The Graysons: A Story of Illinois. Eggleston Edward

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СКАЧАТЬ still loth to face the matter of getting rid of Tom, and especially of contending with Janet. Tom found no chance to talk with him before breakfast, for the uncle did not come out of his bedroom till the coffee was on the table, and he was so silent and constrained that Tom felt his doom in advance. Janet tried to draw her father and then her mother into conversation, but failing, she settled back with the remark, "This is the crossest family!" Then she made an attempt on Tom, who began by this time to feel that exhilaration of desperation that was usually the first effect of a catastrophe on his combative spirit, for no man could be more impudent to fate than he. When Janet playfully stole a biscuit from his plate, he pretended to search for it everywhere, and then set in a breakfast-table romp between the two which exasperated the feelings of Grayson and his wife. When they rose from the table the uncle turned severely on his nephew, and said: "Tom – "

      But before he could speak a second word, the nephew, putting Janet aside, interrupted him with:

      "Uncle, I should like to speak with you alone a minute."

      They went into the sitting-room together, and Tom closed the door. Tom was resolved to have the first of it.

      "Uncle, I think I had better go home." Tom was looking out of the window as he spoke. "I got into a row last week through George Lockwood, who persuaded me to play cards for money with Dave Sovine. I don't want to get you into any trouble, so I'm off for Hubbard Township, if you don't object. There's no use of crying over spilt milk, and that's all there is about it."

      "I'm very sorry, Tom, that you won't pay attention to what I've said to you about card-playing." The elder Grayson had seated himself, while Tom now stood nervously listening to his uncle's voice, which was utterly dry and business-like; there was not the slightest quiver of feeling in it. "I've got on in the world without anybody to help me, but I never let myself play cards, and I've always kept my temper. You never make any money by getting mad, and if you're going to make any money, it's better to have people friendly. Now, I have to stand a good deal of abuse. People try to cheat me, and if I take the law they call me a skinflint; but I shouldn't make a cent more by quarreling, and I might lose something. I can't keep you, and have you go on as you do. I've told you that before. You'd better go home. Town will ruin you. A little hard work in the country'll be better, and you won't be gambling away the last cent you've got with a loafer like Dave Sovine, and then threatening to shoot somebody, as you did young Lockwood day before yesterday. Just think what you are coming to, Tom. I've done my best for you, and you'll never be anything but a gambler and a loafer, I'm afraid."

      These hard words sounded harder in the level and self-complacent voice of the senior Grayson, who spoke slowly and with hardly more intensity than there would have been in his depreciation of a horse he was trying to buy. "Just think what you're coming to," he repeated, because he felt that the proper thing to do under the circumstances was to give Tom a good "talking to," and he couldn't think of anything more to say.

      "I don't need you to tell me what I'm coming to," replied Tom, tartly; "I'm coming to the plow-handle and the grubbing-hoe. I'm sorry to give you trouble, but what I feel meanest about is mother and poor Barbara. I know what a fool I've been. But I'm no more a gambler and a loafer than you are. It'll take me longer to work into the law by myself, but I'll get there yet, and you'll see it."

      This was Tom's only adieu to his uncle, on whom confessions of wrong and expressions of gratitude, had he felt like uttering them, would have been wasted. Tom went to his room, thumping his feet defiantly on the stairs. He made a bundle of his clothes, while his uncle sneaked out of the house to avoid a collision with his little daughter, the only person of whom he was afraid.

      Tom told his Aunt Charlotte good-bye with a high head; but when it came to Janet, he put both arms about the child and drew her to him with a fond embrace.

      "You shan't go away, Tom," she said, disengaging herself. "What are you going for? Did they say you must?" By "they" Janet meant her parents, whom she regarded as the allied foes of poor Tom. She looked indignantly at her mother, who had turned her back on this scene of parting.

      "I'm going to help my mother," said Tom; "she's poor, and I oughtn't to have left her."

      He again embraced the child, who began to cry bitterly. "What shall I do when you're gone?" she sobbed on his shoulder. "This house won't be fit to live in. Such a lot of old pokes!" And she stamped her feet and looked poutingly at her mother.

      Tom disengaged himself from her intermittent embraces, and went out with his bundle in his hand.

      He went first to the law-office, and sat his bundle on a chair, and addressed himself to Blackman, who had already arrived, and who was apparently much preoccupied with his writing.

      "Mr. Blackman, I've made a fool of myself by gambling, and Uncle Tom has concluded I can't stay with him any longer. I don't much wonder at it either. But I do hate to give up the study. Couldn't you give me something to do, so that I could earn my board at your house?"

      "No," said the lawyer, looking off horizontally, but not at Tom. "I was just going to tell you I couldn't keep you in the office. You've got altogether too much gunpowder for a lawyer. Better get into the regular army, Tom; that would suit your temper better." Then, after a moment's pause, he added: "I've got young sons, and your example might ruin them if you should come to my house to live." And he leaned forward as though he would resume his writing. These were sound and logical reasons that Blackman gave for not keeping Tom, and the lawyer was sincere as far as he went. But had he discovered by this time that Tom's mind was clearer and more acute than his own, and that if Tom should come to the bar with his uncle's backing he would soon be a formidable rival?

      "Besides," resumed the lawyer, as Tom turned reluctantly away, "it's better for you to go to the country. George Lockwood will have you bound over to keep the peace if you stay, and now you're out with your uncle, who's going your bail?"

      "Always George Lockwood," Tom thought, as he took up his bundle.

      "Good-bye, Mr. Blackman!" Tom's voice was husky now. But when he descended the stairs he went down the village street with a bold front, telling his old cronies good-bye, answering their questions frankly, and braving it out to the last. Put the best face upon it he could, his spirit was bitter, and to a group of old companions who followed him to the "corporation line," at the edge of the village, he said, almost involuntarily:

      "George Lockwood got me into this scrape to upset me, and he's purty well done it. If he ever crosses my path, I'm going to get even with him."

      Such vague threats do not bind one to any definite execution, and they are a relief to the spirit of an angry man.

      Having broken with his uncle, Tom must walk the long ten miles to his mother's farm in Hubbard Township. Before he got there his head was down; the unwonted fatigue of his journey, the bitter sense of defeat, the dark picture his imagination made of his mother's disappointment and of the despair of the ambitious Barbara took all the heart out of him.

      When he reached home he strode into the house and sat down without saying a word.

      "Has Uncle Tom turned you off?" asked Barbara, faltering a little and putting down her knitting. She had been dreading this end of all her hopes.

      "Yes," said Tom; "and I wish to the Lord I was dead and done for." And he leaned his head on his left hand.

      "Oh, my poor boy!" began Mrs. Grayson, "and you didn't mean no harm neither. And you're the only boy I've got, too. All the rest dead and gone. They's no end of troubles in this world!"

      Tom's shoulders were heaving with feeling. After a moment or two of silence, Barbara went over and put her hand on him.

      "Pshaw, Tom! what's СКАЧАТЬ