Hepsey Burke

Hepsey bent her head over her work and counted stitches a long time before she looked up. Then she remarked slowly:

“There’s an awful lot of sick people in the world, and I’m mighty sorry for ’em; but they’ll die, or they’ll get well. I guess I’m more sorry for people who have to go on livin’, and workin’ hard, when they’re just dyin’ for somebody to love ’em, and somebody to love, until the pain of it hurts like a wisdom tooth. No, I can’t afford to be lonesome much, and that’s a fact. So I just keep busy, and if I get too lonesome, I just go and jolly somebody that’s lonesomer than I am, and we both feel better; and if I get lonely lyin’ awake at night, I light a lamp and read Webster’s Dictionary. Try it, Jonathan; it’s a sure anti-doubt.”

“There you go again, tryin’ to change the subject, just when I thought you was goin’ to say somethin’.” 169

“But you don’t really want to marry me. I’m not young, and I’m not interestin’: one or the other you’ve just got to be.”

“You’re mighty interestin’ to me, Hepsey, anyway; and—and you’re mighty unselfish.”

“Well, you needn’t throw that in my face; I’m not to blame for bein’ unselfish. I’ve just had to be, whether I wanted or not. It’s my misfortune, not my fault. Lots of people are unselfish because they’re too weak to stand up for their own rights.” She paused—and then looked up at him, smiling whimsically, and added: “Well, well, Jonathan; see here now—I’ll think it over, and perhaps some day before—go ’way, you horrid thing! Let go my hand, I tell you. There! You’ve made me drop a whole row of stitches. If you don’t run over home right now, before you’re tempted to do any more flirtin, I’ll—I’ll hold you for breach of promise.”

CHAPTER XV

NICKEY’S SOCIAL AMBITIONS

To Nickey, the Maxwells were in the nature of a revelation. At his impressionable stage of boyhood, and because of their freedom from airs and graces of any kind, he was quick to notice the difference in type—“some class to them; not snobs or dudes, but the real thing,” as he expressed it. His ardent admiration of Donald, and his adoration of Mrs. Betty, gave him ambition to find the key to their secret, and to partake of it.

He was too shy to speak of it,—to his mother last 171 of all, as is the nature of a boy,—and had to rely on an observant and receptive mind for the earlier steps in his quest. When Maxwell boarded with them, Nickey had discovered that he was won’t to exercise with dumb-bells each morning before breakfast. The very keenness of his desire to be initiated, held him silent. A visit to the town library, on his mother’s behalf, chanced to bring his eyes—generally oblivious of everything in the shape of a book—upon the title of a certain volume designed to instruct in various parlor-feats of physical prowess.

The book was borrowed from the librarian,—a little shamefacedly. The next morning Mrs. Burke was somewhat alarmed at the noise which came from Nickey’s room, and when there was a crash as if the chimney had fallen, she could stand it no longer, and hurried aloft. Nickey stood in the middle of the floor, clad in swimming trunks, gripping a large weight (purloined from the barn) in either hand, very red in the face, and much out of breath.

As the door unexpectedly opened he dived for bed and pulled the clothes under his chin.

“Land Sakes!” Hepsey breathed, aghast. “What’s all this about? If there’s a nail loose in the flooring I can lend you a hammer for the asking,” and she examined several jagged dents in the boards. 172

“Say ma,” urged Nickey in moving tones. “If I’d a pair of dumb-bells like Mr. Maxwell’s, I c’d hold onto ’em. I’ve pretty near smashed my feet with them things—gosh darn it,” he added ruefully, nursing the bruised member under the clothes.

“I guess you can get ’em, next time you go to Martin’s Junction; but if it’s exercise you want,” his parent remarked unsympathetically, “there’s plenty of kindlin’ in the woodshed wants choppin’.”

She retired chuckling to herself, as she caught a glimmer of what was working in her son’s mind.

The “reading habit” having been inculcated by this lucky find at the library, it was not long before Nickey acquired from the same source a veritable collection of volumes on the polite arts and crafts—“The Ready Letter-Writer”; “Manners Maketh Man”; “Seven Thousand Errors of Speech;” “Social Culture in the Smart Set,” and the like.

Nickey laboriously studied from these authorities how to enter a ball room, how to respond to a toast at a dinner given in one’s honor, how to propose the health of his hostess, and how to apologize for treading on a lady’s train.

In the secrecy of his chamber he put into practice the helpful suggestions of these invaluable manuals. He bowed to the washstand, begged the favor of the 173 next dance from the towel rack, trod on the window shade and made the prescribed apology. Then he discussed the latest novel at dinner with a distinguished personage; and having smoked an invisible cigar, interspersed with such wit as accords with walnuts and wine, after the ladies had retired, he entered the drawing-room, exchanged parting amenities with the guests, bade his hostess good night, and gracefully withdrew to the clothes-press.

Several times Hepsey caught glimpses of him going through the dumb show of “Social Culture in the Smart Set,” and her wondering soul was filled with astonishment at his amazing evolutions. She found it in her heart to speak of it to Mrs. Betty and Maxwell, and ask for their interpretation of the matter.

So, one day, during this seizure of feverish enthusiasm for self-culture, Hepsey and Nickey received an invitation to take supper at the rectory. Nevertheless, Mrs. Burke thought it prudent to give her son some good advice in regard to his behavior. She realized, perhaps, that a book is good so far as it goes, but is apt to ignore elementals. So she called him aside before they started:

“Now, Nickey, remember to act like a gentleman, especially at the table; you must try to do credit to your bringin’ up.” 174

“Yes, I’ll do my level best if it kills me,” the boy replied.

“Well, what do you do with your napkin when you first sit down to the table?”

“Tie it ’round my neck, of course!”

“Oh, no, you mustn’t do anything of the sort; you must just tuck it in your collar, like any gentleman would. And when we come home what are you goin’ to say to Mrs. Maxwell?”

“Oh, I’ll say, ‘I’ll see you later.’”

“Mercy no! Say, ‘I’ve had a very nice time.’”

“But suppose I didn’t have a nice time,—what’d I say?”

For a moment Hepsey struggled to reconcile her code of ethics with her idea of good manners, and then replied:

“Why say, ‘Mrs. Maxwell, it was awfully good of you to ask me,’ and I don’t believe she’ll notice anything wrong about that.”

“Hm!” Nickey retorted scornfully. “Seems pretty much like the same thing to me.”

“Oh no! Not in the least. Now what will you wear when we go to the rectory?”

“My gray suit, and tan shoes, and the green tie with the purple spots on it.”

“Who’ll be the first to sit down to the table?” 175

“Search me—maybe I will, if there’s good eats.”

“Nonsense! You must wait for Mrs. Maxwell and the rector to be seated first.”

“Well,” Nickey exclaimed in exasperation, “I’m bound to make some horrible break anyway, so don’t you worry, ma. It seems to me from what them books say, that when you go visitin’ you’ve got to tell lies like a sinner; and you can’t tell the truth till you get home with the door shut. I never was good at lyin’; I always get caught.”

“It isn’t exactly lyin’, Nickey; its just sayin’ nice things, and keepin’ your mouth shut about the rest. Now suppose you dropped a fork under the table, what’d you say?”

“I’d say ‘’scuse me, Mrs. Maxwell, but one of the forks has gone, and you can go through my clothes if you want to before I go home.’”

“Hm!” Hepsey remarked dryly, “I guess the less you say, the better.”

Arrived at the rectory, Nickey felt under some restraint when they first sat down to the supper table; but under the genial manner of Mrs. Maxwell he soon felt at his ease, and not even his observant mother detected any dire breach of table etiquette. His conversation was somewhat spare, his attention being absorbed and equally divided between observation 176 of his host and consumption of the feast set before him. With sure tact, Mrs. Betty—though regarding Nickey as the guest of honor—that evening—deferred testing the results of his conversational studies until after supper: one thing at once, she decided, was fair play.

After the meal was over, they repaired together to the parlor, and while Hepsey took out her wash-rag knitting and Maxwell smoked his cigar, Mrs. Betty gave Nickey her undivided attention.

In order to interest the young people of the place in the missionary work of the parish, Mrs. Betty had organized a guild of boys who were to earn what they could towards the support of a missionary in the west. The Guild had been placed under the fostering care and supervision of Nickey as its treasurer, and was known by the name of “The Juvenile Band of Gleaners.” In the course of the evening Mrs. Maxwell took occasion to inquire what progress they were making, thereby unconsciously challenging a somewhat surprising recountal.

“Well,” Nickey replied readily, “we’ve got forty-six cents in the treasury; that’s just me, you know; I keep the cash in my pants pocket.”

Then he smiled uneasily, and fidgeted in his chair.

There was something in Nickey’s tone and look 177 that excited Mrs. Betty’s curiosity, and made his mother stop knitting and look at him anxiously over her glasses.

“That is very good for a start,” Mrs. Betty commended. “How did you raise all that, Nickey?”

For a moment Nickey colored hotly, looked embarrassed, and made no reply. Then mustering up his courage, and laughing, he began:

“Well, Mrs. Maxwell, it was just like this. Maybe you won’t like it, but I’ll tell you all the same. Bein’ as I was the president of the Juv’nul Band of Gleaners, I though I’d get the kids together, and start somethin’. Saturday it rained cats and dogs, so Billy Burns, Sam Cooley, Dimple Perkins and me, we went up into the hay loft, and I said to the kids, ‘You fellows have got to cough up some dough for the church, and–’”