The Copy-Cat and Other Stories Part 24

"Sam shall serve our luncheon in here," he said, with a staid glee.

Jim nodded happily.

"Louisa will not mind," said Hayward. "She is precise, but she has a fine regard for the rights of the individual, which is most commendable." He seated himself in a companion chair to Jim's, lit his own pipe, and threw the match on the floor. Occasionally, when the minister was out, Sam, without orders so to do, cleared the floor of matches.

Hayward smoked and regarded his friend, who looked troubled despite his comfort. "What is it, Jim?" asked the minister at last.

"I don't know how to do what is right for me to do," replied the little man, and his face, turned toward his friend, had the puzzled earnestness of a child.

Hayward laughed. It was easily seen that his was the keener mind. In natural endowments there had never been equality, although there was great similarity of tastes. Jim, despite his education, often lapsed into the homely vernacular of which he heard so much. An involuntarily imitative man in externals was Jim, but essentially an original. Jim proceeded.

"You know, Edward, I have never been one to complain," he said, with an almost boyish note of apology.

"Never complained half enough; that's the trouble," returned the other.

"Well, I overheard something Mis' Adkins said to Mis' Amos Trimmer the other afternoon. Mis' Trimmer was calling on Mis' Adkins. I couldn't help overhearing unless I went outdoors, and it was snowing and I had a cold. I wasn't listening."

"Had a right to listen if you wanted to," declared Hayward, irascibly.

"Well, I couldn't help it unless I went outdoors. Mis' Adkins she was in the kitchen making lightbread for supper, and Mis' Trimmer had sat right down there with her. Mis' Adkins's kitchen is as clean as a parlor, anyway. Mis' Adkins said to Mis' Trimmer, speaking of me--because Mis'

Trimmer had just asked where I was and Mis' Adkins had said I was out in the woodshed sitting with the cats and smoking--Mis' Adkins said, 'He's just a doormat, that's what he is.' Then Mis' Trimmer says, 'The way he lets folks ride over him beats me.' Then Mis' Adkins says again: 'He's nothing but a door-mat. He lets everybody that wants to just trample on him and grind their dust into him, and he acts real pleased and grateful.'"

Hayward's face flushed. "Did Mrs. Adkins mention that she was one of the people who used you for a door-mat?" he demanded.

Jim threw back his head and laughed like a child, with the sweetest sense of unresentful humor. "Lord bless my soul, Edward," replied Jim, "I don't believe she ever thought of that."

"And at that very minute you, with a hard cold, were sitting out in that draughty shed smoking because she wouldn't allow you to smoke in your own house!"

"I don't mind that, Edward," said Jim, and laughed again.

"Could you see to read your paper out there, with only that little shed window? And don't you like to read your paper while you smoke?"

"Oh yes," admitted Jim; "but my! I don't mind little things like that!

Mis' Adkins is only a poor widow woman, and keeping my house nice and not having it smell of tobacco is all she's got. They can talk about women's rights--I feel as if they ought to have them fast enough, if they want them, poor things; a woman has a hard row to hoe, and will have, if she gets all the rights in creation. But I guess the rights they'd find it hardest to give up would be the rights to have men look after them just a little more than they look after other men, just because they are women. When I think of Annie Berry--the girl I was going to marry, you know, if she hadn't died--I feel as if I couldn't do enough for another woman. Lord! I'm glad to sit out in the woodshed and smoke. Mis' Adkins is pretty good-natured to stand all the cats."

Then the coffee boiled, and Hayward poured out some for Jim and himself.

He had a little silver service at hand, and willow-ware cups and saucers. Presently Sam appeared, and Hayward gave orders concerning luncheon.

"Tell Miss Louisa we are to have it served here," said he, "and mind, Sam, the chops are to be thick and cooked the way we like them; and don't forget the East India chutney, Sam."

"It does seem rather a pity that you cannot have chutney at home with your chops, when you are so fond of it," remarked Hayward when Sam had gone.

"Mis' Adkins says it will give me liver trouble, and she isn't strong enough to nurse."

"So you have to eat her ketchup?"

"Well, she doesn't put seasoning in it," admitted Jim. "But Mis' Adkins doesn't like seasoning herself, and I don't mind."

"And I know the chops are never cut thick, the way we like them."

"Mis' Adkins likes her meat well done, and she can't get such thick chops well done. I suppose our chops are rather thin, but I don't mind."

"Beefsteak and chops, both cut thin, and fried up like sole-leather.

I know!" said Dr. Hayward, and he stamped his foot with unregenerate force.

"I don't mind a bit, Edward."

"You ought to mind, when it is your own house, and you buy the food and pay your housekeeper. It is an outrage!"

"I don't mind, really, Edward."

Dr. Hayward regarded Jim with a curious expression compounded of love, anger, and contempt. "Any more talk of legal proceedings?" he asked, brusquely.

Jim flushed. "Tom ought not to tell of that."

"Yes, he ought; he ought to tell it all over town. He doesn't, but he ought. It is an outrage! Here you have been all these years supporting your nieces, and they are working away like field-mice, burrowing under your generosity, trying to get a chance to take action and appropriate your property and have you put under a guardian."

"I don't mind a bit," said Jim; "but--"

The other man looked inquiringly at him, and, seeing a pitiful working of his friend's face, he jumped up and got a little jar from a shelf.

"We will drop the whole thing until we have had our chops and chutney,"

said he. "You are right; it is not worth minding. Here is a new brand of tobacco I want you to try. I don't half like it, myself, but you may."

Jim, with a pleased smile, reached out for the tobacco, and the two men smoked until Sam brought the luncheon. It was well cooked and well served on an antique table. Jim was thoroughly happy. It was not until the luncheon was over and another pipe smoked that the troubled, perplexed expression returned to his face.

"Now," said Hayward, "out with it!"

"It is only the old affair about Alma and Amanda, but now it has taken on a sort of new aspect."

"What do you mean by a new aspect?"

"It seems," said Jim, slowly, "as if they were making it so I couldn't do for them."

Hayward stamped his foot. "That does sound new," he said, dryly. "I never thought Alma Beecher or Amanda Bennet ever objected to have you do for them."

"Well," said Jim, "perhaps they don't now, but they want me to do it in their own way. They don't want to feel as if I was giving and they taking; they want it to seem the other way round. You see, if I were to deed over my property to them, and then they allowance me, they would feel as if they were doing the giving."

"Jim, you wouldn't be such a fool as that?"

"No, I wouldn't," replied Jim, simply. "They wouldn't know how to take care of it, and Mis' Adkins would be left to s.h.i.+ft for herself. Joe Beecher is real good-hearted, but he always lost every dollar he touched. No, there wouldn't be any sense in that. I don't mean to give in, but I do feel pretty well worked up over it."

"What have they said to you?"

Jim hesitated.

"Out with it, now. One thing you may be sure of: nothing that you can tell me will alter my opinion of your two nieces for the worse. As for poor Joe Beecher, there is no opinion, one way or the other. What did they say?"

Jim regarded his friend with a curiously sweet, far-off expression.