Ewing Young

“ Tell her about cowboys and things, won't you—something pleasant."
They stood before the woman in the chair, and Bartell uttered a few words which Ewing did not hear, for at the moment he had glanced up to see Mrs. Laithe watching him with eyes of such genuine dismay that confusion overtook him. He wondered what wrong thing he could have done, but recovered in time to bow and murmur a phrase of acknowledgment. His new acquaintance indicated a seat beside her, but did not look at him.
[135] "Thank you, Chris. Mr. Ewing will entertain me. Run off to someone as young as yourself." ”

“ Old men and young, they were compacted of nerves, vividly alive, even those in whom the desk stoop could be detected.
The movable feast of the cocktail waned and the groups drifted upstairs. The publisher for whom Piersoll waited came at last, a bland but keen-eyed gentleman of early middle age, introduced to Ewing as Mr. Layton, of Layton & Company. They followed the others up to the dining room, and Piersoll found a table for three under the drawing of the earnest but miscalculating angler. ”

“ The little man drew himself up, expanded his chest, [94] and bravely flourished a smile of acknowledgment. This faded into a look of hostile curiosity, discreetly veiled, as Mrs. Laithe and the two young men came in from the drawing room.
"Time to be moving on, Governor," young Teevan remarked.
"I'm not going, my boy," the little man answered in crisp tones, with the hint of a side look at Ewing and Mrs. Laithe. "Run on like a good chap and make my excuses to the dear grandmother. Needn't lie, you know. Say I chucked her theater party at the last moment because the places are stuffy. ”

“ Teevan, before the fire, breathed in smoke, emitted it from pursed lips, studied the ash at the end of his cigarette from under raised, speculative brows, and flashed search-light eyes upon his host.
"Who's the young chap, Chris?"
Bartell took up a liqueur glass and turned to his questioner.
"Name's Ewing, I believe. Some chap Eleanor picked up in the far West. Painter, I believe, or means to be."
"Painter, yes, to be sure—quite right; painter...." He waited pointedly.
"Paints cowboys and Indians, I fancy—the usual thing. Seems a decent sort; rather a gentleman. You're looking a bit off. ”

“ Girl watches ship out of sight, and it snows! Snows hard. But too late—ah, God, too late! She rushes back home to find the old man delirious with joy. He starts in to do his speech at last, but she slowly strangles him with her muscular young hands. Rather good curtain, [115] that—yes?" He looked around the table appealingly, but the others had turned from him to another newcomer, a young man of dark and sinister aspect, whom they greeted as Simon Legree. Ewing heard Eliza's despairing cry, "Merciful Heavens, the river is choked with ice!" ”

“ Her eyes did not waver as Ewing met them. He saw that Bartell seemed to identify him in the throng and speak a few words to the lady. Ewing turned to his companion, discomfort under that steady survey. A moment later he was drawn to look again and saw Bartell coming toward him.
"Ah, young man!" His greeting oozed cordiality, the soothing friendliness of a man fitted to find only the pleasantness of life.
"And come with me, if Mrs. Dudley will let you off—" the lady smiled a pretty but unreserved assent—"an old friend, Mrs. Lowndes, wants to know you. She's a dear soul, always jolly. ”

“ Harvard man, half-back, old New York family, named Van-Something or other; unhappy love affair; tries ranch life; fearless rider, dead shot 'six feet of clean-limbed, virile young manhood,' is the approved phrase for him. He's a beautiful thing—his man keeps his chaps pressed, and he never is seen needing a shave——"
Ewing grinned appreciatively.
"Girl comes out from New York," continued Piersoll—"the girl, with her fierce aunt—home on north side of Washington Square. I'm going to do an article on the story people who've had fine old homes on the north side of Washington Square—thousands! ”

“ If you will get that handkerchief done, and take it to your mother with a kiss, and not keep me waiting, I'll have you all to tea, and tell you the story of Tommy Trout."
"This very night?" shouted Deordie.
"This very night."
"Every one of us?" inquired the young gentleman with rapturous incredulity.
"Every one of you.—Now Tiny, how about that work?"
"It's just done," said Tiny.—"Oh! Deordie, climb up behind, and hold back my hair, there's a darling, while I fasten off. Oh! Deor, you're pulling my hair out. Don't." ”

“ Glancing about for inspiration he was relieved to see Bartell bearing down upon him from the side of Mrs. Laithe. He came up jovially.
"I've been ordered to separate you two, Kitty. Young men aren't plentiful at this time, and Eleanor wants one."
"Thank you for bringing him, Chris." She gave Ewing a little nod, which he construed as his release, and he turned to meet Mrs. Laithe.
She sought his eyes with that swift look of apprehension which had before puzzled him, and threw another glance toward Mrs. Lowndes, who now chatted smilingly with Bartell. She seemed to be reassured. ”

“ Lowndes, shaking the hand of the doctor, straightening a picture on the wall, and, at last, lighting a cigarette as he faced the room from his favorite post on the hearth rug.
"I ran in for a moment to see how my lady prospered," with a graceful wave of the expiring match toward Mrs. Lowndes, "and all is well. I find her holding court to youth and age, to wit and wisdom, all of which she combines graciously in her own person. She is looking weary, perhaps, but rejoiced. Gentlemen, you have served her well. Doubtless our young friend here, Mr.—Ah, yes, Mr. Ewing—has talked enchantingly. ”

“ But when a sent it home, I thought my vather would have had the law of un. I’m blessed if a hadn’t given the mare four white feet, and shoulders that wouldn’t have pulled a vegetable cart; and she near-wheeler of the mail! I’d lay a pound bill Jan Lake would a done her ever so much better, for as young a hand as a is, if a’d squinted at her as long.”
“Well, well, Master Chuter,” said the painter and decorator, rising to go, “let the boy draw pigs and osses for his living. And I wish he may find paint as easy as slate-pencil.” ”

“ The subject of this sketch spent his youth and early manhood, on his father’s farm. Recently when asked for a sketch of his life Mr. Ewing replied: “I didn’t have any life. I just growed like Topsy. I didn’t have any educating. I just picked it up; and as for poetry, I never wrote any, only rhyme.” Notwithstanding this assertion, Mr. Ewing being unable to resist the prompting of the “divinity which stirred within him,” when quite young, began to write poetry. ”

“ I left him in the arms of the young clergywoman with the politest of words on both sides, and a good deal of religious conversation from the parson, which I does not doubt was well meant, if it was somewhat tedious."
"And then—mother?"
"And then we moved to Banbury, where my son took his second wife, having made her acquaintance in an alehouse; and then, my daughter, I begins to know that Christian's mother had been a good 'un."
"George isn't as happy with this one, then?"
"Men are curious creatures, my daughter, as you will discover for your own part without any instructions from me. ”

“ But Mrs. Datchett was deaf. Also, she not unnaturally considered that, in looking after “the young varments” in school-hours, she fully earned their weekly pence, and was by no means bound to disturb herself because they squabbled in the street.
Meanwhile Jan gradually got the upper hand of his lubberly and far from courageous opponent, whose smock he had nearly torn off his back. He had not spent any of his breath in calling for aid, but now, in reply to the boy’s cries for mercy and release, he shouted, “What be my name, now, thee big gawney? ”

“ As I growled, Sweep, beneath my feet, growled also. I believe it was sympathy, but lest it should be the approach of Aunt Maria (whom Sweep detested) , Polly and I thought well to withdraw from the garden by another gate. We returned to the house, and I took her to my den to find a book to divert her thoughts. I was not surprised that a long search ended in her choosing a finely-bound copy of Young's "Night Thoughts."
"I often feel ashamed of knowing so little of our standard poets," she remarked parenthetically. ”

“ Step aside into any of the cross-streets, and you find yourself in a labyrinth of crooked by-ways and carved doors, by the side of low angular bell-towers, which seem to have come straight from some old Flemish city, or you come to quaint, quiet, detached squares, planted with young trees, with white detached houses all round some of them, remnants of feudal hotels. ”

“ The public life of young Ewing commenced at an early age. When but nineteen, he was appointed secretary of the commission to settle the still vexed question as to whether the boundary between Virginia and Ohio was the high water mark or the low water mark, on the north side of the Ohio River. A year later, he became one of the private secretaries of President Taylor, and after Taylor’s sudden death, entered Brown University at Providence, Rhode Island, from which he was graduated in 1854. ”

“ There he stands, in that handsome pulpit, in that richly-ornamented chapel, with all those genteel people beneath him and around him—a stout, square-built man—a true type of Saxon energy and power—without the slightest pretensions to elegance or grace. Such men as he are not the men young ladies run after, fall in love with, get to write in their albums, buy engravings of for their boudoirs; but, nevertheless, with their strong passionate speech, and indomitable pluck, they are the men who move the world. ”

“ They puts ’em in too thick.”
The company said, “Ay, ay!” in a tone of unbroken assent, for Master Linseed was understood to have “come from a distance,” and to “know a good deal.” But an innkeeper stands above a painter and decorator anywhere, and especially on his own hearth, and Master Chuter did not mean to be put down.
“I suppose old hands were young uns once, Master Linseed,” said he; “and if the boy were never much at oak-graining, I’d back him for sign-painting, if he were taught. Why, the pigs he draas out, look you. ”

“ The tables (they were rickety) literally groaned under the weight of eatables and drinkables, and the dinner was so prolonged that Jem and I got terribly tired, in spite of the fun of watching the faces of the men we did not know, to see which got the reddest.
My father wanted us to go home before the reading of the will, which took place in the front parlour; but the lawyer said, “I think the young gentlemen should remain,” for which we were very much obliged to him ”

“ At this hour the young bride in all her beauty may be struck down in mortal agony, or the wee pet lamb, whose little silver laugh had so often dispelled the dark cloud that gathered round the home, or the grey-haired man, having just reached the goal, and achieved an independence, may find himself left in this bleak, dark, wide world alone. ”

“ She knew that those dead hills with their dying leafage told another tale to the pair of young lives housed with her. To them they were but inspirations to life vital and triumphant; eminences to be scaled in joyous effort, offering to youth's dreaming, half-true clairvoyance, unending reaches to provoke; near enough to seem attainable; far enough to be plausible with promise of delights. ”

“ But dancing out here isn’t trifled with as it is in temperate climates, and cards are made up early.”
By and by he shouted again,
“O’Brien!”
“Coming, your honour.”
“I don’t want you. But is Mr. O’Moore ready?”
“He is, sorr, barring the waistcoat. Take a fresh tie, Master Dennis. The master ’ll not be pleased to take ye out with one like that. Sure it’s haste that’s the ruin of the white ties all along. Did ye find the young gentleman a pair of shoes, sorr?” ”

“ The Cheap Jack’s face became brighter, and in a mollified tone he said to his wife, “He’s a prime card for such a young un. It’s a rum thing, too! A man I knowed was grand at screeving, but he said himself he was nowheres on paper. He made fifteen to eighteen shillin’ a week on a average,” the hunchback continued. “I’ve knowed him take two pound.”
“Did you ever draw fish, my dear?” he inquired.
“No, sir,” said Jan. “But I’ve drawn pigs and dogs, and I be mostly able to draw any thing I sees, I think.”
The Cheap Jack whistled. “Profiles pays well,” he murmured ”

“ Again, does ever the country look lovelier than when the snows of winter reluctantly make way for the first flowers of spring? Is ever the air more balmy or purer than when the young breath of summer, like a tender maiden, kisses timidly the cheek, and winds its way, like a blessing from above, to the weary heart? ”

“ Youth must have its pleasures, I know. Young blood is not torpid like that of age; and song and woman will ever be dear till time furrows the brow and silvers the hair. But why need we seek them where the air is contaminated—where the evening’s amusement will not bear the morning’s reflection—where, though pleasure lead the way, scattering sweet flowers, vice and shame and premature old age bring up the rear? ”

“ To a novel reading boy the position is one of instinct, like that of the bicycle racer. His eyes are strained, his nerves and muscles at tension—everything ready for excitement—and the book, lying open, leaves his hands perfectly free to drum on the sides of the chair, slap his legs and knees, fumble in his pockets or even scratch his head as emotion or interest demand. Does anybody deny that the highest proof of special genius is the possession of the instinct to adapt itself to the matter in hand? ”