Aleck

“ After two days of heart-lifting business, the trade at Chris' store suddenly fell away to nothing, and, as before, he played the concertina to an admiring audience that looked out of the window and smiled blandly at any mention of trade. He suspected that some move of Dave's lay behind this, and he deputed Aleck Capot-blanc to find out. Aleck was the dandy young savage that broke trail for Chris when he traveled, and acted as his interpreter upon occasion. Chris showed Aleck an orange silk handkerchief, and became the master of his soul. ”

“ All the time Aleck was cleaning the Coal-Oil Lamps or watching the New Orleans Syrup trickle into the Jug, he was figuring how much of the Stipend he could segregate and isolate and set aside for the venerable Mr. Fishberry, the Taker-In up at the Bank with the Chinchilla on the Larynx.
For ten long years the White Slave tested Eggs and scooped the C Sugar.
When Aleck became of Age, Mr. Blodgett was compelling him to take $30 the first of every month. ”

“ Aleck is quiet, a thorough gentleman always, and for reasons of his own he keeps near Mr. Cereal. Knowing the secret of the other, he feels that he has a deep interest there.
As to Wycherley, he makes himself right at home, and being introduced moves among the guests with charming freedom. An old traveler of his stamp can adapt himself to either terminus of “society,” and under other circumstances, should fortune throw him among a herd of tramps, or into a camp of darkies, he would be found the jolliest fellow of them all, telling tough yarns, singing songs, and picking the banjo. ”

“ For there were times when Aleck would say, gloomily, to himself, “I’m sure uncle thoroughly hates me and wishes me away,” while there were times when he was as happy as the days were long, and ready to feel certain that the old man loved him as much as if he were his own child.
“He must,” thought the boy, “or he wouldn’t have nursed and coddled me up so when I had that fever and the doctor told Jane that he had done all he could, and that I should die—go out with the tide next day. That’s what I like in uncle,” he mused, “when he isn’t out of temper—he’s so clever. ”

“ Family prayer was concluded and breakfast began, and still Aleck did not appear. As he had no watch, it was not surprising that he should mistake the time to a certain extent; but we all wondered he should be so very late, and at last my father began to feel uneasy. "He must have been a long way off not to have heard the eight o'clock bell," he said; "yet he's a careful boy; it seems unlikely he should come to any harm."
"Run out on the lawn, Willie," suggested my mother, "and take a good look round; perhaps he may be in sight." ”

“ Stoddard, getting a warm freestone from the invisible Mr. Hand in the hall, placed it beneath the bedclothes. Aleck Van Camp dropped his head, covering his face with his hands. Agatha, watching, by and by saw a change come over the sick man's face. She held her breath, it seemed, for untold minutes, while Doctor Thayer reached his hand to the patient's heart and leaned over to observe more closely his face.
"See!" she whispered to Aleck, touching his shoulder lightly, "he is looking at us." When Aleck looked up James was indeed looking at them with large, serious, half-focussed eyes. ”

“ More than once Aleck finds a bitter feeling taking root in his heart, and it is only through severe measures that he is able to crush it. A new experience is being forced upon him, and when he realizes how his work of the early night [Pg 97] must go for naught if there is another Richmond in the field, he smiles in the grim way some men have when inflicting torture upon themselves. ”

“ Van Camp's somewhat trying explanation; and Aleck did do something as a student. Extremely impatient with any exhibition of laziness, the mother demanded a good accounting of her son's time. Aleck and Jim, who were born in the same year, ran more or less side by side until the end of college. They struggled together in sports and in arguments, "rushed" the same girl in turn or simultaneously, and spent their long vacations cruising up and down the Maine coast in a thirty-foot sail-boat. ”

“ I answered, "only I should like it to be more than a year."
"See what a cruel fellow your cousin is," said my father, getting up from his chair, and proceeding to take Aleck round the room, showing him various curiosities with which I was familiar; then he sat down again, and keeping Aleck at his side, told him that so long as he remained at Braycombe he was to feel as much at home, and as welcome to the study as I was, and that he was to try and trust him as he could his own father, until we all had the joy of welcoming his parents home again.
"Famous chats we get here sometimes, eh, Willie?" ”

“ That is the picture Aleck sees, and he can feel his companion quiver with suppressed excitement as she, too, gazes upon it, and, for the first time since her babyhood, sees the face of her mother.
He fears lest she may faint, nor thinks it strange under the peculiar circumstances that he should slip an arm around her waist. She does not resent it—at such a time the strong arm of an honest man is not to be despised.
Saidee is pleading her cause. She is not in the plot of the cunning pasha, and believes Samson Cereal has come here to upbraid her because her heart yearned for her child. ”

“ He makes a decidedly striking appearance, for, although not quite six feet in height, his figure is that of an athlete. Aleck takes to him on sight.
“What a shame such a young god should have descended to the rôle of a defaulter,” mutters Wycherley in the Canadian’s ear.
Aleck does not reply. He has the queerest feeling pass over him—a flush succeeded by a chill. It is hard to believe this fine, frank looking man can be a fugitive from justice, [Pg 186] but strange things happen in this life, and we grow accustomed to many facts which at first seem impossible. ”

“ He remembers that it is his duty to tell the children of this man that Samson Cereal may be dying there in his chair. Heaven knows he looks about as much like a dying man as the human mind could conceive. A tragedy seems imminent, and yet Aleck feels that the fact should not be made known if it is possible to keep it a secret. ”

“ Oriental life did not suit Aunt Brier, and, as her slightest wish is sacred to her husband, he has brought her to her old home, where, when Aleck and Thea are with us, we make a very merry party, talking of all we have seen in Europe, and sometimes of the Hepburn line, which Aleck says I straightened,—always insisting, however, that it did not need straightening, and that the obnoxious clause in the lease would never have stood the test of the law. ”

“ They are under the roof of the fortune teller. The space beyond the door forms a small hallway. Further on, through a winding passage they will find Saidee’s reception chamber, where the veiled seeress from the Orient has received those who seek her occult aid, and reads the future from the lines of their hands.
Aleck has a grave sensation steal over him. It is as though someone he loves is about to meet peril. ”

“ Keep Aleck Windsor from Pretty Pierre and his gang. Good-bye.”
Then he mounted and rode away. Every other man in the company looked back to where the girl stood in the doorway; he did not. Private Gellatly said, with a shake of the head, as she was lost to view: “Devils bestir me, what a widdy she’ll make!” It was understood that Aleck Windsor and Mab Humphrey were to be married on the coming New Year’s Day. What connection was there between the words of Sergeant Fones and those of Private Gellatly? None, perhaps. ”

“ They forced the dog to release his hold, not because they felt any kindness for Aleck, but because they were afraid their fathers would have to pay for him if he should be killed. As soon as the ram was released he sprang up, rushed round the house, out at the gate, and down the road as fast as his legs could carry him, and was never seen there again.
"Don't you think you ought to give back the knife and marbles and pencil?" asked Billy, after they had watched Aleck till he disappeared, "You didn't turn Ring loose like you were to."
"No, I won't," declared Dick. "I did my part. I rolled. ”

“ Mamma said, “Child, you don’t understand; Aleck really wants to stay now, but I have no right to keep him. He is a valuable groom and hostler, can manage and drive any horses, and he can easily get a good place in Georgetown, whereas I could not only not pay him, but I could not possibly feed him as he has been accustomed to be fed, sugar and coffee and tea and all the meat he wanted. We barely have what will keep the household, and a very little coffee and tea. ”

“ I suppose Jord would have taken that skid for any blamed beggar who got in his way, but of course it didn't take any force off the way he jammed on those brakes when he saw it was a friend he was going to hit. And a friend he was going to maim—pretty hard choice to make, wasn't it? But of course it was sure death to Franz if he hit him, at that pace, so there was nothing else to do but take the chance for himself and Aleck. Maybe you can guess, though, how he feels about Aleck. One wouldn't think he knew he'd been cruelly hurt himself. ”

“ One of them—the eldest son of our laundrywoman, and Mary's brother, a boy of the name of Aleck (Alexander) —is uncommonly bright and intelligent; he performs all the offices of a well-instructed waiter with great efficiency, and anywhere out of slave land would be able to earn fourteen or fifteen dollars a month for himself; he is remarkably good tempered and well disposed. The other poor boy is so stupid that he appears sullen from absolute darkness of intellect ”

“ He must have a great many thoughts about you, that he never has about great, strong, rough fellows like the rest of us.”
Creepy did not answer for a moment; he could not have told Aleck for his life what a help it was to hear him say all these things. He only looked in his face, and said, “I shall never be one of His princes, but I’ll try to make as good a soldier as I can. ”

“ With a thousand important Details claiming his attention, Aleck had no time to monkey with side issues such as the general State of his Health or the multifarious plans for uplifting the Flat-Heads that he could see from his Window.
Those who recommended Golf to him seemed to forget that no one ever laid by anything while on the Links.
As for the Plain People, his only Conviction when he surveyed them in the Mass was that every Man-Jack was holding back Money that rightfully belonged to him (Alexander) . ”

“ Folks would begin to ask too many questions. Besides, they'd ask where that girl was. Then there's the fires you set. No, sir, you stay right here. We other fellers'll get out of here as fast as we can."
"And leave me here?" The terror in Big Aleck's voice had been piteous for any men but these.
"Listen! Before midnight I'll be at the Company dam. I'll tell that new doctor there's been an accident up here in the timber camp. I'll tell him to come up here to-morrow morning sure. When he gets here, you tell him how the accident happened. It's up to you, then. ”

“ Both the young men show signs of excitement, and the veteran speculator is the cool one. Aleck is saying to himself:
“Dorothy has told him how she came to know me—what can he want to see me for,” and his bachelor heart persists in keeping up [Pg 169] a trip-hammer accompaniment that is rather singular in a man who has been born and reared in the country of ice and snow.
As for Wycherley, his thoughts run about in this wise:
“Here’s Samson Cereal, the great grain operator, king of the wheat pit. Let me study him well, since fate has decided that I am to be in the same line. ”

“ Colonel Butler's friends came forward to congratulate and thank him. The Hilltops, chuckling gleefully, with Elmer Cuddeback in their center, marched off up-town. The Riverbeds, downcast and revengeful, made their way down the hill. But Aleck Sands was not with them. He had already left the school- [Pg 58] building and had gone home. He was angry and bitterly resentful. He felt that he could have faced any one, at any time, in open warfare, but to be humiliated and ridiculed in public, that was more than even his phlegmatic nature could stand. ”

“ After going to the stables to see my pony, we proceeded to the Zig-zag, chattering fast the whole way. I was full of plans and projects, and anxious at once to interest my cousin in every one of them.
"You see," I explained, "there are quantities of things that we haven't been able to do, because there's been only George and me; and he's always had it to say that there were only us two, and that he was old and I young, but he can't say that now."
"He doesn't seem so very old," remarked Aleck. ”

“ I come back much quick. I spell by the little lake two sleeps from the fort, and Aleck Capot-blanc and his brother come on the trail. Aleck Capot-blanc say to me: 'Wah! What you got?' I say: 'White pieces, and red pieces, and blue pieces for the Company to give away.' Aleck Capot-blanc say: 'Let me see me.' I say: 'Non! It is tie by string.'
“Aleck Capot-blanc say: 'You not let him get cold.' 'Why?' I say, me. 'If him freeze no more good,' Aleck Capot-blanc say. Aleck, him take box, and shake him by the ear, and listen. 'So!' Aleck say, 'him froze I guess. You'll get it. ”

“ And in the face of all that I have said and taught you about your being different by your birth and education from the young ragamuffin rout of Rockabie harbour! Cannot you run over there in your boat and do what business you have to carry out without being mixed up in some broil?”
“No, uncle.”
“Disgraceful, sir! A gentleman’s education should teach him that his weapons are words properly applied, and not tooth and nail, blows and kicks.”
“I never bit or kicked, uncle,” said Aleck, sullenly. ”