CHAPTER VI.

A NEW LIFE.

Next morning, by sunrise, Brydell was up and dressed and outdoors. The two negro men on the place were feeding the stock under Mr. Laurison’s directions, while a negro woman milked the cows.

Brydell looked about and saw that the vegetable garden was well weeded, but there was a long straight walk down the garden, with flower beds on each side of it, that were full of weeds. There were clumps of lilac, both white and purple, great masses of the syringa, making the morning air heavy with its sweet perfume, and snowball bushes blooming profusely. Some early roses were out and a few gaudy peonies still lingered.

Both beds and walk were choked with grass and all manner of vagrant growth.

“If I had a garden hoe and rake, I could weed those flower beds,” said Brydell to Mr. Laurison as they met in the backyard.

“I wish to goodness you would,” answered Mr. Laurison. “My wife has nearly broken her heart over those flower beds. I’ve had to keep the hands to work so steady that I actually haven’t had a chance to get at the flowers; and she ain’t strong enough to do it herself, and it’s just been a trial to her.”

Brydell had been taught to weed flowers under that stern martinet, Aunt Emeline, and when an hour afterward Mrs. Laurison and Minna appeared, one whole square was as neatly weeded as possible, the refuse piled up in a wheelbarrow, and the garden looked like a different place.

Mrs. Laurison was delighted.

“You couldn’t have done anything that pleased me better, and a young fellow that’s kind and considerate to women and children is apt to be a good one. If Mr. Laurison keeps you, I’ve made up my mind to let you have the little bedroom you slept in last night, instead of staying with the hired men in the barn, because I see you are a gentleman’s son, and your mother”—

“I haven’t any mother,” said Brydell, his eyes filling with tears at Mrs. Laurison’s kind tones.

“Then there’s the more reason for being good to you,” she said.

Little Minna immediately dragged him off to see her garden, which was the disorderly patch which usually satisfied children, and then they all went in to breakfast.

After breakfast Mr. Laurison and Brydell had a business talk. Mr. Laurison agreed to keep him a month on trial and to pay him ten dollars besides his board. If he was satisfactory, he could keep the place indefinitely.

Brydell never was so thankful and so relieved in his life, except when he got that dispatch from Admiral Beaumont.

How much better was this wholesome country life than that dreary search for employment in a city! And he had a good room to sleep in, instead of a box on the top floor in a city boarding-house, and country milk and butter and vegetables to eat—Brydell had an astonishing appetite—and his work, although hard, was nothing like as hard as being perched upon an office stool ten hours a day.

He had to buy himself some working clothes, but, as one result of his training as a gentleman, Brydell never appeared at the table without being neatly dressed. This worked a much-needed reform in Mr. Laurison, who before Brydell came had no scruples about appearing at the dinner table in his shirt sleeves. But he could not afford to be less well dressed than his young hired hand and he began to take more pains with his daily toilet.

This pleased Mrs. Laurison very much, who like most women attached importance to the refinements of life, and who felt hurt to think that though her husband put on his coat when they had guests to dinner, he left it off when they were alone.

At the end of the month Mr. Laurison said nothing about Brydell’s leaving and was secretly rather afraid that Brydell had got tired of his job. But not so; Brydell had a great fund of sound sense, after all the nonsense had been knocked out of him, and he knew he was in good luck to have such a means of livelihood.

As soon as he felt any certainty about his position, he wrote a number of letters—to his father, to Admiral Beaumont, to his Aunt Emeline, and to Grubb the marine, who had got transferred to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

He got very prompt answers from the three of his correspondents who could communicate with him. His Aunt Emeline wrote, saying if he wouldn’t come back, she couldn’t help it—but there was nothing urgent in her invitation. Brydell smiled rather bitterly as he laid the letter down.

The admiral’s letter was overflowing. He could not give Brydell too much encouragement, considered him bound to pass No. 1 next year, and conveyed a long message from Billy Bowline to the effect that “Mr. Brydell, he is bound to be a sailor man, ’cause he’s built that away.”

And Grubb’s letter, which was recklessly spelled and not fully up to the standard of classic English, bade him “go in and Win. You have got Sand, Mr. Brydell, and Sand is what makes a man. Some fellows as learns a lott out of books ain’t got no natural manly carackter and disapp’ints their friends. But you are not the sort to disapp’int.” Grubb then went on to lament that he was stationed at Portsmouth. “For the cadets cruze will most likely be here, Mr. Brydell, and there’s one of them, for reasons which is known to you, as I would ruther not see in present serkumstances.”

Brydell knew that the poor fellow meant Esdaile.

Meanwhile Brydell was working like a Trojan at his books.

Every evening after supper he would be claimed for half an hour by little Minna, to play on the piano for her, to tell her stories, or to amuse her in some way. Then he would take a lamp and go to his room and study hard.

Often he was very tired, but it was a healthful fatigue. He did not feel any sense of nervous exhaustion, but, if he found himself falling asleep over his books, he would go to bed and get up at daylight next morning feeling perfectly refreshed.

The outdoor life agreed with him wonderfully, and his boyish figure began to fill out and lose some of its angles. And he had the consciousness of making headway with his studies. He was forced to adopt the old-fashioned plan of relying upon himself, instead of the new-fashioned one of having a tutor to study with him and to take most of the trouble off him.

Besides making steady progress in studies and character and physique, he actually found himself happy. He had no associates of his own age, it is true; the neighborhood was sparsely populated and he did not find any very congenial acquaintances among boys of his own age, but he comforted himself by thinking, “Never mind, I’ll have lots of fellows for company next year.” He came to like Mr. Laurison; and Mrs. Laurison’s kindness was unvarying. Little Minna became the apple of his eye.

In the summer she had a slight illness, and Brydell did not realize until then how fond he was of the little girl. He was always on hand to do anything for her, and the child would take her medicine more readily from him than from anybody else.

This still more won Mrs. Laurison’s heart, and there was keen sympathy between her and the boy who had never known a mother’s love. He often thought: “If Aunt Emeline had been like this!” Minna got well quickly, but from that day on Brydell’s affection for the mother and child became intense. Mrs. Laurison knew that Brydell was preparing for his examination another year, but as she said to him sometimes:

“The farm won’t be the same for any of us after you go away. I never had any boys of my own; I always wanted them and it seems to me now I feel the want of them more than ever, because I see how nice a nice boy really is.”

“I never was accused of being a nice boy by my best friends,” cried Brydell, laughing but pleased. “Ask Aunt Emeline what she thinks of me.”

As for Minna, every mention of Brydell’s leaving was met by her throwing her arms around his neck and pleading, “You won’t go away and leave me?” Brydell partially gained her consent to go, on promising that he would send her chests full of magnificent things and a dolly as big as herself.

Toward the last of the summer he got a letter from his father. It was very kind and affectionate, and almost humble in tone.

“I feel that I have erred through my tenderness for you,” he wrote; “but I hope that you have experienced the worst you will have to undergo of the effects of my fondness. I do not know what you are doing now, and shall wait eagerly to hear, but I rely upon your manliness and uprightness to carry you through.”

Brydell’s reply to this letter was a very cheerful one.

One day in the autumn, as Brydell in his blue overalls was driving an ox-wagon loaded with fodder down the lane, he suddenly caught sight of a trim military old figure standing at the gate, with another rather slouchy one, and the next minute he recognized Admiral Beaumont’s hearty laugh.

The admiral was highly amused at the spectacle his young friend presented, mounted on a load of hay, while Billy Bowline grinned appreciatively at the sight. Brydell was delighted to see his old friend and, noticing that his employment as teamster seemed to afford the admiral great diversion, he cried out:—

“Delighted to see you, admiral! Just let me get my team through this gate and I’ll jump down and shake hands with you. Gee, buck!”

“Ha, ha!” roared the admiral. “You haven’t sea room enough, my young friend, in which to manœuvre that craft. You’ll foul that gatepost as sure as a gun.”

“No, I won’t; whoa!” shouted Brydell in reply. The oxen made a sudden turn that really did threaten to foul the gatepost.

“Keep your luff,” called out the admiral, waving his stick excitedly, “and keep your head to the wind.”

“Can’t,” replied Brydell, who was not an expert ox-driver by any means; “you see she yaws about so there’s no keeping her head to the wind.”

At last, after the expenditure of much lung power, both by Brydell and the admiral, the wagon got through, and Brydell, jumping down, shook hands heartily with his old friends.

“Bless my soul!” cried the admiral, “I never saw a fellow grow like you. Why, you are about a foot taller and two feet broader than you were last year—eh, Bowline?”

“He do grow amazin’ fast,” said Billy solemnly, “and I reckon as how he’ll be the finest-lookin’ feller in the sarvice when he gits there. But, Mr. Brydell, beg your parding, sir, you ought not to risk your life, sir, in no sich a craft as that. Horses is bad enough, but oxen is the most dangersome thing alive. Like as not they run away with you or kick your head off, sir. Now, sir, aboard ship you ain’t never in no danger. That’s the beauty of the sarvice, sir, ain’t no horses for to kick you, nor no oxen for to run away with you; jist nothin’ to hurt you; and when the wind blows, all you’ve got to do, sir, is to make everything snug and git to sea, and there you is, sir, safe and sound.”

“The old dunderhead is right,” chuckled the admiral highly pleased, while Brydell in his heart really thought a ship was the safest thing under heaven, particularly a United States ship.

Brydell took his two old friends up to the house, where Mrs. Laurison received them, as she did everybody, kindly and graciously. The admiral, struck by her gentle and refined manner, bowed over the hand of the farmer’s wife as if she were the greatest lady in the land, while Billy Bowline stood just outside the door, twiddling his cap, and could not be induced to sit down even in the hall.

“For ’tain’t for the likes o’ me to be sittin’ down afore ladies,” said Billy. “But I’d like mightily to have a word with that little ’un as looks like a angel.”

Minna, after having made friends with the admiral, was quite willing to make friends with the old sailor. Presently they saw her put her chubby hand in his and lead him out under a tree, where they both sat down on the grass, and through the window floated in scraps of a thrilling narrative that Billy was telling her: “The prin-_cess_, she then give orders, ‘Bring up my palankeen,’ and she climbed over the side and then she trimmed the palankeen, and it’s a mighty onhandy thing to trim, my dear”—

Mrs. Laurison invited the admiral to stay to dinner, and he accepted frankly. Brydell slipped upstairs and washed and changed his clothes; then the admiral went upstairs, too, and had a long talk with him. He took Brydell’s books and gave him a pretty sharp examination, which Brydell stood remarkably well; he had not wasted his time.

When dinner was ready they found Mr. Laurison dressed in his best clothes, and Mrs. Laurison had put on a pretty gown for the admiral. The dinner was very jolly, and Brydell was glad that the admiral saw what excellent quarters he had fallen into.

After dinner, when it was time for the train, Mr. Laurison wanted to send the admiral to the station in the old carriage that was used on great occasions, but the admiral preferred to walk. He and Brydell started off, therefore, in the autumn evening to walk, with Billy Bowline rolling along after them.

“I have waited to write to your father until I should see you,” said the admiral; “but now I can write with a cheerful heart. Zounds, sir, you are in luck; a year of hard study, hard work, and independence will make a man of you. I thought your failure in your examination the worst thing that could befall you. But don’t you see, youngster, that what seems to be the worst may sometimes be wrested to make the very best?”

Brydell was not quite prepared to admit that his two mortifying failures were the best things that could have happened to him; but he rightly considered himself a fortunate fellow in the way his resolve to earn his living had turned out. He told the admiral of the letter he had received from his father, and what he had replied. And then he spoke of Grubb and Esdaile.

“I have heard of that Esdaile fellow, and mark my words, he’s a scamp. It’s well enough to elevate himself; poor Grubb is an honest, sensible fellow, though uneducated; but I hear that his boy would have nothing to do with him, except on the sly, and actually has been heard to deny that Grubb is his father. I say that fellow is a pernicious, unqualified, and unmitigated scamp and scalawag; and I don’t care if he passes No. 1 in his class, I’d fire him out of the navy in short order, if I had my way.”

Presently out of the darkness came the roar and thunder of the train, the admiral wrung Brydell’s hand as did Billy Bowline, Billy saying, “Good-by, Mr. Brydell, I hopes as how you’ll git through and be a ornament to the sarvice, sir, afore I trips my anchor and sets out for the other coast.”

Brydell went back wonderfully encouraged. The admiral believed in him, and that belief of others in us does wonders. Even Billy Bowline’s appreciation was not lost on Brydell.

The autumn and winter passed rapidly. Lieutenant Brydell’s ship was still cruising in the Pacific, stopping occasionally for letters that were months in reaching their destination. Brydell received several letters from his father, all encouraging in tone, especially after Admiral Beaumont’s letter.

The spring came on apace, and at last one day in May, exactly a year from the time Brydell had gone to Annapolis before, he was notified to present himself before the examining board.

Brydell felt reasonably confident. Not only had he worked hard, but, forced to depend upon himself and to solve his own difficulties, he felt that he stood a better chance of making a four years’ course than if he had been crammed by a tutor to get through his examinations and then make a flat failure afterward.

It was hard on him to say good-by to the Laurisons, and Minna was so distressed at the idea of parting from him that Mrs. Laurison and he agreed that it would be better for him to slip off early in the morning before sunrise, so that the child would be spared the pain of parting. Both Mr. and Mrs. Laurison were up to give him his breakfast and see him off. Mrs. Laurison said to him:—

“If ever your Aunt Emeline said you were a disagreeable boy, I think she must have been a very disagreeable woman, for in the year you have lived with us I don’t think I could have found fault with you if I had tried.”

“Dear Mrs. Laurison, it was because you were all so good to me,” answered Brydell with tears in his eyes.

The farewells were said, and Brydell struck off in the path that led through the field to the little roadside station. Just as he shut the gate that led from the path to the farm enclosures a childish figure, topped by a ruffled dimity sunbonnet, rose from beside the gate.

“I heard you get up,” said Minna, “and I knew you were going to-day, so I slipped out of bed and dressed myself, for I heard mamma say something to you about not telling me good-by because I would cry so; and I’m not a cry-baby, and I want to say good-by too.”

Brydell kissed her and promised to write to her, and although she evidently wanted to cry she did not shed a tear. Brydell started her back to the house and Minna trotted off obediently, but he saw her stop once or twice and put her apron to her eyes.

In a few hours he was at Annapolis and in a few days he had passed a splendid examination and was formally notified that he was a naval cadet at last.