Atwood

“ Atwood. He swooped her into a front place in the circle with his long arm. "Here, look at this, Gladys, and tell me what you think of it."
"Edward!"
"Lined throughout with taffeta, gores on every frill, why—bring your mother a chair, Josephine."
Before the eyes of Mrs. Atwood lay the rich folds of a cloth skirt, surmounted by a jacket trimmed with fur.
She lay back in the armchair with the family clustered around her, their tongues loosened.
"We all knew about it." "We promised not to tell." "We wanted to see you get it." "There won't be anybody as pretty as you, mamma." ”

“ Atwood. And thank you over and over again. You have been so kind.” With a sudden flash of enthusiasm. “Every one is kind. It is a beautiful world. Good-by.”
She ran lightly down the slope and I followed.
The trip to Wellmouth was of but a half hour's duration. Atwood talked all the time. Miss Colton laughed at his stories and seemed to be without a care. She scarcely looked at me during the passage, and if she caught me looking at her and our glances met she turned away. On the wharf was a big automobile, surrounded by a gaping crowd of small boys and 'longshore loafers. ”

“ Has the world yet discovered a purer or loftier philosophy?
CHAPTER VI ROGER DISCOVERS A NEW TYPE Young Atwood rose with a very definite purpose on the following morning. For his mother's sake he would be civil to their boarders, but nothing more. He would learn just what they had a right to expect in view of their business relations, and having performed all that was "nominated in the bond," would treat them with such an off-hand independence that they would soon become aware that he, Roger Atwood, was an entity that could exist without their admiring approval. ”

“ She was prepared to say, "Roger Atwood, I am ready to make any sacrifice within my power that you can ask," but at the same time felt that she could endure slow torture by fire better than passionate words of love, which would simply bruise the heart that could make no response. If he would only ask quietly, "Mildred, will you be my wife when the right time comes? I'll be content with such love as you can give," she would have replied with the calmness of an unalterable purpose, "Yes, Roger, and I'll do my best," believing that years of effort might be crowned with success. ”

“ To their surprise, Mildred raised her head, and replied, in strong protest, "You do him wrong, Mrs. Wheaton. He was so modest and manly that he wished to escape all thanks. He has taken a noble revenge on me for all my stupid prejudice."
"That's right," cried ecstatic Belle. "Honest confession is good for the soul. I'll admit that most men and women are made of dust—street dust at that—but Roger Atwood is pure gold. He has the quickest brain and steadiest hand of any fellow in the world, and he'll stand up at the head before he's gray." ”

“ Sam came from town that evening jubilant in warm and roomy jacket and trousers, and, oh, weakness of woman! a new cricket bat besides. Mrs. Atwood carried with her a box of lead soldiers for Eddy, and a sweet little fluffy thing in neckwear for Josephine, such as she saw other girls displaying. After all, what was her own dress in comparison with the darling children's happiness? She would get some cheap stuff and make it up herself. No one would know the difference.
"How about your costume, Gladys?" asked her husband one evening, as they sat around the fire. "Is it almost finished?" ”

“ Atwood was vague. He felt himself a rising citizen. Some day he expected to marry and set his wife up in a mansion in San Francisco, with seasons of rest and recreation at Del Monte and Coronado and the East. If the shoe business kept to the present rate of prosperity he would probably have millions to squander in his old age.
He tried to say something of this to O-liver.
"Well, will you be any happier?" asked the young man with the bare head. "I'll wager my horse against your car that when you're drunk with dollars you'll look back to a day like this and envy yourself. ”

“ Atwood was constitutionally incapable of adding another straw to her husband's burden, while she stood by consenting sympathetically unto his righteous wrath. A day later, when she spoke of going to town to buy the material for her new costume with outward buoyancy, but inward panic at the rapid shrinkage of her funds, Sam, a boy of twelve, announced the fact that he must have a new suit of clothes at once. As it was Saturday, he could accompany her.
"What is the matter with those you have on? They are not in the least worn out," said his mother. ”

“ Atwood.
"The Club goes to Scarborough on the fifth of the month, it was decided to-day. Nearly all the men are going to take their wives with them. I'm looking forward to showing off mine."
"My mamma will look prettier than any of them," said Eddy belligerently.
"And lots younger," added Sam.
"Have you ordered the costume yet?" asked the voice of Josephine. Oh, how her mother dreaded it!
"No, I haven't—yet," she felt herself forced into saying.
"I don't believe there is any money left for it," pursued the pitiless one. "She spends it for other things, papa. ”

“ She had meant to ask Edward to advance her a little more on the next month's allowance—already largely anticipated—but she had not the face to do so after his generosity to her now. A half-sovereign out of the ten pounds would make very little difference, and she did not need it all, anyway. She almost wept as she thought of Josephine's championship of her, and her husband's thoughtfulness.
Mrs. Atwood adored her husband and her three children. She firmly believed them to be superior in every way to all other mortals ”

“ Atwood had obtained for her. "I'm getting as plump and rosy as Susan," she wrote, "and I'm not coming back to town. Going up and down those tenement stairs tired me more than all the work I do here. Still, I work hard, I can tell you; but it's all sorts of work, with plenty of good air and good food to do it on. I'm treated better than I ever was before—just like one of the family, and there's a young farmer who takes me out to ride sometimes, and he acts and talks like a man."
Whether this attentive friend were Roger or a new acquaintance she did not say. ”

“ But thoughts of other people, some of whom were very dear to her, brought varying expressions, and once she smiled and said to herself, "Roger Atwood now thinks, no doubt, that in me he has seen another 'ghost of a woman,' weighing a little less than 'two hundred.' Of all my little affairs of that nature, his was the most preposterous and absurd. That one human being should expect and seek from another what is so impossible to give produces a certain half-humorous irritation that is indescribable." ”

“ But come, what makes you look so unhappy, Gladys? Aren't you glad to go off with me—in a new costume?"
"Edward!" said Mrs. Atwood. She rose and stood in front of him, her dark eyes unnaturally large, the colour coming and going in her rounded olive cheek. Her red lips trembled. "Edward, I have something to tell you."
"There's the door bell," said her husband with an arresting hand, as he listened for the outer sounds.
"A parcel, father. A shilling to pay!" cried Sam, as he ran into the room.
"Have you the change, Gladys? It's some clothes I ordered myself for the Scarborough trip ”

“ The causes which start men upon their careers are often seemingly the most slight and causal. Mildred meant nothing more than to find a brief and kindly-natured pastime in softening the hard lives and in rounding the sharp angles of the Atwood family, and Roger merely came in for his share of her attention. Flesh and spirit, however, are not wood and stone, and she might learn in deep surprise that her light aesthetic touches, while producing pleasing changes in externals, had also awakened some of the profoundest motives and forces that give shape and color to life. ”

“ Mrs. Wheaton has done much work at his uncle's house, and Mrs. Atwood talks to her quite freely. Mrs. Wheaton says they are wealthy, although they live so plainly, and that Mr. Atwood, Roger's uncle, is wonderfully taken with the young man, and means to give him a chance to climb among the highest, if he continues to be so steady and persevering. Of course you know that Roger will never be anything else than steady. And Mrs. Wheaton also says that Mr. Atwood will, no doubt, leave everything to him, for he has no children."
"I am sorry you have told me this," sighed Mildred ”

“ As for himself, he'd read and ride Mary Pick.
"Anyhow," said Henry, with his hands folded across his stomach—Henry had grown fat riding in his car—"anyhow, when you get old you'll be sorry."
"I shall never grow old," said O-liver, and stood up. "I shall be young—till I—die."
They laughed at him outwardly, but in their hearts they did not laugh. They could not think of him as old. They felt that in a hundred years he would still be strong and sure, his blond mane untouched by gray, his clear blue eyes unblurred.
Atwood rounding them all up for a drink found that O-liver wouldn't drink. ”

“ Atwood and Susan, and even for poor, grumbling Mr. Atwood, at whose meagre, shrivelled life she often wondered; and it would be a source of much pain to her if she became even the blameless cause of Roger's leaving home in the absurd hope of eventually becoming great and rich, and then appearing to her in her poverty, like a prince in fairy lore. "Nothing but the most vigorous snubbing will bring him to his senses," she thought, and she now believed that he would soon subside into his old life, and be none the worse for the summer's episode. ”

“ It was Lallie who spoke. "How dare you speak to her like that? Oh, you----"
Mrs. Atwood covered her face with her hands and fled from the room.
"Listen to me, Lallie! Don't let her come between us."
He spoke in sobbing gasps and caught at one of Lallie's hands. She drew it away.
"She has not come between us," she said scornfully; "it is yourself. You might have told me that it had all been the worst thing possible, and I could have forgiven you. Who am I to judge a man? But not this. You went back on her. You put her to open shame before me. You are a coward, Mr. Ballinger." ”

“ Atwood would not hear of the plan, and the father openly declared that it was "those Jocelyn girls that had unsettled the boy."
"Father," said Roger, a little defiantly and sarcastically, "doesn't it strike you that I'm rather tall for a boy? Did you never hear of a small child, almost of age, choosing his own course in life?"
"That is not the way to talk," said his mother reprovingly. "We both very naturally feel that it's hard, and hardly right, too, for you to leave us just as we are getting old and need some one to lean on." ”

“ He is there nearly every night, and it's as good as a play to hear him take off the affected, snobbish ones. He has caught the English drawl and the 'yeh know' of some young fellows to perfection."
"He IS a queer fellow," mused Mildred. "I wonder what he goes there for?"
"Oh, Roger Atwood is no fool, I can tell you. He knows country society in perfection, and he would not be long in understanding Fifth Avenue noodledom just as well. He detects sham people and sham ways as quickly as you could, and delights in ridiculing them. ”

“ Atwood, a little sharply, "it's quite proper that we should have something on our backs, and if we earn the money to put it there ourselves, I don't see why you should complain; as for ribbons, Sue has as good right to 'em as Roger to a span-new buggy that ain't good for anything but taking girls out in."
"What made you have the seat so narrow, Roger?" asked Sue; "you couldn't squeeze three people in to save your life."
"I'm content with one girl at a time," replied Roger, with a complacent shrug. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIV ROGER REAPPEARS Roger Atwood had entered Mildred's mind as a part of a grotesque dream, but he had no place in her waking thoughts. With Vinton Arnold, however, it was very different, and scarcely an hour passed that she was not wondering where he was, and again questioning his prolonged silence. Often her heart beat quick as she imagined she caught a glimpse of him in the street ”

“ Some strange, white, smooth fabric which crumpled and tore very easily, the like of which this young British officer of Howe's staff had never seen before. It was found lying in a flower bed forty or fifty feet from Atwood's body. They gathered in a group to examine it by the light of the lantern. Writing! The delicate script of Mary Atwood! A missive addressed to her father. It was strangely written, evidently not with a quill.
Tony read it with an awed, frightened voice:
"Father, beware of Tugh! ”

“ If he could live in a genial, sunny atmosphere of freedom, affection, and respect, his manhood would assert itself, he would grow stronger, and might do as much in his way as Roger Atwood ever can in his. He has a fine mind and a brilliant imagination; but he is chilled, imbittered, and fettered by being constantly reminded of his weakness and dependence; and now positive unhappiness is added to his other misfortunes, although I think my little note will do him no harm"—she dreamed that it might be carried next to his heart instead of mouldering where the faithless Jotham had dropped it. ”

“ Atwood. "We mustn't drive father too fast."
Roger felt that at last he was getting acquainted, and he looked forward to the long summer evening with much hope. But nothing happened as he expected, for Mildred was silent and preoccupied at supper, and Mrs. Jocelyn appeared to have relapsed into her old depression. ”

“ While we naturally refuse to be mixed up with such people, we are seeking chiefly to promote your welfare; for the worst thing that can happen to a young man starting in life is to have a helpless lot of people hanging on him. So, come, give me your promise—the promise of an Atwood—and it will be all right."
Eoger was not a self-sacrificing saint by any means. Moreover, he had inherited the Atwood characteristics sufficiently to feel all the worldly force of his uncle's reasoning, and to be tempted tremendously by his offers. ”