Uncle David

“ He brings me flowers, and gets me taxi-cabs as if I were really a grown up young lady, and he pinches my nose and teases me as if I were still the little girl that kept house in a studio for him. I never realized before what a good-looking man he is. I used to think that Uncle Peter was the only handsome man of the three, but now I realize that they are all exceptionally good-looking. Uncle David has a great deal of distinction, of course, but Uncle Jimmie is merry and radiant and vital, and tall and athletic looking into the bargain. ”

“ As he and Reuben, driving their new sheep, mounted the last edge of the moor which separated them from home, the Kinder Valley lay before them, sparkling in a double radiance of morning and of spring. David lingered a minute or two behind his uncle. What a glory of light and freshness in the air—what soaring larks—what dipping swallows! And the scents from the dew-steeped heather—and the murmur of the blue and glancing stream! ”

“ As a builder, he made conscience of every stone he laid. It was remarked in the place, that the walls built by Uncle David never bulged or fell; and no apprentice or journeyman of his was permitted, on any plea, to make "slight wark." Though by no means a bold or daring man, he was, from sheer abstraction, when engrossed in his employment, more thoroughly insensible to personal danger than almost any other individual I ever knew. ”

“ We sent for Uncle David who came over on Sunday to spend a night with his brothers and in the argument which followed, I began to sense in him a spirit of restlessness, a growing discontent which covered his handsome face with a deepening shadow. He disliked being tied down to the dull life of the farm, and his horse-power threshing machine no longer paid him enough to compensate for the loss of time and care on the other phases of his industry. ”

“ Manners is very like someone I used to know years ago," she answered with a sigh. "When he spoke, I declare the sound of his voice gave me quite a shock, and I could have almost thought it was my brother David, especially when he was talking to his little girl!"
"Is Mr. Manners really like Uncle David?" Nellie enquired eagerly. "If so, I think I should love Uncle David dearly!"
Mrs. Maple smiled, but her face remained thoughtful, and all that evening she was puzzling over the wonderful likeness between Una's father and her lost brother. ”

“ Dear Carin, while I was merely considering in a vague, abstract way whether or not I should be able to marry the man of Uncle David’s choice, it was not so hard. He might, by some possibility, choose the right man. But that young man I wrote you of when I was p. 239abroad, is expected here soon. His father and Uncle David went to the University of Virginia together, and he is all that Uncle David thinks a man should be. He is a fine fellow, too, Gerald Hargreaves is. I concede that. I want him to be happy—with someone else. He is cultivated, handsome, rich, gracious and good-tempered. ”

“ He said that he had such a headache that he was going to bed. Uncle David tells him that men do not have headaches. Sometimes I think Robert is afraid of Uncle David. I've scolded him, but it does no good. There are times when I almost don't like Uncle David myself—though I do love him. He is a wonderful man.”
McGuire affirmed that he was. ”

“ She mourned with a passionate sorrow her loss, and though Uncle David came at once to assist her in the necessary arrangements, she suffered no hand but her own to do the last kind offices for her dear dead. And oh! how empty and lonely was now the little cottage, while the swift return to all the ordinary duties of life seemed such a cruel effacement. Uncle David watched her silently, but on the evening of the third day after the funeral he said, kindly:
"Dry your eyes, Jean. There is naething to weep for. Your mother is far beyond tears." ”

“ We shall both lie low before long in the dust, yet a spring shall come hereafter to revive even ‘the ashes of the urn.’ Then, uncle David, we meet again,—not as now, amidst sorrow and suffering, with death and separation before us,—but blessed by the consciousness that our sins are forgiven,—our trials all ended,—and that our afflictions which were but for a moment, have worked out for us a far more exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory. ”

“ Uncle David came to see us several times during the spring and his talk was all about "going west." He was restless under the conditions of his life on a farm. I don't know why this was so, but a growing bitterness clouded his voice. Once I heard him say, "I don't know what use I am in the world. I am a failure." This was the first note of doubt, of discouragement that I had heard from any member of my family and it made a deep impression on me. ”

“ My one first cousin died when she was a baby, and Aunt Madeleine died too—out in India—so poor Uncle David has been alone ever since. But he's always fearfully busy; he goes about superintending railways and building bridges. He has a whole army of coolies under him sometimes, and they have to take the lines through jungles where there are tigers, and snakes, and things. ”

“ This tall man, however, he begins to perceive, has points, and strong ones, of dissimilarity, notwithstanding his general resemblance to Mr. Longcluse. His beard and hair are red; his shoulders are broader, and very round; much clumsier and more powerful he looks; and there is an air of vulgarity and swagger and boisterous good spirits about him, certainly in marked contrast with Mr. Longcluse's very quiet demeanour.
Uncle David now finds himself in that uncomfortable state of oscillation between two opposite convictions which, in a matter of supreme importance, amounts very nearly to torture. ”

“ The girls hurried back as fast as they could, but this time they missed the cross altogether. There is nothing so easy as to get lost in a fog on the moors. Thoroughly frightened, they called to Uncle David, but they could hear nothing in reply. They wandered on, hoping he would sound the hooter and so give them some clue to his whereabouts, but everything was deadly still. It seemed as if a great white wall had arisen and shut them up in some elfin castle on the moor.
"We're pixie-led. That's just all about it," said Merle. ”

“ Here is a terrible organ of breaking dolls and destroying frocks. There is a very small bump of liking uncle David, and a prodigious one of liking almonds and raisins!”
“No! you are quite mistaken! It is the largest bump for loving uncle David, and the small one for every thing else,” interrupted Laura, eagerly. “I shall draw a map of my head some day, to show you how it is all divided.”
“And leave no room for any thing naughty or foolish! Your head should be swept out, and put in order every morning, that not a single cobweb may remain in your brains. ”

“ And he believed all those absurdities, David wanted to know? Impossible! No honest man could, thought the lad defiantly, with the rising colour of crude and vehement feeling, when his attention had been once challenged, and he had developed mind enough to know what the challenge meant.
Except, perhaps, Uncle Reuben and Dora Lomax, and people like that. He stood thinking and staring out of window, one idea leading to another. The thought of Reuben brought with it a certain softening of mood—the softening of memory and old association. ”

“ Somebody be?” asked uncle David, smiling. “A foolish person that spoils you both I dare say, and gives you large slices of bread and jelly like this. Hold them carefully! Now, good bye, and joy be with you.”
But it was with rather rueful faces that Harry and Laura left the room, wishing they might have remained another [95] hour to talk nonsense with uncle David, and dreading to think what new scrapes and difficulties they would get into in the nursery, which always seemed to them a place of torture and imprisonment. ”

“ Get out o' my house, you sinfu' lad!" Then, with a great cry he smote his hands together and bowed his head upon them, weeping slow, heavy drops, that came each with a separate pang. His agony touched David, though he scarcely comprehended it. Not all at once is the tender conscience seared, and the tender heart hardened.
"Uncle," he said in a maudlin, hesitating way, which it would be a sin to imitate—"Uncle John, I'm not drunk, I'm in trouble; I'm in trouble, Uncle John. Don't cry about me. I'm not worth it." ”

“ Put Marcia out of your mind, David. We will talk of other things."
David leaned forward in his chair. His eyes were bright, his tone eager.
"Let us have this out, uncle," he begged. "I've been thinking of it—perhaps as much as you lately. They may have been wrong, those two; they may be sinners, but, after all, the world isn't a place for holy people only. The Bible tells you that. For nearly twenty years he has stood by her and cared for her. There has been no meanness, no backing out on his part. He is as much to her to-day as ever he was." ”

“ Uncle David and his mother had a terrible fight over them. I was sorry for Madam Bolling in a way. There was a girl she wanted Uncle David to marry, a rich girl who looked something like Cleopatra, very dark complexioned with burning 162 eyes. She had a sweet little Pekinese something like Zaidee.
“Uncle David said that gold could never buy him, and to take her away, but Madam Bolling was very angry, of course. She accused him of wanting to marry Aunt Margaret, and called her a characterless, faded blonde. ”

“ We are going to dine here, and then go to the theater together. I am going to try to tell him how I feel about things, but I am afraid he won’t give me the chance. Life is a strange mixture of things you want and can’t have, and things you can have and don’t want. It seems almost disloyal to put that down on paper about Uncle David. I do want him and love him, but oh!—not in that way. Not in that way. There is only one person in a woman’s life that she can feel that way about. Why—why—why doesn’t my Uncle Peter come to me? ”

“ I told Madam Bolling that I would help her to get Uncle David back, and I did, but she never forgave the other aunts and uncles. I suppose the feelings of a mother would prompt her to want Uncle David settled down with a rich and fashionable girl who would soon be the mother of a lot of lovely children. I can’t imagine a Cleopatra looking baby, but she might have boys that looked like Uncle David.
“Vacations are really about all there is to school. Freshman year is mostly grinding and stuffing. Having six parents to send you boxes 163 of ‘grub’ is better than having only two. ”

“ Uncle Roger’s smiling picture, with the favourite horse and the greyhound, looking down from above the mantel.
Then they would talk a little about her mother and Aunt Flora and Sylvia, and then David would say unexpectedly: “I’ve thought of a wonderful solution for you and all your troubles, dear old Gay. I want you to marry me.” And when David reached this point in his dream, he had to stop short. An odd, happy sort of suffocation would envelop him, something that had nothing to do with love, but that seemed sheer emotion, by a realization of the poignant dramatic beauty of the scene. ”

“ But Uncle John said: “No, I don’t think that the limekiln is even half as old as my house. What we are looking for is something not built with stones and without walls of any sort.”
Then David ran away, and he shouted out; and when they went to where he was, they found him [7] standing in a sort of pit dug in the ground, about the depth that David could stand in up to his shoulders, and about twice as wide across as Uncle John’s walking-stick could measure. ”

“ A little dialogue occurred here, which highly interested Uncle David. A stout gentleman, with a muddy and melancholy countenance, and a sad suavity of manner, and in the perennial mourning that belongs to gentlemen of his doleful profession, presents himself to David Arden, to receive his instructions respecting the deceased baronet's obsequies. ”

“ David, suddenly stifled, threw open the cottage window. When he came back into the little circle of lamp-light, his face was pale and set. He was filled with a premonition of evil.
"I want you to listen to me, uncle," he said earnestly. "I have something to say."
"Something to say?" the old man repeated. "Another time, my boy—-another time. To-night you have work to do," he added, with a fierce flash of triumph in his eyes.
"Work?"
"Aye!—to keep your oath."
"But to-night? What can I do to-night?" David exclaimed. "No, don't tell me," he went on quickly. "I'll have my say first." ”

“ He had it the first night I saw him, when Uncle David brought me to show me to my foster parents for the first time. It was the thing I grew up by, and measured men and their attitude to women by—just that look in his eyes, that tender warm look of consideration.
“It means a good many things, I think,—a gentle generous nature, and a tender chivalrous heart. It means selflessness. It means being a good man, and one who protects by sheer unselfish instinct. I don’t know how I shall ever heal him of the hurt he has done Aunt Beulah. ”

“ He gave my hand a little squeeze under the table—we were at tea—and I felt my heart warm up. When I think that Uncle David loves me it brightens up everything; but he is a quiet man and does not say much. He likes to go his own way and amuse himself after his own fashion, and he doesn’t wish to be bothered all of the time by paying attention to those around him. As for Aunt Lorena, she takes life as it comes. She is very philosophical and patient and proud, and she sinks back into her easy feminine place and doesn’t question anything. ”