Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason Corner Folks Part 27

"And this is his son, and his poor father--" The Deacon's good wife could say no more, but clasped little Quincy close to her motherly breast.

"You told me how it happened, Huldy, and I told father, but it don't seem real even now. His father was such a fine man."

She stopped, for her daughter had turned her head away, and her mother knew that it was to brush away some tears that could not be kept back.

To 'Zekiel Pettingill, the boy was Alice's child. His only sister had been the apple of his eye, and his great, honest heart welcomed the boy as if he were his own.

His own son, Quincy Adams Pettingill, was in his fourteenth year and upon him devolved the outdoor education of his young cousin. In this pleasant task he was aided by his sister Sophie who was a year younger than the newcomer.

There was a scene of wild excitement when young Quincy paid his first visit to the old Pettingill place where his mother was born. It was still the home of Hiram Maxwell and his wife, formerly Mandy Skinner.

The two boys, Abraham Mason Maxwell and Obadiah Strout Maxwell had been told often the story of Mr. Sawyer's visit to Eastborough, and how he boarded in that house, and little Mandy was glad to see "Kirwinzee."

The old dog, Swiss, had, with difficulty, been dragged from the grave of his former master, Uncle Ike, but no force, or persuasion, could induce him to leave the old house. Probably the name "Quincy" had a familiar sound and he wagged his tail slowly as an evidence of recognition and welcome.

The most explosive greeting came from Mrs. Crowley.

"An' it's the foine young man he is, the picter of his feyther." She would have taken him in her arms and hugged him but for the presence of others, but, afterwards, when alone with him she patted his curly head and told him that he would have to be a fine man to be as good as his father. Everywhere he went his father was talked about and praised, and his mother had taught him to love his father's memory. Thus early the ambition to be like his father was instilled in the boy's mind.

Confident as Alice was that her husband was still living, Aunt Ella had protested effectually against her implanting any such hope in the child's mind, and he had been brought up with the belief that his father had died before he was born. There was one place where his father's praises were faint, and that was at the grocery store.

[ILl.u.s.tRATION: "'I S'POSE ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU'LL BE WEIGHIN' SUGAR AND DRAWIN' 'La.s.sES.'"]

"Ah, my young man," said Mr. Obadiah Strout, on his first visit, "your father's money started this business, but I've worked mighty hard to build it up to what it is now. I s'pose one of these days you'll be weighin' sugar and drawin' 'la.s.ses."

"I guess not," exclaimed Hiram. "Rich men's sons don't us'ally take to their father's business."

"You're right for once, Hiram," Mr. Strout acknowledged. "They uzally run through the money, bust the biz'ness and bring up in jail."

"Well, this young fellow won't," cried Hiram, hotly. "He's goin' to be a great man like his father, won't you, Bub?"

"Bub" took a handful of raisins from an open box, and eyed his questioner wonderingly.

"There's many a slip 'twixt the cow and the churn," said Mr. Strout as he took a ten cent cigar from the case and lighted it. Perhaps the sight of the son recalled a scene in the same shop many years before on Quincy's first visit to Mason's Corner when a box of cigars had been the subject of an animated discussion between the boy's father and himself, followed by a pa.s.sage-at-arms--or, more correctly speaking--fists. We humans are only veneered with politeness or good nature; underneath, man's revengeful nature lies dormant--but not dead.

Mrs. Hawkins was delighted to see him. "Olive, don't you think he's the likeness of his father?"

Olive agreed, because she had found that agreement with her employer's opinions made life pleasant, and also led to many desirable additions to her wardrobe.

Mrs. Hawkins surveyed him again. "I'll never forget what a poor appet.i.te his father had when he boarded here. He never came to his meals reg'lar.

But he was in love, head over heels an' an extry dip,--an' I don't blame him, for 'Zeke Pettingill's sister was good enough for any man, even if he did git to be guv'nor. Have a cookey?" and Quincy's pockets were filled with cakes that contained raisins and citron.

"Them's seedless raisins, Quincy. I had a boarder once, a reg'lar hayseed who came down here from Montrose to work hayin' time, an' he asked me how I got the stuns out of the raisins. Jes' to fool him, I said I bit 'em out, an' do you know, that old fool never teched another bit o' cake while he stopped here."

Mr. Jonas Hawkins took him out to see the hens and chickens, and told him that he "kalkilated that mos' on 'em eggs that was bein' sot on would hatch out." Quincy's great delight was going with Hiram in the grocery wagon. One day they went over the same road from the Pettingill farm to Eastborough Centre that his father had travelled so many times.

The old sign board "Three Miles to Mason's Corner" was still there, but how changed the other conditions. No consumptive uncle in the Poor House, no philosophical Uncle Ike living in a chicken coop, no inquisitive Mrs. Putnam, no mysterious Lindy, no battle royal with the music teacher, no town meeting to engineer, no grocery store to buy, no Deacon's daughter to go driving with, no singing school, no surprise party, no blind girl to comfort and aid--and finally marry.

There were none of the incidents that had made his father's life at Mason's Corner so exciting and interesting. Now, there was only a little boy riding in a red wagon with yellow wheels, inhaling the pure air and sweetness of the wild flowers, listening to the songs of birds, and wis.h.i.+ng that Uncle Hiram would make the horse go faster.

It is safe to leave him with his father's friends, for surely his lines had fallen in a pleasant place.

CHAPTER XVIII

AN OLD STRIFE RENEWED

It was February and the air was stinging cold. It was one of those nights such as Lowell wrote about in "The Courtin'."

"G.o.d makes sech nights, all white an' still Fur'z you can look or listen, Moons.h.i.+ne an' snow on field an' hill, All silence an' all glisten."

In the store of the Strout and Maxwell Company quite a number of the town's people were gathered about the big air-tight stove which was kept stuffed full of wood by willing hands and from which came great waves of almost scorching heat.

Such congregations of villagers are often said to be composed of loafers and loungers, but it was not so at Fernborough. The men who represented the brains and marrow of the town met there. It was the home of the town debating society and supplied a free forum for the discussion of public questions. If the advanced ideas in statesmans.h.i.+p and social economy incubated there could have become the property of the nation, our country would have grown wiser and better.

But for the intense cold the company gathered there on the evening in question would have been much larger. Benoni Hill, the former proprietor of the store and the richest man in town, did not think his wealth was any reason why he should hold aloof or consider himself above his neighbours, whose patronage had been the foundation of his fortune.

He was given an old arm-chair while the others sat upon soap-boxes and nail-kegs. Cobb's Twins, William and James, were there, Emmanuel Howe, the minister's son, and Bob Wood who still sang ba.s.s in the village church choir.

The store door was opened letting in a gust of cold air which made all draw nearer to the red-hot stove. The newcomer was Samuel Hill, Benoni's son.

A chorus of voices cried: "h.e.l.lo, Sam!" and a place was made for him so he could thaw out his almost frozen fingers.

"It's mighty cold, ain't it?" said his father.

"Well, I should smile," replied Sam. This expression he had heard the last time he was in the city, and he derived great pleasure from its repet.i.tion.

"How's Tilly?" asked Bob Wood.

"Able to be up and have her bed made."

All laughed at the rejoinder. Smiles and laughter are easily evoked in a village grocery.

Mr. Obadiah Strout and Mr. Hiram Maxwell, general partners, were in the private office, a small room adjoining the post-office. Mr. Strout was smoking a cigar and reading a letter between the puffs. Hiram, with his chair tilted back against the wall, was smoking his after-supper pipe, for it was after seven o'clock in the evening.

"Mr. Maxwell," said Obadiah, laying down the letter he had been reading, "this is from the trustees of the estate of the Honourable Quincy Adams Sawyer, formerly our special partner, and the ex-Governor of this Commonwealth. I mention the fact of him being our former special partner first, before I said anything about his political elevation, for I don't believe, Mr. Maxwell, that he would ever have been Governor if he hadn't jined in with us."

Mr. Strout always called Hiram "Mr. Maxwell," when they talked over business affairs.

Hiram blew a cloud from his pipe. "Wall, I guess they're putty well satisfied with what we've been doin', ain't they?"

Mr. Strout leaned back in his chair with a self-satisfied look on his face.

"Wall, they must be a pretty near set if they expect more'n twelve per cent, on the capital. No, they're all right, 'though one of 'em, that Mr. Merry, is mighty inquisitive 'bout small things. Marryin' inter the Sawyer family 'counts for it, I s'pose."

Hiram was used to hearing covert slurs and open flings at the Sawyer family, but had found replies only provocative of attacks upon himself, so he listened in silence. Mr. Strout took up the letter. "I wrote 'em 'bout startin' that new branch over to Westvale, and although they answered in a kinder top-lofty style--I reckon that young Merry writ the letter--I 'magine they're in for it, horse, foot, and dragoons. They'll put up the money. An' the question now is who'll go over and take charge of it."

Hiram put his pipe on the table. "There's two folks that don't want to go, an' that's Mandy an' me. I don't s'pose the children would find any fault, but they're not old enough to vote on the question."