Lemuel Barker

“ Lemuel let himself into Miss Vane's house with his key to the back gate, and sat down, still throbbing, in his room over the L, and tried to get the nature of his deed, or misdeed, before his mind. He had grown up to manhood in an austere reverence for himself as regarded the other sex, and in a secret fear, as exacting for them as it was worshipful of women. His mother had held all show of love-sickness between young people in scorn; she said they were silly things, when she saw them soft upon one another ”

“ Lemuel went through the next day in that licence of revolt which every human soul has experienced in some measure at some time. We look back at it afterwards, and see it a hideous bondage. But for the moment Lemuel rejoiced in it; and he abandoned himself boldly to thoughts that had hitherto been a furtive and trembling rapture.
In the afternoon, when he was most at leisure, he walked down to the Public Garden, and found a seat on a bench near the fountain where the Venus had shocked his inexperience the first time he saw her ”

“ For the rest, he learned that Lemuel was very much interested in the city, and appeared to be rapidly absorbing both its present civilisation and its past history. He was unsmilingly amused at the comments of mixed shrewdness and crudity which Lemuel was betrayed into at times beyond certain limits of diffidence that he had apparently set himself; at his blunders and misconceptions, at the truth divined by the very innocence of his youth and inexperience. ”

“ Set me as a seal on thine heart—”
“A, B, C, D.” began Lemuel. “Pshaw, now, 'Manda Grier, you stop!” pleaded Statira.
“You be still! Go on, Mr. Barker!—As a seal upon thine arm; for love is as strong as death—don't say the letters so fast—jealousy as cruel as the grave—don't look at S'tira; look at me!—the coals thereof are coals of fire—you're sayin' it too slow now—which hath a most vehement flame. I declare, S'tira Dudley, if you joggle me!—Many waters cannot quench love; neither can the floods drown it—you must put just so much time between every letter ”

“ Lemuel believed that they meant to cut off his leg. He knew that he had a right to refuse and to take the consequences, but he would not; he had no right to choose death, when he had others to live for.
He woke deathly sick at first, and found himself lying in bed, one of the two rows in a long room, where there were some quiet women in neat caps and seersucker dresses going about, with bowls of food and bottles of medicine. ”

“ Barker! That's all right. That's all I wanted to know. Never mind about where I meet my friends. Wherever it is, they're gentlemen; and they ain't generally goin' with three or four girls 't the same time.”
“No, one like you would be enough,” retorted Lemuel.
Statira sat cowering away from the quarrel, and making little ineffectual starts as if to stay it. Heretofore their enmity had been covert, if not tacit, in her presence.
Lemuel saw her wavering, and the wish to show 'Manda his superior power triumphed over every other interest and impulse in him. He got upon his feet. ”

“ It seemed to him that while he had seen no want of patience and kindness towards her in Lemuel, he had not seen the return of her fondness, which, silly as it was in some of its manifestations, he thought he should be glad of in him. Yet he was not sure. Barker was always so self-contained that he might very well feel more love for her than he showed; and, after all, Sewell rather weakly asked himself, was the love so absolutely necessary? ”

“ Barker,” cried 'Manda Grier, and Lemuel entered, more awkward and sheepish in his new suit from the Misfit Parlours than he had been before in his Willoughby Pastures best clothes. Statira merely said, “Why, Mr. Barker!” and stood at her chair where she rose. “You're quite a stranger. Won't you sit down?”
Lemuel sat down, and 'Manda Grier said politely, “Won't you let me take your hat, Mr. Barker?” and they both treated him with so much ceremony and deference that it seemed impossible he could ever have done such a monstrous thing as kiss a young lady like Miss Dudley ”

“ Barker. Give me your coat. Ah, I see you scorn the effeminacy of half-season things. Put your hat anywhere. The advantage of bachelors' quarters is that you can put anything anywhere. We haven't a woman on the premises, and you can fancy how unmolested we are.”
Lemuel had caught sight of one over the mantel, who had nothing but her water-colours on, and was called an “Etude;” but he no longer trembled, for evil or for good, in such presences. “That's one of those Romano-Spanish things,” said Bellingham, catching the direction of his eye. ”

“ If he had not been a man bent on repairing his wrong at any cost to others, he would hardly have taken the step he now contemplated without first advising with his wife, who, he felt sure, would have advised against it. His face did not brighten at all when Miss Vane came briskly in, with the “How d'ye do?” which he commonly found so cheering. She pulled up the blind and saw his knotted brow.
“What is the matter? You look as if you had got Lemuel Barker back on your hands.”
“I have,” said the minister briefly.
Miss Vane gave a wild laugh of delight. “You don't mean it!” ”

“ He backed round over the spacious floor and looked about him with an unfamiliar, marauding air, which had a certain boldness, but failed to impart courage to Lemuel, who trembled for fear of the unknown expense. But he was ashamed to go away, and when the man left him he went to bed, after some suspicious investigation of the machine he was to sleep in. He found its comfort unmistakable. He was tired out with what had been happening, and the events of the day recurred in a turmoil that helped rather than hindered slumber; none evolved itself distinctly enough from the mass to pursue him ”

“ It only heightened Lemuel's conception of Miss Carver's character to have Berry talk so lightly and daringly of her, in her relation to him. He lay long awake after he went to bed, and in the turmoil of his thoughts one thing was clear: so pure and high a being must never know anything of his shameful past, which seemed to dishonour her through his mere vicinity. He must go far from her, and she must not know why; but long afterwards Mr. Sewell would tell her, and then she would understand. ”

“ Lemuel broke out involuntarily in all the severity that was native to him. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”
This convulsed the bold things with laughter. When they could get their breath, one of them said, “Pshaw! I know what he's up for: preaching on the Common. Say, young feller! don't you want to hold a prayer-meetin' here?” ”

“ She used the greatest sympathy with the ladies, recognising a real sufferer in each, and not attempting to deny anything. From the dining-room came at times the sound of voices, which blended in a discord loud above the clatter of crockery, but Mrs. Harmon seemed not to hear them. An excited foreigner of some sort finally rushed from this quarter, and thrust his head into the booth where Lemuel and Mrs. Harmon sat, long enough to explode some formula of renunciation upon her, which left her serenity unruffled. ”

“ I know that Lemuel has self-control enough for all the tempers in the house, and so I feel perfectly calm in my wildest transports of fury.”
“I understand,” said Sewell. “And does Sibyl permit herself a similar excess in her fancies and ambitions?”
“Quite,” said Miss Vane. “I don't know that she consciously relies upon Lemuel to supplement her, any more than Jane does; but she must be unconsciously aware that no extravagance of hers can be dangerous while Lemuel is in the house.”
“Unconsciously aware is good. She hasn't got tired of reforming him yet?” ”

“ Lemuel sat silently thoughtful, fingering his hat-band. It seemed to Sewell that he wished to ask something else, and was mustering his courage; but if this was so, it exhaled in a sigh, and he remained silent.
“I should be sorry,” pursued the minister, “to have you dwell upon such things. There are certain ignoble facts in life which we can best combat by ignoring them. A slight of almost any sort ceases to be when you cease to consider it.” ”

“ Lemuel made no answer whatever for a time. Then, whether he judged it best to do so, or was goaded to the defiance by 'Manda Grier's manner, he replied, “Miss Swan and Miss Carver? Miss Swan is married, and lives in Wyoming Territory now.” Before he had reached the close of the sentence he had controlled himself sufficiently to be speaking quite calmly.
“Oh indeed, Mr. Barker! And may I ask where Miss Carver is? She merried and living in Wyoming Territory too?”
“No,” said Lemuel quietly. “She's not married. She's in Boston.” ”

“ Lemuel remained insensible to this extreme of self-sacrifice, and she went on: “This book—it is a story—is all one picture of such a nature. There is a girl who's been brought up as the ward of a young man. He educates her, and she expects to be his wife, and he turns out to be perfectly false and unworthy in every way; but she marries him all the same, although she likes some one else, because she feels that she ought to punish herself for thinking of another, and because she hopes that she will die soon, and when her guardian finds out what she's done for him, it will reform him. ”

“ This was her way of acknowledging the help Lemuel had given them every week, and it was casually sandwiched between an account of an Indian Spirit treatment which Reuben had tried for his rheumatism, and a question whether Lemuel had seen anything of that Mind Cure down to Boston.
But when he looked about the room, and saw here and there the simple comforts and necessaries which his money had bought the sick man and the two helpless women, his heart swelled with joy and pride; and he realised the pleasure we all feel in being a good genius. ”

“ A woman goes round with the scarlet fever in her clothes, and a whole carful of people take it home to their children; but let a nice young girl get in, fresh as an apple, and a perfect daisy for wholesomeness every way, and she don't give it to a single soul on board. No, sir; it's a world I can't see through, nor begin to.”
“I never thought of it that way,” said Lemuel, darkened by this black pessimism of the conductor. He had not, practically, found the world so unjust as the conductor implied, but he could not controvert his argument. ”

“ And I don't blame you for not wanting to be beaten by that ruffian; you could have stood no chance against him; and if you had thrashed him it wouldn't have been a great triumph.”
“I wish he had killed me,” said Lemuel from his dust-dry throat.
“Oh no; that's foolish,” said the elder, with patient, sad kindness. “Who knows whether death is the end of trouble? We must live things down, not die them down.” He put his arm caressingly across the boy's shoulder.
“I can never live this down,” said Lemuel. He added passionately, “I wish I could die!”
“No,” said Evans. “You must cheer up. ”

“ Let's judge each other. I've told you what my sin against Barker is, and I know yours in general terms. It's a fearful thing to be the cause of a human soul's presence in Boston; but what did you do to bring it about? Who is Barker? Where did he come from? What was his previous condition of servitude? He puzzles me a good deal.”
“Oh, I'll tell you,” said Sewell; and he gave his personal chapter in Lemuel's history.
Evans interrupted him at one point. “And what became of the poem he brought down with him?”
“It was stolen out of his pocket, one night when he slept in the common.” ”

“ He imitated the thin phantasmal squeak of the instrument in repeating a number of Miss Swan's characteristic phrases. “Yes, sir, a pocket phonograph is the thing I'm after.”
“I don't see how you can talk the way you do,” said Lemuel, shuddering inwardly at Berry's audacious freedom, and yet finding a certain comfort in it.
“That's just the way I felt myself at first. But you'll get over it as you go along. The nicest thing about their style of angel is that they're perfectly human, after all. You don't believe it now, of course, but you will.” ”

“ Lemuel started at the word and blushed. It was Berry's word. Sewell put his own construction on the start and the blush.
“Especially,” he went on, “I should wish any young man whom I was interested in to know refined and noble woman.” He felt that this was perhaps in Lemuel's case too much like prescribing port wine and carriage exercise to an indigent patient, and he added, “If you cannot know such women, it is better to know none at all. It is not what women say or do, so much as the art they have of inspiring a man to make the best of himself. ”

“ Miss Vane gave way again, and Sewell sat regarding her ruefully.
“What do you expect me to do?” She looked at him over her handkerchief, which she kept pressed against her mouth.
“I haven't the least idea what I expected you to do. I expected you to tell me. You have an inventive mind.”
Miss Vane shook her head. Her eyes grew serious, and after a moment she said, “I'm afraid I'm not equal to Lemuel Barker. Besides,” she added, with a tinge of trouble, “I have my problem, already.”
“Yes,” said the minister sympathetically. “How has the flower charity turned out?” ”

“ The Sunday evening before, she had heard an agnostic lecture in the Boston Theatre, and she said she wished to compare notes. Her tranquillity was unruffled by the fact that the head-waitress had left, just before tea; she presumed they could get along just as well without her as with her: the boarders had spoiled her, anyway. She looked round at Lemuel's face, which beamed with his happiness, and said she guessed she should have to get him to open the dining-room doors, and seat the transients the next few days, till she could get another head-waitress. ”