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CHAPTER XXII. LOOKING AHEAD.
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"We have made up our minds," said Uncle Chipperton, that afternoon, "to go home and settle down, and let Corny go to school. I hate to send her away from us, but it will be for her good. But that wont1 be until next fall. We'll keep her until then. And now, I'll tell you what I think we'd all better do. It's too soon to go North yet. No one should go from the soft climate of the semi-tropics to the Northern or Middle States until mild weather has fairly set in there. And that will not happen for a month yet.

"Now, this is my plan. Let us all take a leisurely2 trip homeward by the way of Mobile, and New Orleans and the Mississippi River. This will be just the season, and we shall be just the party. What do you say?"

Everybody, but me, said it would be splendid. I had exactly the same idea about it, but I didn't say so, for there was no use in it. I couldn't go on a trip[275] like that. I had been counting up my money that morning, and found I would have to shave pretty closely to get home by rail,—and I wanted, very much, to go that way—although it would be cheaper to return by sea,—for I had a great desire to go through North and South Carolina and Virginia, and see Washington. It would have seemed like a shame to go back by sea, and miss all this. But, as I said, I had barely enough money for this trip, and to make it I must start the next day. And there was no use writing home for money. I knew there was none there to spare, and I wouldn't have asked for it if there had been. If there was any travelling money, some of the others ought to have it. I had had my share.

It was very different with Rectus and the Chippertons. They could afford to take this trip, and there was no reason why they shouldn't take it.

When I told them this, Uncle Chipperton flashed up in a minute, and said that that was all stuff and nonsense,—the trip shouldn't cost me a cent. What was the sense, he said, of thinking of a few dollars when such pleasure was in view? He would see that I had no money-troubles, and if that was all, I could go just as well as not. Didn't he owe me thousands of dollars?

All this was very kind, but it didn't suit me. I knew that he did not owe me a cent, for if I had done anything for him, I made no charge for it. And even if I had been willing to let him pay my expenses,—which I wasn't,—my father would never have listened to it.

So I thanked him, but told him the thing couldn't be[276] worked in that way, and I said it over and over again, until, at last, he believed it. Then he offered to lend me the money necessary, but this offer I had to decline, too. As I had no way of paying it back, I might as well have taken it as a gift. There wasn't anything he could offer, after this, except to get me a free pass; and as he had no way of doing that, he gave up the job, and we all went down to supper. That evening, as I was putting a few things into a small valise which I had bought,—as our trunks were lost on the "Tigris," I had very little trouble in packing up,—I said to Rectus that by the time he started off he could lay in a new stock of clothes. I had made out our accounts, and had his money ready to hand over to him, but I knew that his father had arranged for him to draw on a Savannah bank, both for the tug-boat money and for money for himself. I think that Mr. Colbert would have authorized3 me to do this drawing, if Rectus had not taken the matter into his own hands when he telegraphed. But it didn't matter, and there wasn't any tug-boat money to pay, any way, for Uncle Chipperton paid that. He said it had all been done for his daughter, and he put his foot down hard, and wouldn't let Rectus hand over a cent.

"I wont have any more time than you will have," replied Rectus, "for I'm going to-morrow."

"I didn't suppose they'd start so soon," I said "I'm sure there's no need of any hurry."

"I'm not going with them," said Rectus, putting a lonely shirt into a trunk that he had bought. "I'm going home with you."[277]

I was so surprised at this that I just stared at him.

"What do you mean?" said I.

"Mean?" said he. "Why, just what I say. Do you suppose I'd go off with them, and let you straggle up home by yourself? Not any for me, thank you. And besides, I thought you were to take charge of me. How would you look going back and saying you'd turned me over to another party?"
"YOU'RE A REGULAR YOUNG TRUMP4." "YOU'RE A REGULAR YOUNG TRUMP."

"You thought I was to take charge of you, did you?" I cried. "Well, you're a long time saying so. You never admitted that before."[278]

"I had better sense than that," said Rectus, with a grin. "But I don't mind saying so now, as we're pretty near through with our travels. But father told me expressly that I was to consider myself in your charge."

"You young rascal5!" said I. "And he thought that you understood it so well that there was no need of saying much to me about it. All that he said expressly to me was about taking care of your money. But I tell you what it is, Rectus, you're a regular young trump to give up that trip, and go along with me."

And I gave him a good slap on the back.

He winced6 at this, and let drive a pillow at me, so hard that it nearly knocked me over a chair.

The next morning, after an early breakfast, we went to bid the Chippertons good-bye. We intended to walk to the dépôt, and so wanted to start early. I was now cutting down all extra expenses.

"Ready so soon!" cried Uncle Chipperton, appearing at the door of his room. "Why, we haven't had our breakfast yet."

"We have to make an early start, if we go by the morning train," said I, "and we wanted to see you all before we started."

"Glad to see you at any hour of the night or day,—always very glad to see you; but I think we had better be getting our breakfast, if the train goes so early."

"Are you going to start to-day?" I asked, in surprise.[279]

"Certainly," said he. "Why shouldn't we? I bought a new suit of clothes yesterday, and my wife and Corny look well enough for travelling purposes. We can start as well as not, and I'd go in my green trousers if I hadn't any others. My dear," he said, looking into the room, "you and Corny must come right down to breakfast."

"But perhaps you need not hurry," I said. "I don't know when the train for Mobile starts."

"Mobile!" he cried. "Who's going to Mobile? Do you suppose that we are? Not a bit of it. When I proposed that trip, I didn't propose it for Mrs. Chipperton, or Corny, or myself, or you, or Rectus, or Tom, or Dick, or Harry7. I proposed it for all of us. If all of us cannot go, none of us can. If you must go north this morning, so must we. We've nothing to pack, and that's a comfort. Nine o'clock, did you say? You may go on to the dépôt, if you like, and we'll eat our breakfasts, take a carriage, and be there in time."

They were there in time, and we all went north together.

We had a jolly trip. We saw Charleston, and Richmond, and Washington, and Baltimore, and Philadelphia; and at last we saw Jersey8 City, and our folks waiting for us in the great dépôt of the Pennsylvania railroad.

When I saw my father and mother and my sister Helen standing9 there on the stone foot-walk, as the cars rolled in, I was amazed. I hadn't expected them. It was all right enough for Rectus to expect[280] his father and mother, for they lived in New York, but I had supposed that I should meet my folks at the station in Willisville. But it was a capital idea in them to come to New York. They said they couldn't wait at home, and besides, they wanted to see and know the Chippertons, for we all seemed so bound together, now.

Well, it wasn't hard to know the Chippertons. Before we reached the hotel where my folks were staying, and where we all went to take luncheon10 together, any one would have thought that Uncle Chipperton was really a born brother to father and old Mr. Colbert. How he did talk! How everybody talked! Except Helen. She just sat and listened and looked at Corny—a girl who had been shipwrecked, and had been on a little raft in the midst of the stormy billows. My mother and the two other ladies cried a good deal, but it was a sunshiny sort of crying, and wouldn't have happened so often, I think, if Mrs. Chipperton had not been so ready to lead off.

After luncheon we sat for two or three hours in one of the parlors12, and talked, and talked, and talked. It was a sort of family congress. Everybody told everybody else what he or she was going to do, and took information of the same kind in trade. I was to go to college in the fall, but as that had been pretty much settled long ago, it couldn't be considered as news. I looked well enough, my father said, to do all the hard studying that was needed; and the professor was anxiously waiting to put me through a course of training for the happy lot of Freshman13.[281]

"But he's not going to begin his studies as soon as he gets home," said my mother. "We're going to have him to ourselves for a while." And I did not doubt that. I hadn't been gone very long, to be sure, but then a ship had been burned from under me, and that counted for about a year's absence.

Corny's fate had been settled, too, in a general way, but the discussion that went on about a good boarding-school for her showed that a particular settlement might take some time. Uncle Chipperton wanted her to go to some school near his place on the Hudson River, so that he could drive over and see her every day or two, and Mrs. Colbert said she thought that that wouldn't do, because no girl could study as she ought to, if her father was coming to see her all the time, and Uncle Chipperton wanted to know what possible injury she thought he would do his daughter by going to see her; and Mrs. Colbert said, none at all, of course she didn't mean that, and Mrs. Chipperton said that Corny and her father ought really to go to the same school, and then we all laughed, and my father put in quickly, and asked about Rectus. It was easy to see that it would take all summer to get a school for Corny.

"Well," said Mr. Colbert, "I've got a place for Sammy. Right in my office. He's to be a man of business, you know. He never took much to schooling14. I sent him travelling so that he could see the world, and get himself in trim for dealing15 with it. And that's what we have to do in our business. Deal with the world."[282]

I didn't like this, and I don't think Rectus did, either. He walked over to one of the windows, and looked out into the street.

"I'll tell you what I think, sir," said I. "Rectus—I mean your son Samuel, only I shall never call him so—has seen enough of the world to make him so wide awake that he sees more in schooling than he used to. That's my opinion!"

I knew that Rectus rather envied my going to college, for he had said as much on the trip home; and I knew that he had hoped his father would let him make a fresh start with the professor at our old school.

"Sammy," cried out Mrs. Colbert,—"Sammy, my son, do you want to go to school, and finish up your education, or go into your father's office, and learn to be a merchant?"

Rectus turned around from the window.

"There's no hurry about the merchant," he said. "I want to go to school and college, first."

"And that's just where you're going," said his mother, with her face reddening up a little more than common.

Mr. Colbert grinned a little, but said nothing. I suppose he thought it would be of no use, and I had an idea, too, that he was very glad to have Rectus determine on a college career. I know the rest of us were. And we didn't hold back from saying so, either.

Uncle Chipperton now began to praise Rectus, and he told what obligations the boy had put him under in Nassau, when he wrote to his father, and had that suit[283] about the property stopped, and so relieved him—Uncle Chipperton—from cutting short his semi-tropical trip, and hurrying home to New York in the middle of winter.

"But the suit isn't stopped," said Mr. Colbert. "You don't suppose I would pay any attention to a note like the one Sammy sent me, do you? I just let the suit go on, of course. It has not been decided16 yet, but I expect to gain it."

At this, Uncle Chipperton grew very angry indeed. It was astonishing to see how quickly he blazed up. He had supposed the whole thing settled, and now to find that the terrible injustice—as he considered it—was still going on, was too much for him.

"Do you sit there and tell me that, sir?" he exclaimed, jumping up and skipping over to Mr. Colbert. "Do you call yourself——"

"Father!" cried Corny. "Keep perfectly17 cool! Remain just where you are!"

Uncle Chipperton stopped as if he had run against a fence. His favorite advice went straight home to him.

"Very good, my child," said he, turning to Corny. "That's just what I'll do."

And he said no more about it.

Now, everybody began to talk about all sorts of things, so as to seem as if they hadn't noticed this little rumpus, and we agreed that we must all see each other again the next day. Father said he should remain in the city for a few days, now that we were all here, and Uncle Chipperton did not intend to go to[284] his country-place until the weather was warmer. We were speaking of several things that would be pleasant to do together, when Uncle Chipperton broke in with a proposition:

"I'll tell you what I am going to do. I am going to give a dinner to this party. I can't invite you to my house, but I shall engage a parlor11 in a restaurant, where I have given dinners before (we always come to New York when I want to give dinners—it's so much easier for us to come to the city than for a lot of people to come out to our place), and there I shall give you a dinner, to-morrow evening. Nobody need say anything against this. I've settled it, and I can't be moved."

As he couldn't be moved, no one tried to move him.

"I tell you what it is," said Rectus privately18 to me. "If Uncle Chipperton is going to give a dinner, according to his own ideas of things in general, it will be a curious kind of a meal."

It often happened that Rectus was as nearly right as most people.

点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 wont peXzFP     
adj.习惯于;v.习惯;n.习惯
参考例句:
  • He was wont to say that children are lazy.他常常说小孩子们懒惰。
  • It is his wont to get up early.早起是他的习惯。
2 leisurely 51Txb     
adj.悠闲的;从容的,慢慢的
参考例句:
  • We walked in a leisurely manner,looking in all the windows.我们慢悠悠地走着,看遍所有的橱窗。
  • He had a leisurely breakfast and drove cheerfully to work.他从容的吃了早餐,高兴的开车去工作。
3 authorized jyLzgx     
a.委任的,许可的
参考例句:
  • An administrative order is valid if authorized by a statute.如果一个行政命令得到一个法规的认可那么这个命令就是有效的。
4 trump LU1zK     
n.王牌,法宝;v.打出王牌,吹喇叭
参考例句:
  • He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
  • The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手,作为他的王牌。
5 rascal mAIzd     
n.流氓;不诚实的人
参考例句:
  • If he had done otherwise,I should have thought him a rascal.如果他不这样做,我就认为他是个恶棍。
  • The rascal was frightened into holding his tongue.这坏蛋吓得不敢往下说了。
6 winced 7be9a27cb0995f7f6019956af354c6e4     
赶紧避开,畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He winced as the dog nipped his ankle. 狗咬了他的脚腕子,疼得他龇牙咧嘴。
  • He winced as a sharp pain shot through his left leg. 他左腿一阵剧痛疼得他直龇牙咧嘴。
7 harry heBxS     
vt.掠夺,蹂躏,使苦恼
参考例句:
  • Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天,人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
  • Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。
8 jersey Lp5zzo     
n.运动衫
参考例句:
  • He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
  • They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致,都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。
9 standing 2hCzgo     
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的
参考例句:
  • After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
  • They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。
10 luncheon V8az4     
n.午宴,午餐,便宴
参考例句:
  • We have luncheon at twelve o'clock.我们十二点钟用午餐。
  • I have a luncheon engagement.我午饭有约。
11 parlor v4MzU     
n.店铺,营业室;会客室,客厅
参考例句:
  • She was lying on a small settee in the parlor.她躺在客厅的一张小长椅上。
  • Is there a pizza parlor in the neighborhood?附近有没有比萨店?
12 parlors d00eff1cfa3fc47d2b58dbfdec2ddc5e     
客厅( parlor的名词复数 ); 起居室; (旅馆中的)休息室; (通常用来构成合成词)店
参考例句:
  • It had been a firm specializing in funeral parlors and parking lots. 它曾经是一个专门经营殡仪馆和停车场的公司。
  • I walked, my eyes focused into the endless succession of barbershops, beauty parlors, confectioneries. 我走着,眼睛注视着那看不到头的、鳞次栉比的理发店、美容院、糖果店。
13 freshman 1siz9r     
n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女)
参考例句:
  • Jack decided to live in during his freshman year at college.杰克决定大一时住校。
  • He is a freshman in the show business.他在演艺界是一名新手。
14 schooling AjAzM6     
n.教育;正规学校教育
参考例句:
  • A child's access to schooling varies greatly from area to area.孩子获得学校教育的机会因地区不同而大相径庭。
  • Backward children need a special kind of schooling.天赋差的孩子需要特殊的教育。
15 dealing NvjzWP     
n.经商方法,待人态度
参考例句:
  • This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
  • His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。
16 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
17 perfectly 8Mzxb     
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地
参考例句:
  • The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
  • Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。
18 privately IkpzwT     
adv.以私人的身份,悄悄地,私下地
参考例句:
  • Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
  • The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。


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