Jerome, A Poor Man Part 16

He waited quite a little time, however. He could hear the far-off tinkle of silver and clink of china, and knew the family were at dinner. "Won't leave his dinner for me," thought Jerome, with an unrighteous bitterness of humility, recognizing the fact that he could not expect him to. "Might have planted an hour longer."

Then came a clang of the knocker, and this time the girl ushered into the study a clamping, red-faced man in a shabby coat. Jerome recognized him as a young farmer who lived three miles or so out of the village. He blushed and stumbled, with a kind of grim awkwardness, even before the simple girl delivering herself of her formula of welcome. He would not sit down; he stood by the corner of a medicine-cupboard, settling heavily into his boots, waiting.

When the girl had gone he looked at Jerome, and gave a vague and furtive "Hullo!" in simple recognition of his presence, as it were.

He did not know who the boy was, never being easily certain as to ident.i.ties of any but old acquaintances--not from high indifference and dislike, like the doctor, but from dulness of observation.

Jerome nodded in response to the man's salutation. "I can't ask the doctor before him," he thought, anxiously.

The man rested heavily, first on one leg, then on the other. "Been waitin' long?" he grunted, finally.

"Quite a while."

"Hope my horse 'll stan'," said the man; "headed towards home, an'

load off."

"The doctor can tend to you first," Jerome said, eagerly.

The man gave a nod of a.s.sent. Thanks, as elegancies of social intercourse, were alarming, and savored of affectation, to him. He had thanked the Lord, from his heart, for all his known and unknown gifts, but his grat.i.tude towards his fellow-men had never overcome his bashful self-consciousness and found voice.

Often in prayer-meeting Jerome had heard this man's fervent outpouring of the religious faith which seemed the only intelligence of his soul, and, like all single and concentrated powers, had a certain force of persuasion. Jerome eyed him now with a kind of pious admiration and respect, and yet with recollections.

"If I were a man, I'd stop colorin' up and actin' scared," thought the boy; and then they both heard a door open and shut, and knew the doctor was coming.

Jerome's heart beat hard, yet he looked quite boldly at the door.

Somehow the young farmer's clumsy embarra.s.sment had roused his own pride and courage. When the doctor entered, he stood up with alacrity and made his manners, and the young farmer settled to another foot, with a hoa.r.s.e note of greeting.

The doctor said good-day, with formal courtesy, with his fine, keen face turned seemingly upon both of them impartially; then he addressed the young man.

"How is your wife to-day?" he inquired.

The young man turned purple, where he had been red, at this direct address. "She's pretty--comfortable," he stammered.

"Is she out of medicine?"

"Yes, sir. That's what I come for." With that the young man pulled, with distressed fumblings and jerks, a bottle from his pocket, which he handed to the doctor, who had in the meantime opened the door of one of the cupboards.

The doctor took a large bottle from the cupboard, and filled from that the one which the young man had brought. Jerome stood trembling, watching the careful gurgling of a speckled green liquid from one bottle to another. A strange new odor filled the room, overpowering all the others.

When the doctor gave the bottle to the young man, he shoved it carefully away in his pocket again, and then stood coloring more deeply and hesitating.

"Can ye take your pay in wood for this and the last two lots?" he murmured at length, so low that Jerome scarcely heard him.

But the doctor never lowered nor raised his incisive, high-bred voice for any man. His reply left no doubt of the question. "No, Mr.

Upham," said Doctor Prescott. "You must pay me in money for medicine.

I have enough wood of my own."

"I know ye have--consider'ble," responded the young man, in an agony, "but--"

"I would like the money as soon as convenient," said the doctor.

"I'm--havin'--dreadful--hard work to get--any money myself--lately,"

persisted the young man. "Folks--they promise, but--they don't pay, an'--"

"Never give or take promises long enough to calculate interest,"

interposed Doctor Prescott, with stern pleasantry; "that's my rule, young man, and it's the one I expect others to follow in their business dealings with me. Don't give and don't take; then you'll make your way in life."

Ozias Lamb had said once, in Jerome's hearing, that all the medicine that Doctor Prescott ever gave to folks for nothing was good advice, and he didn't know but then he sent the bill in to the Almighty.

Jerome, who had taken this in, with a sharp wink of appreciation, in spite of his mother's promptly sending him out of the room, thinking that such talk savored of irreverence, and was not fit for youthful ears, remembered it now, as he heard Doctor Prescott admonis.h.i.+ng poor John Upham.

"Know ye've got consider'ble," mumbled John Upham, who had rough lands enough for a village, but scarce two s.h.i.+llings in pocket, and a delicate young wife and three babies; "but--thought ye hadn't--no old apple-tree wood--old apple-tree wood--well seasoned--jest the thing for the parlor hearth--didn't know but--"

"I should like the money next week," said the doctor, as if he had not heard a word of poor John's entreaty.

The young man shook his head miserably. "Dun'no' as I can--nohow."

"Well," said the doctor, looking at him calmly, "I'm willing to take a little land for the medicine and that last winter's bill, when Johnny had the measles."

Then this poor John Upham, uncouth, and scarcely quicker-witted than one of his own oxen, but as faithful, and living up wholly to his humble lights, turned pale through his blushes, and stared at the doctor as if he could not have heard aright. "Take--my land?" he faltered.

Doctor Prescott never smiled with his eyes, but only with a symmetrical curving and lengthening of his finely cut, thin lips. He smiled so then. "Yes, I am willing to take some land for the debt, since you have not the money," said he.

"But--that was--father's land."

"Yes, and your father was a good, thrifty man. He did not waste his substance."

"It was grandfather's, too."

"Yes, it was, I believe."

"It has always been in our--family. It's the Upham--land. I can't part with it nohow."

"I will take the money, then," said Doctor Prescott.

"I'll raise it just as soon as I can, doctor," cried John Upham, eagerly. "I've got a man's note for twenty dollars comin' due in three months; he's sure to pay. An'--there's some cedar ordered, an'--"

"I must have it next week," said the doctor, "or--" He paused. "I shall dislike to proceed to extreme measures," he added.

Then John Upham, aroused to boldness by desperation, as the very oxen will sometimes run in madness if the goad be sharp enough, told Doctor Prescott to his face, with scarce a stumble in his speech, that he owned half the town now; that his land was much more valuable than his, which was mostly swampy woodland and pasture-lands, bringing in scarcely enough income to feed and clothe his family.

"Sha'n't have 'nough to live on if I let any on't go," said John Upham, "an' you've got more land as 'tis than any other man in town."

Doctor Prescott did not raise or quicken his clear voice; his eyes did not flash, but they gave out a hard light. John Upham was like a giant before this little, neat, wiry figure, which had such a majesty of port that it seemed to throw its own shadow over him.

"We are not discussing the extent of my possessions," said Doctor Prescott, "but the extent of your debts." He moved aside, as if to clear the pa.s.sage to the door, turning slightly at the same time towards his other caller, who was cold with indignation upon John Upham's account and terror upon his own.

Half minded he was, when John Upham went out, with his clamping, clumsy tread, with his honest head cast down, and no more words in his mouth for the doctor's last smoothly scathing remark, to follow him at a bound and ask nothing for himself; but he stood still and watched him go.

When John Upham had opened the door and was pa.s.sing through, the doctor pursued him with yet one more bit of late advice. "It is poor judgment," said Doctor Prescott, "for a young man to marry and bring children into the world until he has property enough to support them without running into debt. You would have done better had you waited, Mr. Upham. It is what I always tell young men."