Smiley

“ He was a handsome man, of fine figure, with a bronzed complexion, dark eyes, and hair always becomingly tossed up, owing to a slight wave in it, and a springy quality it had of its own. The sun and sea-air, while they had bronzed his face, had imparted to his cheeks that rich glow which is often the only thing lacking to make a dark face beautiful. Looking at him, one could hardly help catching something of his glow, if only through admiration of it. Mrs. Smiley's sudden color was possibly to be accounted for on this ground. ”

“ Smiley looked up with a suffused face. "Mr. Chillis," she answered, "you make me ashamed of myself and my selfishness. Let us never refer to this subject again. Work don't hurt me; and since you have offered to provide for Willie's education, you have lifted half my burden. Why should you stand at a distance to see me happier than I am, when I am so happy as to have such a friend as you? How am I to be happier by your being at a distance, who have been the kindest of friends? ”

“ Matilda-Jane Simpkins, for that was Brown Smiley's whole long name, thought so any way, for she stood stock still, staring, and the only thing she could collect herself enough to say was, "Lor'!"
But her state of stupefaction only lasted half a moment. She was a practical and business-like little person; before there was time for another cry for help, she had disentangled the umbrella and its owner, and set the latter on her feet again, sobbing piteously, and dreadfully dirty and muddy, but otherwise not much the worse. ”

“ On the wooden settee reclined a man thirty years his junior—Chillis was over sixty, though he did not look it—sleeping the heavy, stupid sleep of intoxication. The old hunter did not stand upon ceremony, nor hesitate to invade the sleeper's privacy, but marched up to the settee, his ragged old blanket-coat dripping tiny streams from every separate tatter, and proceeded at once roughly to arouse the drunken man by a prolonged and vigorous shaking.
"Wha'er want? Lemme 'lone," grumbled Smiley, only dimly conscious of what was being said or done to him. ”

“ Chillis, last evening, but I expect him home to-night."
"Poor old Joe! He takes a great deal of comfort with the boy. And no wonder!—he is a charming child, worthy such parentage,"—glancing at his companion's face.
"I am glad when anything of mine gives Mr. Chillis pleasure," returned Mrs. Smiley, looking straight ahead. "I teach Willie to have a great respect and love for him. It is the least we can do."
Rumway noticed the inclusive we, and winced. "He is a strange man," he said, by way of answer.
"A hero!" cried Mrs. Smiley firmly. ”

“ Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most any thing and I believe him. ”

“ To think that, after writing many an article a man might be excused for thinking tolerably good, those New York people should single out a villainous backwoods sketch to compliment me on!—"Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog"—a squib which would never have been written but to please Artemus Ward. ”

“ Chillis?" The gray eyes watched him steadily.
"I did say, there would be a sou'-wester uncommon severe; but Rumway laughed at me for prophesyin' in his company. Besides, I was in a hurry to get off, myself, and wouldn't argue with 'em. Smiley's a man to take his own way pretty much, too." ”

“ Yet, self-contained as his usual expression was, his face was capable of vivid illuminations, and striking changes of aspect, under the influence of feelings either pleasant or painful. In the shadow of the rose-vines, and the gathering twilight, it would have been impossible to discern, by any change of feature, what his meditations might be now.
"The moon is full to-night," said Mrs. Smiley, bringing out her low rocker and placing it near her friend. "It will be glorious on the river, and all the 'young folks' will be out, I suppose."
"Did not Rumway ask you to go? ”

“ If he even seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico, but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to him—he would bet on any thing—the dangest feller. ”

“ Chillis, the water is really coming into the house!"
"Yes, I reckoned that it would," returned the old man, calmly, rising from the table and returning to the hearth. "That is the nicest supper I've had for these dozen years; and it has done me good, too. I was a little wore out with pullin' over the bay, agin the wind."
Mrs. Smiley looked at him curiously, and then at the water splashing in under the door. He understood her perfectly.
"A wettin' wouldn't hurt you, though it would be disagreeable, an' I should be sorry to have you put to that inconvenience. ”

“ And the women of the place had all taken to making much of Joe Chillis, in consideration of his conduct during that memorable time, and of his sufferings in consequence; for he was laid up a long while afterward with that hurt in his shoulder, and the consequences of his exposure. Mrs. Smiley always treated him with the highest respect, and did not conceal that she had a great regard for him, if he was nothing but an old mountain man, who had had a squaw wife ”

“ He is sly—monstrous sly, sir. Miss Magruder teaches there, too. Parker seems to be determined to have her, and I hope he may be successful, but I don't think he will be, I'm sorry to say."
It was evident that Smiley had not heard the news, and I did not enlighten him.
"Some men have a fitness for that kind of work, and some haven't. There was poor Bergner, a friend of mine. He took a class in a Sunday-school at Carlisle while we were stationed there. The first Sunday he told the scholars a story about a boy named Simms. ”

“ But I shall spile your floor, ef I do. I'm a perfect sponge, not fit to come near a lady, nohow. I thought," he added, as he closed the door and advanced to the hearth, "that I would jest stop an' see ef I could do anything for you, seein' as I guessed you'd be alone, and mebbe afeard o' the storm an' the high tide. Ladies mostly is afeard to be alone at sech times"—untying the yellow cotton handkerchief and throwing his sodden hat upon the stone hearth.
"Do you think there is any danger?" asked Mrs. Smiley, embarrassed, yet anxious. ”

“ Why, even in this wurld taint no good beatin’ an’ bastin’ yer childern wi’ out ye throws in a word o’ hope to sweeten it.”
p. 60“I think as how ye be right,” said Samuel Smiley, who was a trimmer by nature, and felt sure of his way now that he had a majority to follow. “An’ I gives my vote for ‘O ’twas a joyful sound to hear,’ an’ some o’ they other lively tunes what leaves ye wi’ an appetite for your vittles and doesn’t curdle the very food in yer stomach wi’ terror. An’ ye can tell yer wife, Mr. ”

“ There was not the vestige of a smile on her face. "Good kind soul! she does not join in the vulgar mirth of these unfeeling creatures!" thought the unhappy Silky. "She pities me, and pity is akin to love." It did not strike him that there might be another reason for her gravity. The spilled tea and greasy cheesecake had spoiled her white muslin dress irremediably, for that night at least—a circumstance calculated certainly to make any young lady melancholy enough; but this never entered the brain of Mr Simon Silky. Happy man!
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." ”

“ His tongue had found the hair—a sort of contempt of court. But who—where? In the gallery—body of the court—Counsel's bench? No—no! That large woman with the full blown face—the mother—she had smiled! Hardly the moment for a mother to smile; and the smile itself—his mental eye isolated it on those full lips and swimming blue eyes; it had a queer, concentrated meaning, a sort of threatening quizzicality, a—yes, altogether, a piece of infernal impertinence! If it had occurred again, he would have had the court cleared of—h'm—well!—a smile! ”

“ The bouncing soldier lad, I wis, Can never snatch disputed kiss! The dancing maid at first smiles at her self-styled lover, "Makes eyes" at him, but ne'er a word does utter; She only leaped the faster! Marcel, piqued to the quick, longed to subdue this creature, He wished to show before the crowd what love he bore her; One open kiss were sweeter far Than twenty in a corner! But, no! his legs began to fail, his head was in a trance, He reeled, he almost fell, he could no longer dance; Now he would give cockade, sabre, and silver lace, Would it were gold indeed, for her embrace! ”

“ Men's glances are supposed sometimes to divest women of their clothes; this woman's smile divested Mr. Justice Belliver, not exactly of his clothes, but of his self-possession, self-importance, almost of his self-control. He was ashamed to stop, turn round or cross the road; he just walked and stood it, his nerves quivering, his face flushed; and all the time he could see that the woman was extremely pleased with the effect of her smile. ”

“ He is well known as a fearless rider, and risks his neck with the greatest pleasure. If I were Lady Scilly, I should much prefer him to George, though not to Simon. His chest is broader than George’s, and he is taller than Simon, but then she isn’t married to either of those. Marriage is like the rennet you put into the junket—it turns it! ”

“ After twenty years an employer was going to court disaster by trying to flirt with her.
Mr Meggs went on smiling. You cannot classify smiles. Nothing lends itself so much to a variety of interpretations as a smile. Mr Meggs thought he was smiling the sad, tender smile of a man who, knowing himself to be on the brink of the tomb, bids farewell to a faithful employee. Miss Pillenger's view was that he was smiling like an abandoned old rip who ought to have been ashamed of himself. ”

“ Sylvia paused for a moment, and then answered: 'A quiet spirit.' And the Fairy granted her request.
This lovely gift makes life a constant happiness to its possessor, and to all who are brought into contact with her. She has all the beauty of gentleness and contentment in her sweet face; and if at times it seems less lovely through some chance grief or disquietude, the hardest thing that one ever hears said is:
'Sylvia's dear face is pale to-day. ”

“ I don’t think George will ever be asked again, but I don’t wonder Lady Scilly was able to get hold of Simon. She doesn’t frown over her décolleté bodices, and she is amusing in her silly way. Simon hangs round like one of those young fox-hound puppies “at walk” that one sees in the villages, and Lord Scilly looks after his future and got him into the Foreign Office. I believe, though, Lord Scilly twigs about Ariadne caring for him, that Lady Scilly doesn’t, or else she would not let him out so freely. She would be like most teachers and insist on her pupil’s finishing his term. ”

“ The wrinkles that made it were deeply marked, which suggested that Evasio Mon had learnt to smile when he was quite young. He had, perhaps, been taught.
And, after all, a man may as well show a smile to the world as a worried look, or a mean look, or one of the countless casts of countenance that are moulded by conceit and vanity. A smile is frequently misconstrued by the simple-hearted into the outward sign of inward kindness. Many think that it conciliates children and little dogs. ”

“ Half bashfully, almost shyly, the baron put his little son into her arms.
The mother folded the baby to her heart, held her right arm over it as if to protect it, and said firmly and decidedly—
“If you do not give me that certainty here, this very day, then you have held my child for the last time in your arms, you have kissed me for the last time, you have crossed my threshold for the last time to-day. Then I shall consider you a man who——”
“Jenny!”
“Truth has sharp edges, Mundy, but it cannot cut an honest, honourable man. I ask you to answer my questions plainly and decisively. ”

“ The dirtiest places on the steps met with a half-hearted scrub or two before he reeled up the hose. A moment later, with the rake over one shoulder, and the lawn mower trailing noisily behind him, he set off to find Silvey.
A noisy whistle in front of his chum's house brought no answer. An ear-splitting clamor of "Oh, Silvey-e-e-e; Oh, Silvey-e-e-e, come on out. Come on out!" brought his mother to the door.
"Bill's gone down town with his father," she said crossly. "Won't be back until dinner time."
Shucks; everything was going wrong. If Silvey wasn't on hand, he'd have to pitch in alone. ”

“ Nothing but comfort and respectability ever seemed able to make Fred gloomy. He discussed our present prospects with the air of an epicure ordering dinner. And Monty listened with his dark, delightful smile—the kindliest smile in all the world. I have seen unthoughtful men mistake it for a sign of weakness. ”

“ Half the time you might ransack Wallencamp from top to bottom, and you'd find everybody a'most somewhere, and nobody to hum! It ain't much like the cake Silvy made last week—she's crazier than ever—'Where's the raisins, Silvy?' says I—I always make it chock full of 'em, and there wasn't one,—'Oh,' says Silvy, 'I mixed 'em up so thorough you can't a hardly find 'em.' 'I guess that's jest about the way the Lord put the idees into your head, Silvy,' says I. 'Bless the Lord!' says that poor fool, as slow and solemn as a minister. ”

“ There was no print like that either."
"Well, then, that proves them innocent, don't it?" asked Smithy. "For my part now, fellows, I rather took to that man who sat here, and drank his coffee. He's no hobo, I give you my word. His hands may look soiled, but under it all they're decent enough to belong to a gentleman."
"Hey! listen to Smithy, would you?" exclaimed Step-hen, as if surprised. "Now, I never knew he had such a way of figgering out things. If he keeps on like that, he'll leave us all in the lurch, fellers." ”