The Brick Moon and Other Stories Part 24

Fifth, all the school children who had told the story and had made inquiries.

Sixth, the man who made the Somerville Directory.

Seventh and last, in two barouches, Harrington and the chiefs of staff at the general post-office. And the boys asked Father McElroy to make a speech to all just before the dancing began.

And he said: "The lost sheep was never lost. She thought she was lost in the wilderness, but she was at home, for she was met by the Christmas greeting of the world into which the dear Lord was born!"

NOTE.--It may interest the reader to know that the important part of this story is true.

IDEALS

CHAPTER I

IN ACCOUNT

I have a little circle of friends, among all my other friends quite distinct, though of them. They are four men and four women; the husbands more in love with their wives than on the days when they married them, and the wives with their husbands. These people live for the good of the world, to a fair extent, but much, very much, of their lives is pa.s.sed together. Perhaps the happiest period they ever knew was when, in different subordinate capacities, they were all on the staff of the same magazine. Then they met daily at the office, lunched together perforce, and could make arrangements for the evening. But, to say true, things differ little with them now, though that magazine long since took wings and went to a better world.

Their names are Felix and Fausta Carter, Frederic and Mary Ingham, George and Anna Haliburton, George and Julia Hackmatack.

I get the children's names wrong to their faces-- except that in general their name is Legion, for they are many--so I will not attempt them here.

These people live in very different houses, with very different "advantages," as the world says. Haliburton has grown very rich in the rag and paper business, rich enough to discard rag money and believe in gold. He even spits at silver, which I am glad to get when I can.

Frederic Ingham will never be rich. His regular income consists in his half-pay as a retired brevet officer in the patriot service of Garibaldi of the year 1859. For the rest, he invested his money in the Brick Moon, and, as I need hardly add, insured his life in the late Continental Insurance Company. But the Inghams find just as much in life as the Haliburtons, and Anna Haliburton consults Polly Ingham about the shade of a flounce just as readily and as eagerly as Polly consults her about the children's dentistry. They are all very fond of each other.

They get a great deal out of life, these eight, partly because they are so closely allied together. Just two whist-parties, you see; or, if they go to ride, they just fill two carriages. Eight is such a good number-- makes such a nice dinner-party. Perhaps they see a little too much of each other. That we shall never know.

They got a great deal of life, and yet they were not satisfied. They found that out very queerly. They have not many standards. Ingham does take the "Spectator;"

Hackmatack condescends to read the "Evening Post;"

Haliburton, who used to be in the insurance business, and keeps his old extravagant habits, reads the "Advertiser"

and the "Transcript;" all of them have the "Christian Union," and all of them buy "Harper's Weekly."

Every separate week of their lives they buy of the boys, instead of subscribing; they think they may not want the next number, but they always do. Not one of them has read the "Nation" for five years, for they like to keep good-natured. In fact, they do not take much stock in the general organs of opinion, and the standard books you find about are scandalously few. The Bible, Shakespeare, John Milton; Polly has Dante; Julia has "Barclay's Apology," with ever so many marks in it; one George has "Owen Felltham," and the other is strong on Marcus Aurelius. Well, no matter about these separate things; the uniform books besides those I named, in different editions but in every house, are the "Arabian Nights" and "Robinson Crusoe." Hackmatack has the priceless first edition. Haliburton has Grandville's (the English Grandville). Ingham has a proof copy of the Stothard.

Carter has a good copy of the Cruikshank.

If you ask me which of these four I should like best, I should say as the Laureate did when they gave him his choice of two kinds of cake, "Both's as good as one."

Well, "Robinson Crusoe" being their lay gospel and creed, not to say epistle and psalter, it was not queer that one night, when the election had gone awfully, and the men were as blue as that little porcelain Osiris of mine yonder, who is so blue that he cannot stand on his feet--it was not queer, I say, that they turned instinctively to "Robinson Crusoe" for relief.

Now, Robinson Crusoe was once in a very bad box indeed, and to comfort himself as well as he could, and to set the good against the evil, that he might have something to distinguish his case from worse, he stated impartially, like debtor and creditor, the comforts and miseries, thus:--

EVIL. GOOD.

I am cast upon a horrible But I am alive, and not desolate island, void of all drowned as all my hope of recovery. s.h.i.+p's company were.

I am singled out and separated, But I am singled out, as it were, from all the world, to too, from the s.h.i.+p's crew be miserable. to be spared from death.

And so the debtor and creditor account goes on.

Julia Hackmatack read this aloud to them--the whole of it--and they agreed, as Robinson says, not so much for their posterity as to keep their thoughts from daily poring on their trials, that for each family they would make such a balance. What might not come of it? Perhaps a partial nay, perhaps a perfect cure!

So they determined that on the instant they would go to work, and two in the smoking-room, two in the dining- room, two in George's study, and two in the parlor, they should in the next halfhour make up their lists of good and evil. Here are the results:--

FREDERIC AND MARY INGHAM.

GOOD. EVIL.

We have three nice boys But the door-bell rings all and three nice girls. the time.

We have enough to eat, But the coal bill is awful, drink, and wear. and the Larrabee furnace has given out. The firm that made it has gone up, and no castings can be got to mend it.

We have more books than But our friends borrow our we can read, and do not care books, and only return odd to read many newspapers. volumes.

We have many very dear But we are behindhand 143 friends--enough. names on our lists of calls.

We have health in our But the children may be family. sick. The Lowndes children are.

We seem to be of some But Mrs. Hogarth has left use in the world. Fred $200 for the poor, and he is afraid he shall spend it wrong.

The country has gone to the dogs.

GEORGE AND ANNA HALIBURTON.

GOOD. EVIL.

We have a nice home in You cannot give a cup of town, and one in Sharon, and coffee to a beggar but he sends a sea-sh.o.r.e place at Little five hundred million tramps to Gau, and we have friends the door.

enough to fill them.

We have some of the nicest A great many people call children in the world. whose names we have forgotten.

We have enough to do, and We have to give a party to not too much. all our acquaintance every year, which is horrid.

Business is good enough, We do not do anything we though complaining. want to do, and we do a great deal that we do not want to do.

George had added, "And there is no health in us." But Anna marked that out as wicked.

The children are all well. People vote as if they were possessed.

GEORGE AND JULIA HACKMATACK

GOOD. EVIL.