Brydell was too generous a fellow to reproach his father, except to himself in his first angry mood, and knowing the lieutenant would hear about the examination anyway, he sat down and wrote his father frankly and fully, admitting his failure, and his determination, if he could get another chance, to do better. But the lieutenant was far away in the Pacific and it would be months before he could get the letter, and perhaps other long months before Brydell could get an answer.
Then he wrote the admiral in the same strain. The admiral, who happened to have shore duty then, got the letter. He was sitting on the piazza, facing the salt sea, and when he had finished reading it he brought his fist down with a thump on the arm of his chair and shouted:—
“By!”
The admiral always held that expletives were vulgar; but when much wrought up he took refuge in “By,” which might mean any and every thing.
“Just like the dog when he was about as big as a cockchafer, and took the whole blame of cutting up my turf, when there were six older boys aiding and abetting him. Bowline! here, sir!” and in a few minutes Billy Bowline came trotting along the hall.
“Bring me my portfolio and the ink,” said the admiral. “That little scamp of a Brydell has failed in a competitive examination for an appointment to the naval academy, and how his father could expect anything else, I can’t see, taking him to Europe, putting him at school one day and taking him away the next, and giving the boy no chance at all, simply because he was too soft-hearted to say no! And now the young fellow behaves like a man and shoulders it all. I say, Bowline, we can’t afford not to have that young fellow in the service.”
“No, sir, we can’t!” said Billy very seriously. “We’re ’bleeged to have him, sir, in the sarvice.”
“And how is it to be done, you old lunkhead?” bawled the admiral.
“Beg your parding, sir, it’s easy enough,” answered Billy stoutly. “There ain’t nothin’ in the reg’lations as prevents a admiral from axin’ the member o’ Congress from Mr. Brydell’s districk, if he’s got a ’pintment to give away; and if he rightly understands his duty to a rear-admiral on the active list, he dasn’t say no, sir.”
“William Bowline,” said the admiral solemnly, “if you weren’t the biggest ass I ever saw, I’d say you were a genius. Bring me the navy register quick.”
The admiral glanced at the register and saw there would be a vacancy in that year in Brydell’s district. He then wrote fourteen pages to the member of Congress, and sealed it with his big red seal.
“That’ll fetch it,” thought Billy proudly. “It looks like it comes from the sekertary of the navy.”
As Billy was starting off to the postoffice with the important letter, the admiral picked up Brydell’s letter and read it over, half-aloud. “Esdaile, Esdaile; that has a familiar sound,” he said.
“In course, sir,” answered Billy with a sniff. “That’s the son o’ Grubb, the jirene. You know, sir, Grubb married a woman whose folks was ashamed o’ him; and Grubb, like a great big ass, give the boy to his wife’s people arter she died, and they stuffed that young ’un up with false pride until he got ashamed to speak to Grubb; and Grubb, he was a-sendin’ the boy half his pay straight along. So then the boy’s grandfather died and left him a small fortin’ on condition that he changes his name to his mother’s, Esdaile; and the brat were willin’ enough, for he thought hisself too good to be named Grubb, and now he’s goin’ to be a officer.”
Here Billy rumpled his hair up violently to show his contempt for Grubb’s boy, and the admiral again cried:—
“By!”
There was a great running to and fro between the admiral’s house and the postoffice in those days, and the admiral and Billy both began to feel anxious about Brydell’s appointment. The day was fast approaching when the candidates must present themselves for examination at Annapolis, and at last, three days before the time, just long enough for the admiral to write to Brydell and for Brydell to get to Annapolis, the appointment came from the member of Congress.
Admiral Beaumont was so happy when he got the letter that he gave a kind of snort of pleasure, and Billy, who was standing by, eagerly watching the opening of the letters, had to go out in the backyard to chuckle. The admiral sent a dispatch and a letter to Brydell, and Billy stumped off gleefully with them, and three days afterward Brydell had presented himself at Annapolis.
Far back in his babyhood, almost, Brydell remembered the academic buildings, the green lawns, and bright river at Annapolis, and when on a lovely May evening he walked in the great gates and passed the marine on guard, he felt so happy he could have danced and sung.
The weeks since his failure had been spent in a dull and hopeless mental lethargy. Aunt Emeline had been grimly consolatory and had tried to impress on him that he had made a lucky miss in not getting into the navy, and named at least a thousand professions and business ventures in which he could make more money. The good woman did not see in the least how it was with the boy—that he was simply born to be a sailor, and that nothing on earth could charm him then from his wish.
After that one outburst of generosity in writing to his father and the admiral, he had settled down to a sullen submission. It would be months before he could hear from his father, and until then nothing could be done. Suddenly, like the lifting of a mist by the glorious sun, came the admiral’s letter and the appointment, and within twenty-four hours Brydell was on his way to Annapolis to be examined for admission to the academy.
He had had no time to prepare for the examination, even if he could. But a boy of Brydell’s temperament does not learn prudence and caution in a day or a month, and he was as perfectly sanguine of success in the coming examinations as if he had not failed before. He could have hugged the admiral for his goodness, and had sat up half the night, when he got the treasured letter, writing his thanks to him and the member of Congress.
On this lovely May afternoon he walked with a springy step along the brick walks of the academy grounds under the giant trees, fresh in their spring livery, and as he looked at the velvet turf he smiled and thought of the admiral and the dirt fort and Grubb and that early time. It was not necessary for him to report until next morning, so he strolled along, the very happiest fifteen-year-old fellow in the world.
Presently sauntering along the sea wall and watching the reflection in the water of a steam launch filled with ladies and officers, he suddenly came directly upon his old friend Grubb, standing and talking with Esdaile, the handsome young fellow who had so far outstripped all the other candidates, himself included. Esdaile started, and then blushing a fiery red, nodded his head to Grubb and walked off.
As for Brydell, all the kindness he had ever received as a little boy from the handsome marine rushed to his mind. Grubb, as handsome as ever, although a good deal older, smiled delightedly as Brydell dashed forward, but seeing how tall the young fellow had grown, Grubb drew himself up and saluted as he said: “How d’ you do, Mr. Brydell?”
“Oh, hang the salute, Grubb! shake hands,” cried Brydell, delighted. “I’m not a cadet yet, so we needn’t stand on ceremony.” At which Grubb and he sawed the air for five minutes.
“And are you come down here for to be examined, sir?” asked Grubb, smiling broadly.
“Yes,” said Brydell, adding shamefacedly, “I had a chance in a competitive examination, but that fellow you were talking with—Esdaile—got ahead of me.”
At this it was Grubb’s turn to color. He shifted his feet and said hesitatingly:—
“Mr. Brydell, please don’t go for to tell it, sir, but Mr. Esdaile—Mr. Esdaile is my son. His grandfather’s left him some money, if he’d take the same name—Esdaile; and as the boy didn’t like the name o’ Grubb, nohow, he got his name changed by law—and I’d ruther—I’d ruther, sir, the folks here didn’t know it, bein’ as I ain’t nothin’ but a marine.”
Brydell was so taken aback for a moment that he did not know what to say, and Grubb with unwonted fluency continued:—
“I’ve sent in my application for a transfer, sir, ’cause the boy don’t want—I mean I don’t want—to be stationed here, a-doin’ guard duty while my boy is in the academy. I’ve talked it over with one o’ the officers as I’ve knowed, and who has been a good friend to me, and he says maybe it will be best all around. And I hope nobody will know that Cadet William Esdaile is the son o’ Grubb the marine.”
“You may be right in getting transferred somewhere else,” answered Brydell after a moment, “and if the officer advised you, I wouldn’t venture to say a word; but I don’t see why your boy should not want to recognize”— Here he stopped, not knowing how to keep on.
“Didn’t I tell you, sir, long years ago as how the boy was gittin’ above his father?” burst out poor Grubb, his eyes filling with tears. “He’s ashamed o’ me; he’s ashamed to be seen a-talkin’ with me, and I can give him half my pay, and I’d give him all o’ it if he needed it, but I can’t stand bein’ looked down upon by him.”
“Why, if you were my father, I shouldn’t be in the least ashamed of you,” cried Brydell hotly. “You haven’t had the advantage we other fellows have had, but you’re one of the most honest and respectable men in the world; so says my father and Admiral Beaumont, too, and it’s a great deal better to come out and be honest and above board about these things than to be skulking and hiding them.”
“That’s true for you, Mr. Brydell,” replied Grubb, who had natural good sense and much more experience than Brydell. “That’s your natur’. But it ain’t everybody’s natur’. It ain’t my boy’s natur’; I wish it was. It’s the easiest way and the best way o’ gittin’ through life, but it takes all sorts o’ people to make up a world, and there’s lots o’ people that could no more be aboveboard than a pig can fly.”
Brydell had not lived long enough to appreciate this truth, and he parted from Grubb with a mixture of respect and contempt for him, but with unabated affection, and a most genuine disgust for Esdaile. Perhaps it was helped a little by Esdaile’s triumph over him, but Brydell had always hated a sneak, and he had very good ground for thinking the accomplished Mr. Esdaile was constitutionally a sneak.
Next day he reported and the examination began, and then came a time that in torture far exceeded the sharp disappointment and sullen despair of the last few weeks. For, after days of struggle and nights of furious though ill-directed study, again did Brydell fail, and this time he thought it was forever.
When he knew it he had but one desire on earth—to get away from the place anywhere—anywhere. But where was he to go and what was he to do that people would not find him out? He hated to go back to that dreary house with Aunt Emeline; his father was completely out of his reach,—that too kind father,—and Brydell felt sick at the idea of meeting the admiral again.
Filled with the despair of the very young,—who can see nothing beyond the narrow horizon of the present,—Brydell, sitting in his room at the hotel, dropped his head upon his arms, and wished himself dead. He did not know how long he had lain thus, only that the sun was shining brightly in the afternoon when he heard the dreadful news, and it was quite dusk when he had a strange feeling that some one was present, and there stood over him Grubb’s tall figure.
“It’s mortal bad, Mr. Brydell,” said Grubb. Brydell answered not a word, and in the silence of the twilight the only sound was the melancholy call of a night bird heard through the open window.
“Whatever are you goin’ to do now, Mr. Brydell?” asked Grubb after a while.
“I don’t know,” said Brydell in a voice that he hardly recognized as his own.
“You’d better ask the admiral, sir,” presently Grubb continued.
Brydell made no reply. Then, after a longer pause than usual, Grubb kept on:—
“You ain’t had no rale preparation, I reckon.”
“No!” cried Brydell bitterly; “sent from one school to another, as often as I wanted; allowed twice as much pocket money as any other boy in school, while my father was pinching and skimping himself to give it to me; with no home, no mother, to encourage me and nobody to govern me; of course I failed. I’ll always fail.”
“Don’t you go for to say that, Mr. Brydell, and it seems like I ain’t the only foolish father in the world. There’s others as had eddication and all sorts o’ things that don’t act no wiser nor poor old Grubb the marine.”
“Don’t say a word against my father!” cried Brydell, lifting his pale face for the first time.
“I’d be the last person in the world to say a word against the leftenant, sir, but I say as how ’twas always said of you when you was a little shaver: ‘Don’t be hard on him, he ain’t got no mother.’ Well, now it seems to me they’ve been monstrous hard on you when they thought they was bein’ easy.”
Brydell said nothing more. He knew Grubb was telling the truth.
“Well, now, sir, let me tell you something. I knows all about these app’intments. You set down and write the admiral and ask him if he’ll ask that there congressman to give you a year to prepare yourself. Tell him as how you ain’t had half a chance, and give him your word as a gentleman you’ll pass next year if they’ll let you keep the app’intment.”
“I’m ashamed to.”
“Good night, Mr. Brydell,” said Grubb. “Them as is ashamed to ask for another trial when they ain’t had a good chance, seems to me, ain’t got much sand. It looks like you warn’t willin’ to work.”
“Sit down, Grubb,” answered Brydell, beginning to consider this sound advice, and before Grubb left the room the letter was written to the admiral.
“It won’t do any good; I know it won’t,” said poor Brydell despairingly. Nevertheless he agreed to remain at Annapolis long enough to get an answer.
It would take about three days to get an answer, supposing the admiral to be able to see the congressman at once. Those days Brydell remained shut up in his room. It was a turning point with him. He retained only a dim and chaotic memory of what he felt and suffered in those three days; but at the beginning he was a boy, and when he came out of the struggle he was a man.
In the afternoon of the third day a dispatch came:—
Congressman will let this year’s appointment lapse and will hold vacancy open for you another year, upon my solemn word of honor that you will qualify yourself and pass. I rely upon you to make my promise good.
GEORGE BEAUMONT.
The day was dark and rainy, but no June morning ever seemed brighter to Brydell when he read that dispatch. The transition seemed to him like passing from death to life.
He knew he had never had a chance at preparation, and he knew he had a good mind, capable of learning what other fellows did. But, above all, he felt suddenly develop within himself a determination, a strength of purpose, a power of will that could do great things if he tried.
This new force was always a part of his character, although quickly developed by a strange succession of fierce disappointments. But impetuosity was also a part of his character, and with this new sense of manliness and responsibility came a rash determination that he would prove his sincerity by working for his living while preparing himself for that other chance a year hence.
Hot with this thought, Brydell wrote his father a brief but eager letter:—
And as I have known all the disadvantages of having too much money to spend, all taken, almost stolen from your pay, dear old man, while you are doing without everything for me, and I am determined never to cost you another dollar. I can find work easy enough,
(sanguine Brydell)
and work won’t interfere with my studying half as much as play will, and I want to do something—anything—everything—to earn the admiral’s respect and my own too. So make yourself easy, dad, about me. I’ll be at work when you get this, and you know whatever faults I’ve had I never was a milksop; and I’m going to behave myself; don’t you worry about that. So wait until next year and you won’t be ashamed of your affectionate son and chum,
RICHARD BRYDELL, Jr.
Brydell ran and posted this letter before he had time to change his mind about sending it. When it was gone he had a sudden feeling of shock, like a man just under a shower bath. But his word was passed. He had naturally the strength of mind to stick to what he said, and one of the things that had not been neglected with him was a most faithful regard for his own word. Rash his resolve might be, but not to be shirked on that account.
When Brydell realized to what he had committed himself he seemed to grow ten years older in half an hour. He felt a little afraid, but all these things were working together to make a man of him.
Next morning, bright and early, Brydell was up and dressed. He had no one to say farewell to except Grubb, but he wanted to see his humble friend and avail himself of Grubb’s excellent common sense about his future plans. For the marine had seen a good deal of the world and knew something of it from a working-man’s point of view. Grubb happened to be off duty that day, and early in the morning presented himself in Brydell’s room. Brydell told him the glorious news, and Grubb, taking off his cap and waving it three times, said in a half-whisper: “Hooray! hooray! hooray!”
“And now,” said Brydell, “I’ve got to go to work. I have about twenty-five dollars left after paying my hotel bill, and I can’t go very far on that. Besides, I’d rather stay near Annapolis. I can keep in touch with it better in some ways. I have my books, you know, and although I have only acquired a smattering from them, yet they are familiar enough to me to study by myself. And I’ve got an idea about employment.”
“What is it, sir?” asked Grubb.
“Well, you see, I’ve been great on outdoor life—riding and walking and swimming; and I believe I could stand an outdoor life better than I could being shut up in a dingy office. I hear that the farmers about here find great difficulty in getting hands, even at high wages and particularly at this season of the year. If I could get work on a farm, I could get my living too, which I couldn’t get in a city.”
“Lord, bless the boy!” cried Grubb in great disgust. “The leftenant’s son, a-talkin’ about bein’ a hired man! Did ever anybody hear the likes o’ that for a gentleman?”
“I know I am a gentleman, Grubb, and that’s why it is I’m not afraid of work,” answered Brydell, who could not help laughing at Grubb’s look.
After Brydell had talked with him half an hour, though, the marine’s ideas changed. Brydell, who had been thinking hard on the subject all night, reminded him of how many young fellows walked the streets of towns, asking for employment, while in the country employment was waiting for twice as many men as could be found. “And besides,” said Brydell with a slight blush, “in the city I might be all the time running up against people I know, and if they were civil to me I’d probably lose the time with them I would have in the evenings for study, and if they didn’t notice me it would make me feel pretty bad; while in the country I wouldn’t be likely to meet a soul I ever knew. It always seemed to me, too, as if a country life was healthier for a young fellow.”
“It is a sight healthier in every way,” remarked Grubb with energy.
“And then I can get work right away in the country, and who knows when I could get it in town?”
“Mr. Brydell,” said Grubb, “the admiral allers said, when you were a little shaver, as you’d turn right side up, and I do believe he know’d what he was talking about.”
“The admiral’s the best friend I have in the world except you,” cried Brydell; “I believe if you were an admiral, you’d do just as much for me as Admiral Beaumont.”
“Right you are, Mr. Brydell. I ain’t nothin’ but a poor marine, without any book learnin’, but whenever I sees that motto of the corps, ‘Semper fidelis’ which means ‘Ever faithful,’ I think to myself, Grubb, my man, that means you ain’t never goin’ back on another feller; and, come to think of it, it do seem ridicklous that the leftenant’s son should be a-workin’ like a hired hand. But I’ve noticed, sir, as how you’ll put two horses to haulin’ bricks. If one o’ ’em is a scrub, and t’ other one has a strain o’ good blood in him, you’ll find the scrub all petered out by the time his work is done. But the horse with the good blood’ll haul all day, and be as frisky as a kitten when you take him out; for blood do tell, Mr. Brydell.”
Grubb said this with a sigh, and Brydell thought the poor fellow had his own son in mind.
Brydell did not care to say good-by to the few people he knew at Annapolis, so he started out on a round, leaving his cards marked “P.P.C.” at each acquaintance’s house and not waiting to see if they were at home. He could not help laughing as he did this. He imagined he saw himself at work in the fields in his shirt sleeves, and thought it would be a good while before he needed any more visiting cards.
A natural tinge of boyish adventure made him feel as if he would like to start out on foot to seek his fortune, so next morning, having packed up his belongings and left them in Grubb’s care, Brydell set out with his stick and a small bundle and twenty-five dollars in his pocket.
It was a lovely day, cool for the season, and as Brydell stepped out at a lively pace, the world did not by any means look black to him. When he looked back six months it seemed to him six years. In that time he had had one of those plunges into real life which turns a boy into a man in an inconceivably short time. He had had a pretty complete experience of what life meant, and he had set himself to work out his own salvation in earnest.
He thought he would walk about twelve miles before stopping, wishing to be at least that far from Annapolis. But the beauty of the day, the greenness and freshness of the country, led him on and on until it was nearly fifteen miles.
Then the weather suddenly changed. The sky became overcast, the wind sprung up, and the first thing Brydell knew he was caught in a drenching rain. He had a rain coat with him and he put it on, meanwhile keeping his bundle well protected. He was still following the main road and he determined to stop and ask for shelter at the first house he saw. And how that spring shower changed his views of life!
He realized he was wet and hungry, that he was alone, and far from all his friends, and all at once he began to feel very young. He pushed on rapidly, and in a little while saw across the rolling country a large and comfortable farmhouse. He made straight for it and in a little while he knocked at the open door.
A little girl in a white dimity sunbonnet came to the door. She was about ten years old and remarkably pretty. She did not show the least bit of shyness and asked Brydell in hospitably. Before he had time to answer, her father and mother appeared—handsome country people, looking, as they were, thoroughly prosperous.
Brydell, whose manners were naturally graceful and polished, introduced himself and asked the privilege of remaining until the shower was over, and with a secret determination to ask for work later on. The farmer’s address was not nearly so elegant as the young fellow’s who cherished the ambition of becoming his hired man. He said:—
“My name’s Laurison. Come in and sit down. If you’ve got any dry clothes in that bundle, my wife’ll show you a room where you can change ’em.”
Brydell looked at Mrs. Laurison and his heart went out to her instantly. She was not like the officers’ wives he had known, educated and traveled women; but she had a quiet dignity and a self-possession that was equally good in its way. And she had the softest, kindest eyes in the world, and her voice was so gentle when she invited Brydell upstairs to change his clothes that he almost loved her from the start. In a little while Brydell appeared with dry shoes and stockings and another pair of trowsers.
The farmer, being compelled to stay indoors, was not indisposed to talk with the young stranger, and Brydell had quite a gift of making himself agreeable. They sat talking in a large, airy, old-fashioned hall, with a dry rubbed floor; and the little girl Minna was so pleased with her new acquaintance that she came and perched herself on the arm of his chair and gazed fearlessly into his eyes with the grave scrutiny of an innocent girl.
Brydell knew much about country life, and talked so knowingly about cows and pigs and horses that even Mr. Laurison grew fluent, and Brydell imagined it would be easy enough to get work there, and he quickly determined to ask for it.
“Do you have any trouble getting farm labor?” he asked.
“Heaps of trouble,” answered Mr. Laurison with emphasis. “The negroes all go off about this time of the year for berry-picking, just when harvest is coming on and the corn needs weeding the worst you ever saw. I’ve got two men I can count on that stay with me the year round, but I ought to have four on a farm of this size.”
Here was Brydell’s chance.
“I’m looking for work,” he said diffidently—“Farm work, I mean.”
“You!” shouted Mr. Laurison. “Why, you never did any work in your life. Look at them hands!”
“Pretty brown, I think they are,” answered Brydell complacently, examining his own hands.
“Yes,” said Mr. Laurison; “but they’re brown with the playin’ of tennis and football and such. Any fool can see by your hands you ain’t done any work.”
“But I want to do some work.”
“For what?”
“For money, for a living.”
“Ain’t you got any friends or family?”
“I have a father. He’s in the navy and away off in the Pacific. I haven’t any friend that can help me.”
“And has your father thrown you off?”
“Oh, no; but I want to earn my living, and it’s easier to get work in the country than in town, and besides I know more about the country.”
Mr. Laurison’s manner underwent an instant change. He paused a little while and then said:—
“I ain’t got any work for you;” and after another pause: “I think it’s clearin’ up.”
Brydell rose at once. He felt that in a moment the attitude of his host was one of suspicion; but Mrs. Laurison’s kind gaze never changed in the least, and little Minna came closer to him and caught his hand.
“Are you going away?” she asked.
“I must,” said Brydell gently, but feeling as if he would choke. Mr. Laurison got up very promptly.
“I’ll show you a short cut to the main road,” he said.
The sun was now down and the purple twilight was upon them. The trees and grass were wet and a faint gray haze rose from the meadows at the back of the house. It had never dawned upon Brydell that he would be invited to take the road at such an hour, and he felt a strange sinking of the heart.
He thanked Mrs. Laurison for her kindness to him. She said no word to detain him, but Brydell felt she was sorry to see him go. He then turned to shake hands with little Minna. The child suddenly tiptoed and threw her arms around his neck, saying,—
“Won’t you come back to-morrow?”
“Some day, perhaps,” answered Brydell hurriedly, and feeling a sob rising in his throat at the childish words. The woman and the little girl had confidence in him. He said good-by to them both, thanked Mrs. Laurison again, and followed her husband out, and along a path bordered with alders, to the main road half a mile off.
Neither spoke a word. When they reached a stile, beyond which the white line of the sandy road glimmered faintly in the half-light, the farmer turned to him:—
“Young man,” he said, “if you’ve done anything wrong,—and I can’t help suspecting you have,—’tain’t too late for you to mend. You’re young yet, and you’ve got a whole lifetime to make up for it in.”
Brydell had realized that the farmer suspected him, but hearing it put into words was a shock that altogether unnerved him.
“Why do you suspect me?” he asked in a voice he hardly recognized as his own.
“Because I can’t help suspecting an educated young feller with his father in the navy, who tramps about, asking for work on a farm.”
In all of his grief and anxiety and despair about his failing in his examinations, and when he thought the desire of his heart was thwarted, Brydell had never shed a tear. But when this new horror came upon him, he did what he had not done since he was a little boy—he broke into a passion of sobbing and crying. The farmer looked at him compassionately.
“You’re sorry for what you’ve done,” he said, “and that’s a good sign.”
“I’m not sorry, for I haven’t done anything,” burst out Brydell. “I am as honest as you are and as respectable. How do you think you’d feel if anybody accused you of being crooked? I’ve told you the truth. I got an appointment at the Naval Academy and I failed, and the congressman who gave it to me said he would hold it over for a year if I would work hard and promise to pass, and I wrote my father I meant to work for that and for my living, too, and I’m going to do it. That’s all.”
Mr. Laurison hesitated for a moment. He had the wisdom of guileless people, which is sometimes better than that of worldly people, and he saw that Brydell was telling the truth, and he said so.
“And you can come back to the house with me and spend the night, and we’ll talk about work to-morrow,” he said.
“No,” said Brydell stoutly, “I won’t spend the night in the house of a man that takes me for a crook.”
“I like your pluck, but you’re a fool all the same,” was Mr. Laurison’s answer, accompanied by a friendly shove, “so come along back with me.”
Brydell had meant to show great spirit, but he was not proof against kindness, and he turned and walked rather sullenly back to the house. Mrs. Laurison and Minna were still standing on the porch. The lamps were lighted in the hall and dining-room, and the house had a hospitable and inviting look. The two figures appeared out of the dusk.
“Wife,” said Mr. Laurison, “I’ve brought this young feller back. He’s all right. He just failed in his examination to get into the Naval Academy, and like a wrong-headed boy he wrote his father he’d work for his own living until he could get in the academy,—he’ll have another chance next year,—and then, like a man, he determined to live up to what he said. So we’ll just keep him to-night, and maybe we can find something for him to do to-morrow.”
Mrs. Laurison said only three words—“I am glad”—but Brydell knew they came straight from her tender heart. Little Minna began to jump about, singing, “I’m so glad! I’m so glad!”
“You’ll find I can work,” said Brydell with rather a wan smile. “I’ve worked in the hot sun a good many hours at cricket and football and tennis and polo, and I daresay I can drive a plow or weed corn or hoe potatoes just about as well.”
“It ain’t half such hard work,” replied the farmer with a smile.
The evening passed quickly. There was a wheezy piano in the parlor, and Brydell, who played a little and could sing some college songs, pleased his hosts very much with a performance that would not have been so highly appreciated elsewhere.
At nine o’clock he was shown to a comfortable room, not the best bedroom, as he found out, and turning in fell asleep in five minutes, well pleased with his first day’s battle with the world.
Next morning, by sunrise, Brydell was up and dressed and outdoors. The two negro men on the place were feeding the stock under Mr. Laurison’s directions, while a negro woman milked the cows.
Brydell looked about and saw that the vegetable garden was well weeded, but there was a long straight walk down the garden, with flower beds on each side of it, that were full of weeds. There were clumps of lilac, both white and purple, great masses of the syringa, making the morning air heavy with its sweet perfume, and snowball bushes blooming profusely. Some early roses were out and a few gaudy peonies still lingered.
Both beds and walk were choked with grass and all manner of vagrant growth.
“If I had a garden hoe and rake, I could weed those flower beds,” said Brydell to Mr. Laurison as they met in the backyard.
“I wish to goodness you would,” answered Mr. Laurison. “My wife has nearly broken her heart over those flower beds. I’ve had to keep the hands to work so steady that I actually haven’t had a chance to get at the flowers; and she ain’t strong enough to do it herself, and it’s just been a trial to her.”
Brydell had been taught to weed flowers under that stern martinet, Aunt Emeline, and when an hour afterward Mrs. Laurison and Minna appeared, one whole square was as neatly weeded as possible, the refuse piled up in a wheelbarrow, and the garden looked like a different place.
Mrs. Laurison was delighted.
“You couldn’t have done anything that pleased me better, and a young fellow that’s kind and considerate to women and children is apt to be a good one. If Mr. Laurison keeps you, I’ve made up my mind to let you have the little bedroom you slept in last night, instead of staying with the hired men in the barn, because I see you are a gentleman’s son, and your mother”—
“I haven’t any mother,” said Brydell, his eyes filling with tears at Mrs. Laurison’s kind tones.
“Then there’s the more reason for being good to you,” she said.
Little Minna immediately dragged him off to see her garden, which was the disorderly patch which usually satisfied children, and then they all went in to breakfast.
After breakfast Mr. Laurison and Brydell had a business talk. Mr. Laurison agreed to keep him a month on trial and to pay him ten dollars besides his board. If he was satisfactory, he could keep the place indefinitely.
Brydell never was so thankful and so relieved in his life, except when he got that dispatch from Admiral Beaumont.
How much better was this wholesome country life than that dreary search for employment in a city! And he had a good room to sleep in, instead of a box on the top floor in a city boarding-house, and country milk and butter and vegetables to eat—Brydell had an astonishing appetite—and his work, although hard, was nothing like as hard as being perched upon an office stool ten hours a day.
He had to buy himself some working clothes, but, as one result of his training as a gentleman, Brydell never appeared at the table without being neatly dressed. This worked a much-needed reform in Mr. Laurison, who before Brydell came had no scruples about appearing at the dinner table in his shirt sleeves. But he could not afford to be less well dressed than his young hired hand and he began to take more pains with his daily toilet.
This pleased Mrs. Laurison very much, who like most women attached importance to the refinements of life, and who felt hurt to think that though her husband put on his coat when they had guests to dinner, he left it off when they were alone.
At the end of the month Mr. Laurison said nothing about Brydell’s leaving and was secretly rather afraid that Brydell had got tired of his job. But not so; Brydell had a great fund of sound sense, after all the nonsense had been knocked out of him, and he knew he was in good luck to have such a means of livelihood.
As soon as he felt any certainty about his position, he wrote a number of letters—to his father, to Admiral Beaumont, to his Aunt Emeline, and to Grubb the marine, who had got transferred to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
He got very prompt answers from the three of his correspondents who could communicate with him. His Aunt Emeline wrote, saying if he wouldn’t come back, she couldn’t help it—but there was nothing urgent in her invitation. Brydell smiled rather bitterly as he laid the letter down.
The admiral’s letter was overflowing. He could not give Brydell too much encouragement, considered him bound to pass No. 1 next year, and conveyed a long message from Billy Bowline to the effect that “Mr. Brydell, he is bound to be a sailor man, ’cause he’s built that away.”
And Grubb’s letter, which was recklessly spelled and not fully up to the standard of classic English, bade him “go in and Win. You have got Sand, Mr. Brydell, and Sand is what makes a man. Some fellows as learns a lott out of books ain’t got no natural manly carackter and disapp’ints their friends. But you are not the sort to disapp’int.” Grubb then went on to lament that he was stationed at Portsmouth. “For the cadets cruze will most likely be here, Mr. Brydell, and there’s one of them, for reasons which is known to you, as I would ruther not see in present serkumstances.”
Brydell knew that the poor fellow meant Esdaile.
Meanwhile Brydell was working like a Trojan at his books.
Every evening after supper he would be claimed for half an hour by little Minna, to play on the piano for her, to tell her stories, or to amuse her in some way. Then he would take a lamp and go to his room and study hard.
Often he was very tired, but it was a healthful fatigue. He did not feel any sense of nervous exhaustion, but, if he found himself falling asleep over his books, he would go to bed and get up at daylight next morning feeling perfectly refreshed.
The outdoor life agreed with him wonderfully, and his boyish figure began to fill out and lose some of its angles. And he had the consciousness of making headway with his studies. He was forced to adopt the old-fashioned plan of relying upon himself, instead of the new-fashioned one of having a tutor to study with him and to take most of the trouble off him.
Besides making steady progress in studies and character and physique, he actually found himself happy. He had no associates of his own age, it is true; the neighborhood was sparsely populated and he did not find any very congenial acquaintances among boys of his own age, but he comforted himself by thinking, “Never mind, I’ll have lots of fellows for company next year.” He came to like Mr. Laurison; and Mrs. Laurison’s kindness was unvarying. Little Minna became the apple of his eye.
In the summer she had a slight illness, and Brydell did not realize until then how fond he was of the little girl. He was always on hand to do anything for her, and the child would take her medicine more readily from him than from anybody else.
This still more won Mrs. Laurison’s heart, and there was keen sympathy between her and the boy who had never known a mother’s love. He often thought: “If Aunt Emeline had been like this!” Minna got well quickly, but from that day on Brydell’s affection for the mother and child became intense. Mrs. Laurison knew that Brydell was preparing for his examination another year, but as she said to him sometimes: