Chapter 8

But the reformation lasted but for a short while. My wife and daughters were visited by the wives of some of the richer neighbors and by a squire who lived near by, on whom they set more store than on the plain farmers' wives who were nearer us in worldly station. I now began to find that all my long and painful lectures upon temperance, simplicity, and contentment were entirely disregarded. Some distinctions lately paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I had laid asleep, but not removed. Our windows again, as formerly, were filled with washes for the neck and face. The sun was dreaded as an enemy to the skin without doors and the fire as a spoiler of the complexion within. My wife observed that rising too early would hurt her daughters' eyes, that working after dinner would redden their noses, and she convinced me that the hands never looked so white as when they did nothing.

Instead, therefore, of finishing George's shirts, we now had the girls new-modeling their old gauzes. The poor Miss Flamboroughs, their former gay companions, were cast off as mean acquaintance, and the whole conversation ran upon high life and high-lived company, with pictures, taste, and Shakespeare.

But we could have borne all this, had not a fortune-telling gypsy come to raise us into perfect [v]sublimity. The tawny [v]sibyl no sooner appeared than my girls came running to me for a shilling apiece to cross her hand with silver. To say the truth, I was tired of being always wise, and could not help gratifying their request, because I loved to see them happy. I gave each of them a shilling; after they had been closeted up with the fortune-teller for some time, I knew by their looks, upon their returning, that they had been promised something great.

"Well, my girls, how have you sped? Tell me, Livy, has the fortune-teller given thee a penny-worth?"

"She positively declared that I am to be married to a squire in less than a twelvemonth."

"Well, now, Sophy, my child," said I, "and what sort of husband are you to have?"

"I am to have a lord soon after my sister has married the squire," she replied.

"How," cried I, "is that all you are to have for your two shillings? Only a lord and a squire for two shillings! You fools, I could have promised you a prince and a [v]nabob for half the money."

This curiosity of theirs, however, was attended with very serious effects. We now began to think ourselves designed by the stars to something exalted, and already anticipated our future grandeur.

In this agreeable time my wife had the most lucky dreams in the world, which she took care to tell us every morning, with great solemnity and exactness. It was one night a coffin and cross-bones, the sign of an approaching wedding; at another time she imagined her daughters' pockets filled with farthings, a certain sign they would shortly be stuffed with gold. The girls themselves had their omens. They saw rings in the candle, purses bounced from the fire, and love-knots lurked in the bottom of every teacup.

Toward the end of the week we received a card from two town ladies, in which, with their compliments, they hoped to see our family at church the Sunday following. All Saturday morning I could perceive, in consequence of this, my wife and daughters in close conference together, and now and then glancing at me with looks that betrayed a [v]latent plot. To be sincere, I had strong suspicions that some absurd proposal was preparing for appearing with splendor the next day. In the evening they began their operations in a very regular manner, and my wife undertook to conduct the siege. After tea, when I seemed in fine spirits, she began thus:

"I fancy, Charles, my dear, we shall have a great deal of good company at our church to-morrow."

"Perhaps we may, my dear," returned I, "though you need be under no uneasiness about that; you shall have a sermon, whether there be or not."

"That is what I expect," returned she; "but I think, my dear, we ought to appear there as decently as possible, for who knows what may happen?"

"Your precautions," replied I, "are highly commendable. A decent behavior and appearance in church is what charms me. We should be devout and humble, cheerful and serene."

"Yes," cried she, "I know that; but I mean we should go there in as proper a manner as possible; not like the scrubs about us."

"You are quite right, my dear," returned I, "and I was going to make the same proposal. The proper manner of going is to go as early as possible, to have time for meditation before the sermon begins."

"Phoo! Charles," interrupted she, "all that is very true, but not what I would be at. I mean, we should go there [v]genteelly. You know the church is two miles off, and I protest I don't like to see my daughters trudging up to their pew all blowzed and red with walking, and looking for all the world as if they had been winners at a [v]smock race. Now, my dear, my proposal is this: there are our two plough-horses, the colt that has been in our family these nine years and his companion, Blackberry, that has scarce done an earthly thing for this month past. They are both grown fat and lazy. Why should they not do something as well as we? And let me tell you, when Moses has trimmed them a little, they will cut a very tolerable figure."

To this proposal I objected that walking would be twenty times more genteel than such a paltry conveyance, as Blackberry was wall-eyed, and the colt wanted a tail; that they had never been broken to the rein, but had an hundred vicious tricks, and that we had but one saddle and [v]pillion in the whole house. All these objections, however, were overruled, so that I was obliged to comply.

The next morning I perceived them not a little busy in collecting such materials as might be necessary for the expedition; but as I found it would be a business of time, I walked on to the church before, and they promised speedily to follow. I waited near an hour in the reading desk for their arrival; but not finding them come as I expected, I was obliged to begin, and went through the service, not without some uneasiness at finding them absent.

This was increased when all was finished, and no appearance of the family. I therefore walked back by the horseway, which was five miles round, though the footway was but two; and when I had got about half-way home, I perceived the procession marching slowly forward toward the church--my son, my wife, and the two little ones exalted on one horse, and my two daughters upon the other. It was then very near dinner-time.

I demanded the cause of their delay, but I soon found, by their looks, that they had met with a thousand misfortunes on the road. The horses had, at first, refused to move from the door, till a neighbor was kind enough to beat them forward for about two hundred yards with his cudgel. Next, the straps of my wife's pillion broke down, and they were obliged to stop to repair them before they could proceed. After that, one of the horses took it into his head to stand still, and neither blows nor entreaties could prevail with him to proceed. They were just recovering from this dismal situation when I found them; but, perceiving everything safe, I own their mortification did not much displease me, as it gave me many opportunities of future triumph, and would teach my daughters more humility.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

=HELPS TO STUDY=

Describe the neighborhood and the home to which the vicar took his family; also their manner of living. Relate the two attempts the ladies made to appear at church in great style. What happened to raise the hopes of better days for the daughters? How were these hopes encouraged? What superstitions did the wife and daughters believe? Give your opinion of the vicar and of each member of the family.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

The School for Scandal--Richard Brinsley Sheridan. She Stoops to Conquer--Oliver Goldsmith. Life of Oliver Goldsmith--Washington Irving. David Copperfield--Charles Dickens. Barnaby Rudge--Charles Dickens.

Some have too much, yet still do crave; I little have, and seek no more. They are but poor, though much they have, And I am rich with little store: They poor, I rich; they beg, I give; They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.

SIR EDWARD DYER.

THE LITTLE BOY IN THE BALCONY

My special amusement in New York is riding on the elevated railway. It is curious to note how little one can see on the crowded sidewalks of this city. It is simply a rush of the same people--hurrying this way or that on the same errands, doing the same shopping or eating at the same restaurants. It is a [v]kaleidoscope with infinite combinations but the same effects. You see it to-day, and it is the same as yesterday. Occasionally in the multitude you hit upon a [v]_genre_ specimen, or an odd detail, such as a prim little dog that sits upright all day and holds in its mouth a cup for pennies for its blind master, or an old bookseller, with a grand head and the deliberate motions of a scholar, moldering in a stall--but the general effect is one of sameness and soon tires and bewilders.

Once on the elevated road, however, a new world is opened, full of the most interesting objects. The cars sweep by the upper stories of the houses, and, running never too swiftly to allow observation, disclose the secrets of a thousand homes, and bring to view people and things never dreamed of by the giddy, restless crowd that sends its impatient murmur from the streets below. In a course of several months' pretty steady riding from Twenty-third Street, which is the station for the Fifth Avenue Hotel, to Rector, which overlooks Wall Street, I have made many acquaintances along the route, and on reaching the city my first curiosity is in their behalf.

One of these is a boy about six years of age--akin in his fragile body and his serious mien--a youngster that is very precious to me. I first saw this boy on a little balcony about three feet by four, projecting from the window of a poverty-stricken fourth floor. He was leaning over the railing, his white, thoughtful head just clearing the top, holding a short, round stick in his hand. The little fellow made a pathetic picture, all alone there above the street, so friendless and desolate, and his pale face came between me and my business many a time that day. On going uptown that evening just as night was falling, I saw him still at his place, white and patient and silent.

Every day afterward I saw him there, always with the short stick in his hand. Occasionally he would walk around the balcony, rattling the stick in a solemn manner against the railing, or poke it across from one corner to another and sit on it. This was the only playing I ever saw him do, and the stick was the only plaything he had. But he was never without it. His little hand always held it, and I pictured him every morning when he awoke from his joyless sleep, picking up his poor toy and going out to his balcony, as other boys go to play. Or perhaps he slept with it, as little ones do with dolls and whip-tops.

I could see that the room beyond the window was bare. I never saw any one in it. The heat must have been terrible, for it could have had no ventilation. Once I missed the boy from the balcony, but saw his white head moving about slowly in the dusk of the room. Gradually the little fellow became a burden to me. I found myself continually thinking of him, and troubled with that remorse that thoughtless people feel even for suffering for which they are not in the slightest degree responsible. Not that I ever saw any suffering on his face. It was patient, thoughtful, serious, but with never a sign of petulance. What thoughts filled that young head--what contemplation took the place of what should have been the [v]ineffable upspringing of childish emotion--what complaint or questioning were living behind that white face--no one could guess. In an older person the face would have betokened a resignation that found peace in the hope of things hereafter. In this child, without hope or aspiration, it was sad beyond expression.

One day as I passed I nodded at him. He made no sign in return. I repeated the nod on another trip, waving my hand at him--but without avail. At length, in response to an unusually winning exhortation, his pale lips trembled into a smile, but a smile that was soberness itself. Wherever I went that day that smile went with me. Wherever I saw children playing in the parks, or trotting along with their hands nestled in strong fingers that guided and protected, I thought of that tiny watcher in the balcony--joyless, hopeless, friendless--a desolate mite, hanging between the blue sky and the gladsome streets, lifting his wistful face now to the peaceful heights of the one, and now looking with grave wonder on the ceaseless tumult of the other. At length--but why go any further? Why is it necessary to tell that the boy had no father, that his mother was bedridden from his birth, and that his sister pasted labels in a drug-house, and he was thus left to himself.

It is sufficient to say that I went to Coney Island yesterday, and watched the bathers and the children--listened to the crisp, lingering music of the waves--ate a robust lunch on the pier--wandered in and out among the booths, tents, and hub-bub--and that through all these pleasures I had a companion that enjoyed them with a gravity that I can never hope to [v]emulate, but with a soulfulness that was touching. As I came back in the boat, the breezes singing through the [v]cordage, music floating from the fore-deck, and the sun lighting with its dying rays the shipping that covered the river, there was sitting in front of me a very pale but very happy bit of a boy, open-eyed with wonder, but sober and self-contained, clasping tightly in his little fingers a short, battered stick. And finally, whenever I pass by a certain overhanging balcony now, I am sure of a smile from an intimate and esteemed friend who lives there.

HENRY W. GRADY.

ARIEL'S TRIUMPH[141-*]

This story is taken from Booth Tarkington's novel, _The Conquest of Canaan_, which gives an admirable description of modern life in an American town. Joe Louden, the hero, and Ariel Tabor, the heroine, were both friendless and, in a way, forlorn. How both of them triumphed over obstacles and won success and happiness is the theme of a book which is notable for keen observation of character and for a quiet and delightful humor.

I

Ariel had worked all the afternoon over her mother's wedding-gown, and two hours were required by her toilet for the dance. She curled her hair frizzily, burning it here and there, with a slate-pencil heated over a lamp-chimney, and she placed above one ear three or four large artificial roses, taken from an old hat of her mother's, which she had found in a trunk in the store-room. Possessing no slippers, she carefully blacked and polished her shoes, which had been clumsily resoled, and fastened into the strings of each small rosettes of red ribbon; after which she practised swinging the train of her skirt until she was proud of her manipulation of it.

She had no powder, but found in her grandfather's room a lump of magnesia, which he was in the habit of taking for heartburn, and passed it over and over her brown face and hands. Then a lingering gaze into her small mirror gave her joy at last; she yearned so hard to see herself charming that she did see herself so. Admiration came, and she told herself that she was more attractive to look at than she had ever been in her life, and that, perhaps, at last she might begin to be sought for like other girls. The little glass showed a sort of prettiness in her thin, unmatured young face; tripping dance-tunes ran through her head, her feet keeping the time--ah, she did so hope to dance often that night! Perhaps--perhaps she might be asked for every number. And so, wrapping an old water-proof cloak about her, she took her grandfather's arm and sallied forth, with high hopes in her beating heart.

It was in the dressing-room that the change began to come. Alone, at home in her own ugly little room, she had thought herself almost beautiful; but here in the brightly lighted chamber crowded with the other girls it was different. There was a big [v]cheval-glass at one end of the room, and she faced it, when her turn came--for the mirror was popular--with a sinking spirit. There was the contrast, like a picture painted and framed. The other girls all wore their hair after the fashion introduced to Canaan by Mamie Pike the week before, on her return from a visit to Chicago. None of them had "crimped" and none had bedecked their tresses with artificial flowers. Her alterations of the wedding-dress had not been successful; the skirt was too short in front and higher on one side than on the other, showing too plainly the heavy-soled shoes, which had lost most of their polish in the walk through the snow. The ribbon rosettes were fully revealed, and as she glanced at their reflection, she heard the words, "Look at that train and those rosettes!" whispered behind her, and saw in the mirror two pretty young women turn away with their handkerchiefs over their mouths and retreat hurriedly to an alcove. All the feet in the room except Ariel's were in dainty kid or satin slippers of the color of the dresses from which they glimmered out, and only Ariel wore a train.

She went away from the mirror and pretended to be busy with a hanging thread in her sleeve.

She was singularly an alien in the chattering room, although she had been born and had lived all her life in the town. Perhaps her position among the young ladies may be best defined by the remark, generally current among them that evening, to the effect that it was "very sweet of Mamie to invite her." Ariel was not like the others; she was not of them, and never had been. Indeed, she did not know them very well. Some of them nodded to her and gave her a word of greeting pleasantly; all of them whispered about her with wonder and suppressed amusement, but none talked to her. They were not unkindly, but they were young and eager and excited over their own interests,--which were then in the "gentlemen's dressing-room."

Each of the other girls had been escorted by a youth of the place, and, one by one, joining these escorts in the hall outside the door, they descended the stairs, until only Ariel was left. She came down alone after the first dance had begun, and greeted her young hostess's mother timidly. Mrs. Pike--a small, frightened-looking woman with a ruby necklace--answered her absently, and hurried away to see that the [v]imported waiters did not steal anything.

Ariel sat in one of the chairs against the wall and watched the dancers with a smile of eager and benevolent interest. In Canaan no parents, no guardians or aunts were haled forth o' nights to [v]duenna the junketings of youth; Mrs. Pike did not reappear, and Ariel sat conspicuously alone; there was nothing else for her to do, but it was not an easy matter.

When the first dance reached an end, Mamie Pike came to her for a moment with a cheery welcome, and was immediately surrounded by a circle of young men and women, flushed with dancing, shouting as was their wont, laughing [v]inexplicably over words and phrases and unintelligible [v]monosyllables, as if they all belonged to a secret society and these cries were symbols of things exquisitely humorous, which only they understood. Ariel laughed with them more heartily than any other, so that she might seem to be of them and as merry as they were; but almost immediately she found herself outside of the circle, and presently they all whirled away into another dance, and she was left alone again.

So she sat, no one coming near her, through several dances, trying to maintain the smile of delighted interest upon her face, though she felt the muscles of her face beginning to ache with their fixedness, her eyes growing hot and glazed. All the other girls were provided with partners for every dance, with several young men left over, these latter lounging [v]hilariously together in the doorways. Ariel was careful not to glance toward them, but she could not help hating them. Once or twice between the dances she saw Miss Pike speak appealingly to one of the [v]superfluous, glancing, at the same time, in her own direction, and Ariel could see, too, that the appeal proved unsuccessful, until at last Mamie approached her, leading Norbert Flitcroft, partly by the hand, partly by will power. Norbert was an excessively fat boy, and at the present moment looked as patient as the blind. But he asked Ariel if she was "engaged for the next dance," and, Mamie, having flitted away, stood [v]disconsolately beside her, waiting for the music to begin. Ariel was grateful for him.

"I think you must be very good-natured, Mr. Flitcroft," she said, with an air of [v]raillery.

"No, I'm not," he replied, [v]plaintively. "Everybody thinks I am, because I'm fat, and they expect me to do things they never dream of asking anybody else to do. I'd like to see 'em even _ask_ 'Gene Bantry to go and do some of the things they get me to do! A person isn't good-natured just because he's fat," he concluded, morbidly, "but he might as well be!"

"Oh, I meant good-natured," she returned, with a sprightly laugh, "because you're willing to waltz with me."

"Oh, well," he returned, sighing, "that's all right."

The orchestra flourished into "La Paloma"; he put his arm mournfully about her, and taking her right hand with his left, carried her arm out to a rigid right angle, beginning to pump and balance for time. They made three false starts and then got away. Ariel danced badly; she hopped and lost the step, but they persevered, bumping against other couples continually. Circling breathlessly into the next room, they passed close to a long mirror, in which Ariel saw herself, although in a flash, more bitterly contrasted to the others than in the cheval-glass of the dressing-room. The clump of roses was flopping about her neck, her crimped hair looked frowzy, and there was something terribly wrong about her dress. Suddenly she felt her train to be [v]grotesque, as a thing following her in a nightmare.

A moment later she caught her partner making a [v]burlesque face of suffering over her shoulder, and, turning her head quickly, saw for whose benefit he had constructed it. Eugene Bantry, flying expertly by with Mamie, was bestowing upon Mr. Flitcroft a commiserative wink. The next instant she tripped in her train and fell to the floor at Eugene's feet, carrying her partner with her.

There was a shout of laughter. The young hostess stopped Eugene, who would have gone on, and he had no choice but to stoop to Ariel's assistance.

"It seems to be a habit of mine," she said, laughing loudly.

She did not appear to see the hand he offered, but got on her feet without help and walked quickly away with Norbert, who proceeded to live up to the character he had given himself.

"Perhaps we had better not try it again," she laughed.

"Well, I should think not," he returned with the frankest gloom. With the air of conducting her home, he took her to the chair against the wall whence he had brought her. There his responsibility for her seemed to cease. "Will you excuse me?" he asked, and there was no doubt he felt that he had been given more than his share that evening, even though he was fat.

"Yes, indeed." Her laughter was continuous. "I should think you _would_ be glad to get rid of me after that. Ha, ha, ha! Poor Mr. Flitcroft, you know you are!"