said, jocularly surveying himself, “though I’m by no means as bad as an ash-heap tramp.”
“But I’ll put you into the shed,” continued Berty. “There are only a few guinea-pigs there. They are quiet little things, and won’t hurt you.”
“I hope you won’t give me husks for supper,” murmured the tramp.
Berty eyed him severely. His condition to her was too serious for jesting, and she by no means approved of his attempts at humour.
“I’ll bring you out something to eat,” she said, “and if you want to stay all night, I’ll drag you out a mattress.”
“I accept your offer with thankfulness, lady,” he replied.
CHAPTER XVII.
TOM’S INTERVENTION
About eight o’clock that evening Tom Everest ran in to bring Berty some rare wild flowers that he had found in an excursion to the country.
“How is your grandmother?” he asked. “I hear she is ill.”
“Better,” whispered Berty. “Bonny is with her, but I’ve got another trouble.”
“What is it?” inquired Tom, tenderly.
They were standing in the front hall, and he bent his head low to hear what she said.
“There’s a tramp out in the wood-shed,” she went on, “and I don’t know what to do with him.”
“I’ll go put him out,” said Tom, promptly starting toward the back hall.
“No, no, I don’t want him put out. Come back, Tom. I want you to help me do something for him. Just think, he was once a doctor. He cured other people, and couldn’t cure himself. He drinks like a fish.”
“Well, I’ll find a place for him to disport himself other than this,” said Tom, decidedly. “He isn’t going to spend the night in your back yard.”
“Oh, Tom, don’t be foolish. He is as quiet as a lamb. He hasn’t been drinking to-day.”
“I tell you, Berty, he’s got to come out. If you make a fuss, I’ll call Bonny down.”
“Why, Tom Everest, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Your face is as red as a beet. What about the Golden Rule?”
“I beg your pardon, Berty,” said Tom, trying to look calm, “but I know more about tramps than you do. This fellow may be a thief.”
“Tom—suppose you were the thief, and the thief were you? Would you like him to talk about you that way?”
“Yes, I’d enjoy it. Come, Berty, lead the way.”
“What do you want to do with him?” asked the girl, curiously.
“Put him in the street.”
“Well, suppose he is a thief. He may rob your neighbour’s house.”
“My neighbour can look out for himself.”
“You don’t mean that,” said Berty, quickly. “Please do find this man a good place for the night. Keep him out of harm.”
“But, Berty, it won’t do any good. I know those fellows. They are thoroughly demoralized. You might just as well let this one go.”
“Go where?” asked the girl, quickly.
“To his appointed place.”
The two young people stood staring at each other for a few minutes, then Berty said, seriously, “Tom Everest, you are a moral, upright man.”
Tom modestly cast his eyes to the oilcloth on the floor.
“How many other young men are there like you in the republic?” pursued Berty.
“I don’t know,” he said, demurely.
“How many tramps are there?”
“I don’t know that—thousands and thousands, I guess.”
“Well, suppose every honest young man took a poor, miserable tramp under his protection. Suppose he looked out for him, fed him, clothed him, and kept him from being a prey on society?”
“I should say that would be a most undesirable plan for the young men,” said Tom, dryly. “I’d be afraid they’d get demoralized themselves, and all turn tramps. It’s easier to loaf than to work.”
“Tom,” said Berty, firmly, “this is my tramp. I found him, I brought him home, I have a duty toward him. I can’t protect all the tramps in the Union, but I can prevent this one from going on and being a worry to society. Why, he might meet some timid girl to-morrow and frighten her to death.”
“Oho! he tried to scare you, did he?” asked Tom, keenly.
“He asked me for money,” repeated Berty, “but of course I didn’t let him have it.”
“Tell me all about it.”
When she finished, Tom laughed softly. “So this is the gentleman you want me to befriend?”
“Do you feel revengeful toward him?” asked Berty.
“I’d like to horsewhip him.”
“That’s the way I felt at first. Then I said to myself, ‘Berty Gravely, you’ve got to get every revengeful feeling out of your head before you can benefit that man. What’s the use of being angry with him? You only stultify yourself. Try to find out how you can do him good.’”
“Oh, Berty,” interposed Tom, with a gesture of despair, “don’t talk mawkish, sickly sentimentality to me. Don’t throw honey water over tin cans, and expect them to blossom like the rose.”
“They will blossom, they can blossom,” said Berty, persistently, “and even if they won’t blossom, take your old tin cans, clean them, and set them on end. Don’t kick them in the gutter.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Tom, helplessly. “I see you have some plan in your mind.”
This was Berty’s chance, and for a few minutes she so staggered him by her eloquence that he sank on the staircase, and, feebly propping his head on his hand, stared uninterruptedly at her.
“I’ve been thinking hard,” she said, in low, dramatic tones, “very, very hard for two hours, as I sat by Grandma’s bed. What can we do for wrecks of humanity? Shall we pet them, coddle them, spoil them, as you speak of doing? Not at all. We’ve got to do something, but we mustn’t be foolish. This tramp is like some wet, soggy piece of wood floating down our river. It doesn’t know, feel, nor care. You mustn’t give it a push and send it further down the stream, but pull it ashore, and—and—”
“And dry it, and make a fire and burn it,” said Tom, briskly. “I don’t like your simile, Berty.”
“It was unfortunate,” said the girl. “I will start again. I approve of societies and churches and clubs—I think they do splendid work, and if, in addition to what they do, every one of us would just reach out a helping hand to one solitary person in the world, how different things would be. We would have a paradise here below. It’s wicked, Tom, to say, ‘That is a worthless person, let him go—you can do nothing for him.’ Now I’ve got a plan for this tramp, and I want you to help me.”
“I know you have, and I wouldn’t mind hearing it, but I don’t think I’ll help you, Berty. I don’t favour the gentry of the road.”
“This is my plan,” said Berty, unheedingly; “but first let me say that I will make a concession to you. You may take the tramp with you, put him in a comfortable room for the night, see that he has a good bed, and a good breakfast in the morning.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” murmured the young man. “You are so very kind.”
“Don’t give him any money,” continued Berty, seriously, “and if you can keep him locked up without hurting his feelings, I wish you would—but don’t blight his self-respect.”
“His what?” asked Tom, mildly.
“His self-respect—even an animal must be protected in that way. Don’t you know that a dog gets well a great deal quicker, if you keep up his good opinion of himself?”
“Does he?” murmured Tom. “I—I don’t know. I fear I have sometimes helped to lessen a dog’s good opinion of himself.”
“And, furthermore,” pursued Berty, “I want that tramp to stay in Riverport. He’s going to be my tramp, Tom, and yours, too, if you will be good.”
“Oh, I will be good, Berty, extra good to deserve a partnership like that.”
“And you and I will look out for him. Now I’ve been wondering what employment we can find for him, for of course you know it isn’t good for any man to live in idleness.”
“Just so, Berty.”
“Well, we must be very cautious about what work we find for him, for he hasn’t worked for years.”
“Something light and genteel, Berty.”
“Light, but not so very genteel. He isn’t proud. He’s only unaccustomed to work. He talked quite frankly about himself.”
“Oh—did he?”
“Yes, and do you know what I have decided?”
“No, I’m sure I don’t.”
“Well, I have just found the very thing for him, and I dare say, if you have any money laid aside, you may want to invest in it. First of all, I want you to hire Bobbetty’s Island.”
“Bobbetty’s Island—out in the river—old man Bobbetty’s?”
“The same, Tom.”
“Ghost thrown in?”
“I want you to hire it,” said Berty, severely, “and get some of your friends to make up a party, and go down there and put up a big, comfortable camp for our tramp to live in.”
“Why the island, Berty?” inquired Tom, in a suppressed voice. “Why not set him up in Grand Avenue. There’s a first-class family mansion to let there, three doors from us.”
“Tom Everest, will you stop your fooling. Our tramp is to live on the island because if he were in the town he would spend half his time in drinking-places.”
“But won’t the river be suggestive, Berty? It would to me, and I’m not a drinking man.”
“No, of course not—he will have his work to do, and twice a week I want you to row over yourself, or get some one to go and bring him to town, for he would go crazy if he were left there alone all the time.”
“I wonder you don’t get a companion for him.”
“I’m going to try. He has a wife, a nice woman in New Hampshire, who left him on account of his drinking habits. He says she will come back to him if he gets a good situation and promises to reform.”
“Has he promised?” asked Tom, acutely.
“He said he would think about it. I rather liked him for the hesitation, for of course he is completely out of the way of continuous application to anything.”
“And what business, may I ask, are you going to establish him in? You seemed to be hinting at something.”
“I am going to start a cat farm, and put him in charge,” replied Berty, with the air of one making a great revelation.
“A cat farm,” echoed Tom, weakly, then, entirely collapsing, he rolled over on his side on the staircase and burst into silent and convulsive laughter.
CHAPTER XVIII.
TRAMP PHILOSOPHY
“What are you two giggling about?” asked a sudden voice, and Berty, looking up from the hall, and Tom, from the staircase, saw Bonny standing on the steps above them.
“Meow, meow,” murmured Tom, in a scarcely audible voice.
“What’s up with him, Berty?” asked Bonny, good-naturedly.
“I think his head must be growing weak,” said the girl. “Everything lately seems to amuse him. If you hold up a finger, he goes into fits of laughter.”
“Poor Tom,” said Bonny, “and once he was a joy to his friends—I say, old man, uncurl yourself and tell us the joke.”
“Go ’way, Berty,” ejaculated Tom, partly straightening himself, “go ’way. You hate to see me laugh. Just like all girls. They haven’t any more sense of humour than sticks.”