Opie Percival Read

“ Reason is a business matter and it can make matches, but it cannot make love.
Long I sat there, gripping the desk, gazing at the rafters overhead, groaning in the lover's conscious luxury of despair. Should I go away? No; I would stay and see it out. I would be light and gay—a bear's waltz. I would laugh and rebuke fate; I would punish Guinea for having played with that boy up and down the brook; I would be all sorts of a fool.
The old man's voice came ringing through the air. "Hike, there, Sam; hike, there, Bob. Get him down. Hike, there!" ”

“ I don't know of a more dingy and desolate-looking town than Purdy. The houses are old, and the streets are rutted. The court-house, in the center of the square—my temple of fame—is mean and rain-streaked. And this is what I saw at a glance: An enormous wooden watch, with its paint cracking off, hanging in front of a jeweler's; the mortar and pestle of a druggist on top of a post; a brick jail, with a pale face at the bars; lawyers' signs; doctors' signs; a livery stable, with a negro in front, pouring water on the wheels of a buggy; a red-looking negro, with a string of shuck horse collars ”

“ So the sun was not risen when I went down stairs. But nature held up a pink rose in the east, and the hilltops were glowing, while the valleys were yet dark. Guinea came out of the sitting-room, and seeing me in the passage, walking as if I were afraid of disturbing some one, laughed at me. "Why, what makes you slip along that way? You act as if you were the first one up. Why, I have already gathered you some flowers to take to school. And you won't even thank me. Why, Mr. Hawes, what on earth is the matter?"
I held up my hand. "There will be no school to-day," I said. ”

“ We would dim your eye when our own is blurred; we would smother your heart when our own is heavy, and would pierce it with a pain. Upon her children this old world has poured the wisdom of her gathered ages, and could we look from another sphere we might see the minds of great men twinkling like the stars, but the human heart is yet unschooled, yet has no range of vision, but chokes and sobs in its own emotion, as it did when the first poet stood upon a hill and cried [90] aloud to an unknown God. ”

“ But don't let people put you down as a story teller, for when a lawyer gets that reputation, no matter how profound he may be, the public looks upon him as a yarn-spinner, rather than a thinker. You might put them in print, but not under your own name. Bill—came within one of calling you Billy—a great many men succeed in law not because they are bright, but because they are stupid. I never see a jackass that I don't think of a judge—some judges that I know. ”

“ I improvised a hymn and sang it to Guinea—a chant that, no doubt, would have been immeasurably funny to the cold-hearted and the sane, but it brought the tears to my eyes and rendered the rafters just above my head a work of lace, far away. And at these devotions I might have remained for hours had not a sharp footfall smote upon my ear. I hastened down stairs, and at the entrance of the passage stood Chyd Lundsford, looking about, slowly lashing his leg with a switch.
"Helloa! Where are all the folks?"
"They are gone, sir," I answered, stiffly bowing to him. ”

“ Happiness will not bear a close inspection; to be flawless it must be viewed from a distance—we must look forward to something longed for, or backward to some time remembered; and my happiness on this night was not perfect, for a sense of loneliness curdled it with regret, but here and there, as I walked along, I found myself in an ecstasy—my nerves thrilled one another like crossed wires, electrified. I knew that it might be a long time before I should hear from Guinea, but I was still drunk with the newness of the feeling that she loved me. ”

“ And I left him with a promise that I would soon bring him a direct word from Millie.
I found Conkwright in his office, with his slippered feet on a table. He bade me come in, and he said nothing more, but sat there pressing his closed eye-lids with his thumb and fore-finger. How square a chin he had and how rugged was his face, trenched with the deep ruts of many a combat. His had been a life of turmoil and of fight. He was not born of the aristocracy. I had heard that he was the son of a Yankee clock peddler. But to success he had fought his way, over many an aristocratic failure. ”

“ Yes, sir, and the poet is the only man who really lives. Now go on and buy your acre of sentiment, and when you have closed the bargain, lie down upon your possessions and go to sleep. Tell the old man that he is a fool for going away, but tell him also that I don't blame him for being a fool. Yes, sir, I love a fool, for it's the wise man that puts me to trouble. ”

“ Young hearts may whisper to each other, and that whispering may be music, sir; but in this life there are duties too stern to be melted and turned aside by a melody. And, sir, one of the most sacred duties that can fall to the trust of a man is to see that the family name, which is to survive after he has folded his hands in eternal stillness—pardon my devious methods, for I assure you that my windings proceed from a kindness of heart—I say that my duty now is to those who may bear my name in the future. ”

“ A path, so hard and smooth that it shone in the sun, ran down obliquely into the ravine, and at the end of it I saw a large iron kettle overturned, and I knew that this marked the spring. I liked the place, the forest back of it, the steep hills far away, the fields lying near and the meadow down the ravine. I hate a new house, a new field, a wood that looks new; to me there must be the impress of fond association, and here I found it, the spring-house with moss on its roof, the path, a great oak upon which death had placed its beautiful mark—a bough of misletoe. ”

“ Guinea smiled at me and clucked at her mother. "Don't pretend that you like anything just to please her," she said, when Mrs. Jucklin had turned about to keep a hoe-cake from burning. "All you've got to do is to say nothing until she gets through—that, and simply to remember that she enjoys it."
While we were eating we heard a voice crying: "Hike, there, Sam; get him down, Bob! Hike there!"
"They are warming up to their work," Guinea remarked, and her mother sighed; and then she began to talk louder than was her wont, striving to drown the old man's voice. ”

“ Hawes," said the General, "I want you to help yourself just as if you were alone at your own board. It is a pleasure to have you with us, and an additional pleasure to know, sir, that you are to become a permanent citizen of this county. Men may think themselves wise when they apprentice their sons to a trade, averring that the professions are overcrowded, but that has always been the case, and yet, professional men have ever been the happiest, for they achieve the most, not in the gathering of money, but in the uplifting of mankind. ”

“ Yes, sir, I've done that many a time—just pretended that I had business everywhere else but on that porch. Ain't it strange how love does take hold of a fellow? It gets into his heart and his heart shoots it to the very ends of his fingers; it gets into his eyes, and he can't see anything but love, love everywhere. [76] It may catch you one of these days, Bill, and when it does, you'll know just how I feel. ”

“ That's all I want—the house, the path and the spring, with just a little strip running a short distance down the brook where the moss is so thick. I have the promise of money from Perdue, and I think that I can borrow some of Conkwright. Yes, I must have the house and the path and the spring and the strip of moss-land that lies along the branch. It will be merely a poetic possession, but such possessions are the richest to one who has a soul; and no one with a soul will bid against me. It is a mean man that would bid against a sentiment. ”

“ He had bitten his lip until his mouth was reddening with blood.
"Come, you are going home with me," he said.
"I am not!" his daughter cried, with her arms tight about Guinea. "I am not; I am going to the jail."
"Then I will take you home."
"Don't touch me!" she cried, shrinking back into a corner. "Don't touch me, for I am almost mad. What [199] do I care for your pride? What do I care for the old graveyard? You have tried to break my heart, but I will marry him. He is worth ten thousand such men as your cold-blooded son. Don't you touch me, father. Mr. Hawes!" ”

“ Alf and the old man were already in the field; I could hear them talking to their horses; and Mrs. Jucklin was up stairs—Guinea and I were alone. I turned and looked at her and again she smiled.
"The world seems to be holding its breath, waiting for something to happen," she said. "To me it always appears so when there is a lull in the air just at sunrise." ”

“ He interested his hearers with humorous stories, as if his business were first to entertain the public and then to pick up a living, and for the first time it struck me that book-knowledge did not embrace everything, that people who simply read get but a second-hand experience. We must observe form and recognize the rules which good taste has drawn, but after all the finest form and the most nearly perfect rule is an inborn judgment. ”

“ That gun is there now, sir, and whenever you want it, speak the word and it shall be yours."
I laughed to myself and thought that I must be getting on well with the old General—first the offer of his library and now of his gun—and I thanked him for the interest which he had shown in me, a mere stranger. "A well-bred Southerner is never a stranger in the South," said he. "We are held together by an affection stronger than any tie that runs from heart to heart in any other branch of the human family. ”

“ The money you borrowed from me, you mean?"
"No, money that old Perdue thinks I earned. He insisted upon my taking twenty-five dollars."
"It's all right, my boy. Yes, it's all right, but you'll have to be more careful. It is noble to give, but it is not wise to look for an opportunity. It is better to give to the young than to the old, for the good we do the youth [243] grows with him into a hallowed memory—stimulates him to help others—while the memory of the aged is fitful. Whenever you see a boy trying to amount to something, help him, for that is a direct good, done to mankind. ”

“ And a few moments later I heard him shouting: "Hike, there, Sam! Hike, there, Bob! There's plenty of light; you've got three lanterns. Hike, there! To a finish, to a finish!"
"Mrs. Jucklin, it is no time for despair," I said, and Guinea turned from the window. "We have already secured a new trial, and the next time it will surely go in our favor. That is the history of nearly all such cases. Be strong just a little while longer. You have been our prop, and now you must not let us fall." ”

“ Hawes, I've got a hundred dollars that's yours," said old man Perdue. "I have brought the money, and here it is."
"I can't take it, Mr. Perdue. I haven't earned it, and shall not earn it. I am not going to teach your school."
"The deuce you say! Why, my grandson thinks there ain't nobody in the world like you—says you can whip any livin' man. You must teach that school."
"No, I am going to study law with Judge Conkwright."
"What, with him? Don't you do it. Why, there ain't a harder hearted man on the face of the earth than he is. Smart as a whip, but he don't go to church once in five years. ”

“ I was to be a lawyer, to defend men and to prosecute them for money, and yet I wondered how that bright young fellow, with the seeming passion of an [187] honest outcry, could stand there and tell the jury that my friend had committed the foulest murder that had ever reddened the criminal annals of his state. Old man Conkwright sat, twirling his thumbs, and occasionally he would nod at the jurymen as if to call their attention to a rank absurdity. ”

“ Yes, sir, you have a great work, a work that you may be proud of. Had education more broadly prevailed, had the people North and South better understood one another, there would have been no bloody disruption. Now, gentlemen, I must request you to help yourselves, remembering that such as I have is freely yours. When age comes on apace there is nothing more inspiring than to see the young and the vigorous gathered about us. And it is thus that the evening [61] of live is brightened. Henry, pass the bread to Mr. Jucklin, and the peas, the very first of this backward season, I assure you. ”

“ I let him dream, for I knew the sweetness of a melancholy reverie. Sometimes the soul is impatient of the body's dogged hold on life, and steals away to view its future domain, to draw in advance upon its coming freedom—now lingering, now swifter than a hawk—and then it comes back and we say that we have been absent-minded. Alf started—his soul had returned. "And weren't you surprised to see them drive toward town?" he asked.
"Who, your parents and Guinea? They didn't; they drove toward the railway station."
"But they came to town, my dear boy—were here in this jail. ”