Youth has some advantages peculiarly its own in the general battle for fame and fortune and in capacity for enjoyment1, but for discovering all that may be pleasing in whatever is nearest at hand it is left far behind by age. The school-girl does not care for dainty flavors unless they have candy for a basis; her mother, with a palate which has been in training for half a century, will get truer enjoyment out of a neighbor’s loaf of home-made cake than the girl can find in a shop-full of bonbons2. A boy will ramble3 through an orchard4 in search of the tree which is fullest and has the largest fruit; his father, in late autumn, will find higher flavor, and more of it, in the late windfalls which his stick discovers among the dead leaves.
Farmer Hayn was old and weary; he was alone in his rambles5 about the metropolis6, and he kept close guard on his pocket-book; but no country youth who ever hurried to the city to squander7 his patrimony8 could have had so good a time. He saw everything that the local guide-books called attention to, and so much else which was interesting that Tramlay, whom he had occasion to see for a few minutes each day, said one morning at the breakfast-table,—{150}
“I wish, my dear, that I could steal a week or two from business, so that you and I could poke9 about New York, personally conducted by that old farmer.”
“Edgar!” exclaimed Mrs. Tramlay, “I sometimes fear that old age is taking sudden possession of you, you get such queer notions. The idea of New York people seeing their own city with a countryman for a guide!”
“There’s nothing queer about facts, my dear,” replied Tramlay, “except that they may be right under our eyes for years without being seen. A few years ago you and I spent nearly a thousand dollars in visiting some European battle-fields. To-day that old fellow has carefully done the Revolutionary battle-fields of New York and Brooklyn, at a total expense of a quarter of a dollar: even then he had a penny left to give to a beggar.”
“I never heard of a battle-field in New York or Brooklyn,” said Mrs. Tramlay.
“Nor I,” her husband replied; “at least not in so long a time that I’d forgotten the localities. But that old fellow knows all about them: when I drew him out a little he made me plans of each, with pencil on the back of an envelope, and explained how we lost Long Island and New York, as well as nearly two thousand men, when men were far scarcer than they are now. Here”—the merchant drew a mass of letters from his pocket and extracted from them a scrap10 of paper,—“here’s the way it happened; let me explain——”
“I’m not interested in those stupid old times,” said Mrs. Tramlay, with a deprecatory wave of her{151} hand. “I’ve heard that in those days there wasn’t a house above Wall Street, no Park to drive in, and parties began before sunset.”
“Ah! to be sure,” said Tramlay, with a sigh. “But old Hayn has seen modern New York too: I was intensely interested in his description of the work being done in some of the industrial schools, where hundreds of little street Arabs are coaxed11 in by a promise of full stomachs, and taught to be good for something; the boys learn how to use tools, and the girls are taught every branch of housekeeping.”
“I really don’t see,” said Mrs. Tramlay, as she nibbled12 a roll, “what there is to interest us in the doings of such people.”
“They’re the people,” said her husband, raising his voice a little, “who generally supply us with paupers13 and criminals, they being untaught at home, and consequently having to beg or steal for a living. It is because of such people that we have iron bars on our dining-room windows and area-door, and hire a detective whenever we give a party, and put a chain on our door-mat and pay taxes to build jails and asylums14 and——”
“Oh, Edgar,” said Mrs. Tramlay, plaintively15, “our minister told us all this in a sermon nearly a year ago. I’m sure I listened patiently to it then; I don’t think it’s very kind of you to go all over it again.”
“No, I suppose not,” sighed the merchant, hastily kissing his family good-by and starting for his office. In a moment he returned, and said,—
“Just a word with you, my dear. It’s nothing {152}about farmers, or battles, or industrial—— Say,” he whispered, as his wife joined him in the hall, “don’t you think I’d better have the doctor drop in to see Lucia? I’m afraid she’s going to be sick. She’s looked poorly for days, and doesn’t seem to have any spirit.”
“I’m sure she’s lively enough when she’s out of temper,” said Mrs. Tramlay, “which she is nearly all the while. She’s snapped at the children until they hate the sight of her, and I can’t speak to her without being greeted by a flood of tears. Margie seems the only one who can do anything with her.”
“Umph!” muttered the merchant, taking much time to arrange his hat before the mirror of the hat-rack.
Meanwhile, the old farmer and his son were having a long chat in a hotel bedroom.
“So you see how the land lies,” said the old man. “Though I never held that part of the farm at over two hundred an acre, the soil bein’ thinner than the lower-lyin’ land, an’ requirin’ a good deal more manure16 to make decent crops, Tramlay says it’ll fetch a clean two thousand an acre when it’s cut up, if the scheme takes hold as it’s likely to. That’s why he advised me to retain an interest, instead of sellin’ out-an’-out. I’m to get five thousand in cash for the forty acres, an’ have a quarter interest in all sales: that means twenty thousand in the end, if things turn out as Tramlay thinks.”
“My!” ejaculated Phil, his eyes opening very wide, and going into a brown study. The old man contemplated17 him for some time with a smile of supreme18 satisfaction. Finally he said,—{153}
“Makes you feel a little bit as if you was a rich man’s son, don’t it, old boy?”
“Indeed it does,” Phil replied. “But I don’t see how I can help you about it.”
“Don’t, eh? Well, I’ll tell you,” said the old man, eying his son closely. “That forty acres is about quarter of the farm-land in value, I calculate, counting out the house an’ other buildin’s. If I was makin’ my will, an’ dividin’ things up among the family, I’d leave just about that much land to you, with an interest in the house, stock, etcetery, when the Lord sees fit to call your mother. So”—here the old man intensified19 his gaze—“I’ve arranged to give my quarter interest in the enterprise to you, as your inheritance: that’ll make you a director in the comp’ny, with as much say as anybody else. It’ll keep you in York a good deal, though.”
“Father!” exclaimed Phil.
“An’,” continued the old man, dropping his eyes as soon as his son looked at him, and putting on the countenance20 in which he usually discussed the ordinary affairs of the farm, “as it may need some money for you to keep up proper style with the people whom you’ll have to deal with, I propose to put the five thousand in bank here to our joint21 account, so you can draw whenever you need cash.”
The old man began to pare fine shavings from the tooth-pick which he had cherished ever since he left the dining-room, but Phil compelled a suspension of industry for a moment by going over to his father’s chair and pressing the gray head to his breast.
“The other principal stockholders,” said the old{154} man, as soon as he was able to resume his whittling22, “are Tramlay an’ a man named Marge.”
“Marge!” Phil echoed.
“You seem to know him,” said the farmer, looking up from under his eyebrows23.
“I should think so,” said Phil, frowning and twitching24 his lips a great deal. “He’s the man——”
“Well?” asked the old man, for Phil had not finished his sentence. There was no reply, so he continued,—
“The man you thought had caught the gal25?”
Phil nodded affirmatively.
“Now you see what comes of goin’ off at half-cock,” said the farmer. “Lost your expenses two ways, to say nothin’ of peace o’ mind.”
“I heard one man telling another it,” said Phil, quite humbly26: “so what was I to think?”
“If you believe ev’rythin’ you hear about men an’ women, my boy, you’ll be off your course all your life long. Take a good grip on that.”
Again Phil went into a brown study, from which he emerged suddenly to say,—
“It’s just what you did, when you supposed you learned she wasn’t engaged, isn’t it? You believed it, and wrote it at once to me.”
“Oh, no!” said the old man, with an air of superiority as he put a very sharp point on what remained of the tooth-pick. “Not much. I’ve learned always to go to head-quarters for information.”
“Why, father,” Phil exclaimed, excitedly, “you don’t mean to say, after what you promised me, that you went—and—and—{155}—”
“Poked my nose into other people’s business? Not I. Mr. Tramlay took me home to dinner,—say, what an outlandish way these city folks have got of not eatin’ dinner till nigh onto bed-time!—an’ after the meal, ’long about the edge o’ the evenin’, when Tramlay had gone for some papers to show me, an’ the old lady was out of the room for somethin’, I took ’casion to congratulate the gal on her engagement; that’s the proper thing in such cases made an’ purvided, you know. She looked kind o’ flabbergasted, an’ at last she said ’twas the fust she’d heerd of it. I tried to git out of it by sayin’ if it wa’n’t true it ort to be, if young men in York had eyes in their heads. But it didn’t seem to work. She asked how I heerd of it, an’ I had to say that somebody in the city had told my son about it.”
Phil frowned.
“Then,” continued the old man, “she bust27 out cryin’.”
“Oh, dear!” sighed Phil.
“Well,” said the old man, “I see somethin’ had to be done, so I put my arms around her——”
“Why, father!” said Phil, in alarm.
“I put my arms around her, an’ said that when a gal was cryin’ she ort to have her parents to comfort her, an’, as neither of ’em was present, I hoped she’d make b’lieve for a minute or two that I was her grandfather. So she took my advice; an’ it seemed to do her a sight o’ good.”
“What advice did you give her?” asked Phil.
“None,—in words,” said the old man. “Wait till you’re my age; then you’ll understand.”{156}
“I don’t see,” said Phil, after a moment or two of silence, “that things are much better than they were. Perhaps she’s not engaged; but that fellow Marge is hanging about her all the time. From what I’ve heard people remark, he’s been paying attention to her for a year or two. When the family were at our house last summer he was the only man she talked about. I’m pretty sure, too, from what I’ve seen, that her mother favors him. So, putting everything together, and thinking about it a good deal, as I’ve had to do in spite of myself since I’ve been up home, I’ve made up my mind that it’s a foregone conclusion.”
“So you’re goin’ to flop28 like a stuck pig, an’ let it go on, are you? Just because you’ve thought somethin’ you’re goin’ to do nothin’. If I’d thought that of you I don’t b’lieve I’d have brought you down here to be a business-man in the city. A fellow that hain’t got the grit29 to fight for a gal that he wants is likely to make a mighty30 poor fist of it in fightin’ for a fortune. No, sir; you’re not goin’ to knuckle31 under while you’ve got a father to egg you on. I don’t say she’s in ev’ry way the gal I’d have picked out for you, but any gal that’ll live up to the best that’s in her is good enough for any man alive. If you care as much for her as you thought you did when I met you in the street that day, that gal is the one for you to tie to, unless she breaks the rope. A man sometimes gets a bad lickin’ in a love-fight, an’ a powerful big scar besides, but both together don’t do him as much harm as backin’ out an’ playin’ coward.”{157}
“I’m not a coward, father,” protested Phil, and his eyes flashed as if he meant it.
“You don’t mean to be, my boy,” said the old man, with a pat on his son’s shoulder, “but ev’rythin’ in this affair is new to you, an’ you’re in the dark about some things that mebbe look bigger than they are. That sort of thing’ll make cowards out of the best of men, if they give in to it: that’s the reason I’m crackin’ the whip at you.”
“I wonder what Mr. Tramlay wants of me,” said Phil, a moment later.
“Reckon you’d better go down and find out,” the old man replied.
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1
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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2
bonbons
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| n.小糖果( bonbon的名词复数 ) | |
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3
ramble
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| v.漫步，漫谈，漫游；n.漫步，闲谈，蔓延 | |
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4
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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5
rambles
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| （无目的地）漫游( ramble的第三人称单数 )； （喻）漫谈； 扯淡； 长篇大论 | |
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6
metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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7
squander
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| v.浪费，挥霍 | |
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8
patrimony
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| n.世袭财产，继承物 | |
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9
poke
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| n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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10
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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11
coaxed
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| v.哄，用好话劝说( coax的过去式和过去分词 )；巧言骗取；哄劝，劝诱 | |
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12
nibbled
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| v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的过去式和过去分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬 | |
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13
paupers
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| n.穷人( pauper的名词复数 )；贫民；贫穷 | |
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14
asylums
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| n.避难所( asylum的名词复数 )；庇护；政治避难；精神病院 | |
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15
plaintively
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| adv.悲哀地，哀怨地 | |
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16
manure
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| n.粪，肥，肥粒；vt.施肥 | |
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17
contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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18
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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19
intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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20
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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21
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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22
whittling
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| v.切，削（木头），使逐渐变小( whittle的现在分词 ) | |
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23
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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24
twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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25
gal
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| n.姑娘，少女 | |
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26
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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27
bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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28
flop
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| n.失败(者)，扑通一声；vi.笨重地行动，沉重地落下 | |
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29
grit
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| n.沙粒，决心，勇气；v.下定决心，咬紧牙关 | |
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30
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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31
knuckle
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| n.指节；vi.开始努力工作；屈服，认输 | |
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