Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason Corner Folks Part 30

"Wall, then he resembles his father in one respect--_he_ had a big head."

"I'm surprised, Obadiah, to hear you talk the way you do. I ain't forgot that meetin' in the Town Hall where you got up and owned up that he was 'bout right, and thet you'd been mean as dirt, but he shook hands with you, and forgave you like a gentleman as he was, and I thought you were good friends."

"I'm good friends with anybody that keeps out of my way," said Strout.

"But that Sawyer was like that _malary_ that the boys got off to war.

It gets into your blood and you can't get it out. Why, he snubbed 'Zeke Pettingill jest the same as he did me when they had that sleigh ride, and he didn't have s.p.u.n.k enough to hit back. If 'Zeke had jined in with me we'd had him out o' town lively. And then the way he b.u.t.ted in at my concert and turned a high-cla.s.s musical entertainment inter a n.i.g.g.e.r minstrel show by whistling a tune vas enough to make anybody mad clean through."

"Wall, you got mad, didn't you?" said Hiram. "What good did it do yer?"

Mr. Strout's newly aroused wrath was not appeased.

"Then again, the way he squeezed himself in at that surprise party.

Since I married Bessie Chisholm, I've talked to her a good many times 'bout the way she danced with him that night."

"Come now, Strout, what did she say? She wasn't engaged to you then.

What did she say? Now be honest."

Mr. Strout could not restrain a grim smile.

"Wall, to tell the truth, Hiram, she told me it was none of my business, an' when I came to think it over I didn't believe it was--but it would be now."

Mr. Strout's vials of wrath had not all been emptied. He seemed to be enjoying a rehearsal of all his past troubles and grievances.

"I guess that if the folks had known at first that the Jim Sawyer who died in the Poor House was his uncle, they wouldn't have considered him such great shucks after all. An' the way he tried to get Huldy Mason to marry him and throw over 'Zeke Pettingill, who had loved her ever since she was a baby, was a mighty mean piece of business in my opinion."

This remark gave Hiram an opportunity which he was not slow in improving.

"I heerd as how there was another feller in town who tried to get Huldy to marry him and throw poor 'Zeke over."

Mr. Strout puckered up his mouth and there was a strained look on his face which indicated that the shot had gone home. But his verbal ammunition was not all expended.

"You can tell me what you've a mind to, but I know that he tried mighty hard to get Lindy Putnam to marry him, an' I don't imagine he'd have taken up with a blind girl if he hadn't heard that Heppy Putnam was going to leave her all her money. I had him looked up by some friends of mine in the city. They said he didn't have much himself, but his father paid his bills. His father jest gave him to understand that if he didn't marry the right girl, with plenty of dough, he wouldn't get much from him."

"Wall, you may be right and you may be wrong, Obadiah. But when a man's dead I don't think it does you any good to roast him and pick his bones.

It's too much like those _cannibiles_ that crazy feller told us about.

Quincy Adams Sawyer was always a good friend to me, and a better one to you, Strout, than you deserved, judgin' from the way you've been talkin'. His money has been the makin' of both on us, and while we do business together I hope we'll let Mr. Sawyer, as the church folks say, rest in pieces."

CHAPTER XIX

BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD

Until he was fourteen years of age, young Quincy attended the public schools in Fernborough and Cottonton. While in England he had had a governess and later a tutor, so that when he reached America he was much farther advanced than Fernborough boys of his own age. Methods in the New England town were different, however, and his Uncle Ezekiel was satisfied to have him keep pace with the others, and not arouse antagonism by asking for any special promotion.

Ezekiel's son Quincy had decided to become a farmer, following in his father's footsteps. But scientific farming was supplanting old methods, and he had taken the course at the Agricultural College and received his diploma.

Young Quincy wished a college education. To obtain admission it was necessary for him to attend a preparatory school, and, relying upon Mr.

Gay's description of its advantages, Andover was selected.

While at the Cottonton High School, Quincy's chum had been a boy two years older than himself, named Thomas Chripp. He was the son of a weaver at Cottonton. Like Quincy, he had been born in England, but his father had been drawn to America by the lure of higher wages, nothing having been said to him, however, about the increased cost of living.

Thomas's father would not let him become a back-boy in the mill.

"I've breathed cotton all my life," said Mr. Chripp to Ezekiel, "and I think too much of my only boy to condemn him to a life in a hot room, where the only music is the whizzing shuttles. No, my boy Tom shall breathe G.o.d's fresh air and become a big, strong man instead of a wizened-up little fellow like me. Why, would you believe it, Mr.

Pettingill, I began work in a cotton mill when I was eight years old, and I've lived in one ever since--forty years! Sundays when I walk out in the fields I can't get the din out of my ears, and I told Susan, my old wife, the other day, that if I died before she did to have the lid screwed down extra tight so I could be sure of a little quiet."

"My nephew," said 'Zekiel, "thinks a lot of your boy and wants him to go to college with him."

"But I haven't got the money to pay his way," said Mr. Chripp.

"My nephew has plenty of money, and if he's willing to help your boy along in the world there's n.o.body to object that I know of."

So it was arranged that Tom Chripp should go to the preparatory school and college with Quincy, the latter to pay the expenses of both. "'Twas a lucky day for Tom that sent that Sawyer boy to school in Cottonton,"

said Mr. Chripp to his wife.

"It'll be the making of Tom," he added, and the happy mother thought so too.

When Mr. Strout heard of it, he remarked to his partner Mr. Maxwell,

"More of the arrogance of wealth. If I was a young man like Tom Chripp I'd make my own way in the world."

Hiram swallowed some smoke, coughed, and then replied: "Probably he will, when he gits his eddikation. Money makes the mare go now as it always has, Obadiah, an' you an' me can't stop it."

"Like father, like son, I guess, Hiram. His father used to enjoy throwing his money away an' the son's goin' to sail in the same boat.

I shouldn't be surprised if he came back to town some day and licked somebody jest to be like his father."

"I shouldn't nuther," said Hiram as he began putting up an order for the Hawkins House.

While Quincy was attending the public schools, Mrs. Nathaniel Sawyer made two visits each year to Fernborough to learn of her grandson's progress. Thanksgiving he pa.s.sed at his Uncle 'Zekiel's where he had eagerly watched the growth of the turkey that was destined to grace the festal board on that day. At Christmas he went to Boston and returned laden with gifts, many of which were immediately donated to his cousins and Mandy Maxwell's children.

Mr. Strout's ire was kindled when Hiram described the presents his children had received from Quincy.

"Thank the Lord I've got money enough to buy my children's presents myself without dependin' on second-hand things that other folks don't want."

"So've I," said Hiram, "but what I save that way I puts in the bank, for I'm bound to own the old Pettingill Place some day."

"Oh, spend your money, Hiram. Your rich friends will give you the house some day." He was so pleased with the subtle humour of his last remark that he tossed a scoop half full of coffee into the sugar barrel, much to Hiram's amus.e.m.e.nt.

During Quincy's first year at Andover he was twice called from his studies. The Hon. Nathaniel Adams Sawyer after his return home from a bank directors' banquet was taken with an attack of acute indigestion.

He was in great pain. One of the most prominent physicians in the city was summoned. He gave a strong hypodermic injection of morphine to stop the pain, but did nothing to remove the cause. The pain itself was stopped by the anodyne, but the cause of the pain--the indigestion--stopped the beating of Mr. Sawyer's heart within an hour.

By his will, $250,000 were left to his daughter Florence, and $100,000 to his daughter Maude. To compensate for the $150,000 difference in the bequests, the Hon. Nathaniel Sawyer's interest in the firm of Sawyer, Crownins.h.i.+eld, and Lawrence was conveyed to Mr. Harry Merry, provided that one-third of his share from the income of the law-business was paid to the trustees of the estate of his grandson Quincy Adams Sawyer. The remainder of his property, both real and personal, was left to his wife, Sarah Quincy Sawyer.

Quincy's grandmother did not live long to enjoy her fortune. Maude wished her to sell the Beacon Street house and come to Mount Vernon Street. Her mother wished her to come to Beacon Street. While the _pros_ and _cons_ were being considered, the old lady died of absolute inanition. She had been dominated so long by a superior will power, she had been so dependent upon her late husband in every event of her life, that without him she was a helpless creature, and so willing to drop her burden, that she did not cling to life but gave up without the semblance of a struggle. Her last will and testament was very short, containing but one clause, which gave all her property to her grandson Quincy Adams Sawyer. When Aunt Ella heard of her sister's death, she said to Alice:

"They were not two distinct beings, Nathaniel was one and a half, and Sarah only a half."