The Man. A Story of To-day. Hubbard Elbert

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СКАЧАТЬ average man of sixty is no wiser and no better than the average man of forty – it is Arrested Development.

      My good mother is only a fine type of Arrested Development.

      CHAPTER III.

      A LITTLE LOCAL HISTORY

      With my woman’s intuition I knew all just from the hint John gave. My father a week before had gone to Montreal, saying he would be back Wednesday. It was now Friday and he had not returned. I remember the two men who had come to “take an inventory for the ‘Tax Office,’” one said, and he winked at the other. How they walked through the house with their hats on and joked each other as they tried the piano! I saw it all! My father had lost money and had given a chattel mortgage on the furniture, having first raised all the money he could on the real estate.

      I asked my mother if she remembered giving the mortgage, and she looked at me, grieved and surprised, saying:

      “Why, of course not, dear. I always signed the papers he brought me. Do you think it a woman’s place to ask questions about business?”

      Well, if I were writing my own history, I would tell you how the two men from the “Tax Office” came back with Robert McCann the auctioneer; how they hung a big red flag over the sidewalk and took up the carpets so that when they walked across the bare floor of the big parlors the echo of the footsteps rang through the whole house; how greasy men with hook noses came and examined the furniture; of how one such insisted on seeing my mother on very private business, when he asked, “If dot bainting was a real Millais or only a schnide; and if it was a schnide, to gif a zerdificate dat it vas a Millais and I will bid it off at a hundred, so hellup me gracious!”; of how kind neighbors came and bought in all the dishes and silverware and gave them back to us; of how a certain widowed gentleman offered to bid in the piano if I would accept a position as governess for his daughter and live at his house.

      Well, the furniture went and so did we. The Fitch ambulance came and took mother down to our new quarters, which I had rented on South Division street, near Cedar, and right pretty did the little house look too. Mrs. Grimes, the laundress, came with us – in fact, came in spite of us.

      “I have no money to pay you, and you cannot come. That is all there is about it,” I protested.

      “Well, I don’t want no money,” said this gray-haired old woman. “I have ’leven hundred dollars in the Erie County, and it is all yours if you want it. Haven’t I worked for the Hobbses three weeks lacking two days before you was left on the steps? I was the only girl they had then, and I am the only girl you got now. I have sent my hair trunk down to South Division street, and I’m going myself on the next load with Bill Smith, who drives the van for Charlie Miller. I knowed Bill before I did you, and Bill says he will stand by Aspasia Hobbs too, he does.”

      What could I do but kiss the grizzled kindly face of this old “girl” on both cheeks and let her come?

      It was a full month before we got track of my father. I went to Montreal and brought back an old man, with tottering mind, crushed in spirit. He had fixed his heart on things of earth – he became a part of them, they of him – and when they went down there was only one result. He lingered along for three months, constantly reproaching himself; seeing also reproach in the face of every passer-by, imagining upbraidings in each look of those who sought to comfort and care for him, and the light of his life went out in darkness.

      “Judge not that ye be not judged.”

      CHAPTER IV.

      SOME THINGS

      My mother received a little money from the life insurance companies. Father patronized only assessment companies, as they are cheap. He prided himself on his financial ability, always saying he could invest money as well as any rascally insurance president and that there was “nothing like having your money where you can put your claw on it in case you get a straight tip.”

      Idle I could not be, and I resolved to get a situation.

      “Verily, I will teach school, for the young must be educated,” I said, “or the world cannot be tamed. I must, I will mould growing character.” In fact, I felt a call; so I called on Mr. Straight, the superintendent of education, never doubting but that he would at once give me an opportunity to show my ability. I displayed my Dr. Chesterfield and the high-school diplomas, and various certificates from long-haired and eccentric foreigners, (not forgetting Prof. Franklin of Col. Webber’s and Judge Lewis’s testimonials, who imparts dramatic instruction for one dollar an impart) as to my ability in music, dancing, French, German, and deportment.

      The superintendent counted the certificates and diplomas as he piled them up on his desk, and asked me if I had any “pull.” Then he asked me why I did not get married, and said he had been looking for me, “for whenever a man busts his daughters always come here for a job.” He took my name in a big book, and as he waved me out remarked that “there are only seven hundred applicants ahead of you. I’m afraid you are not in it. You had better catch on to some young fellow, my dear, before the crow’s feet get too pronounced – ta, ta.”1

      I stood outside the door confused, defeated, angry. I thought of a thousand things I should have said to that grinning insinuating superintendent, and here I had not said a word. I was out in the hall, the door was shut. Slowly my wrath took form in action, and I walked off with a much more emphatic tread than was becoming in a young woman. I slammed my parasol against the banisters at every stride as I went down the city hall steps. I had a plan. Straight to the News office I went, intending to insert an advertisement and thus secure exactly the position I desired. I bought a paper to see how other people advertised, and my eyes fell on the following:

      Wanted: As correspondent, book-keeper and stenographer, a young woman who can translate German, French, and Italian, who is not afraid to work, and can look after the business in proprietor’s absence. Wages, $4.75 per week.

Apply to Hustler & Co.,Manufacturers of Glue,Genesee Street.

      I took the paper and entered a herdic, telling the driver to hurry as I wanted to go to Hustler & Co.’s.

      Arriving there, I walked in, banged the door, and demanded to see Hustler, omitting all title and prefix. Straight had brow-beaten and insulted me an hour before – let Hustler try if he dare. I wanted a position, not advice, and would brook no parley or nonsense.

      “Are you Hustler?” I asked of a little meek bald-headed man, with a ginger-colored fringe of hair like a lambrequin around his occiput. He plead guilty. “And did you,” I continued hurriedly, but in a determined manner, “and did you insert this advertisement?” and I spread out the paper before him.

      He hesitated.

      “Did you, or did you not?”

      Here I moved back three paces and gazed at him as though I had him on cross-examination. He admitted that he had inserted the advertisement, had not yet found a young woman who could fill all of the conditions, and that I could have the place.

      “To-morrow, when the whistle blows for seven o’clock,” said he.

      “To-morrow, when the whistle blows for seven o’clock,” said I.

      CHAPTER V.

      LOST

      At last I was no longer a dependent! From this time on I would not only earn my own living, but I would do for others. I was no longer a pensioner.

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