Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Jerome, A Poor Man

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He had the roots of the old trees carefully dug about and tended,
though not a dead limb lopped. Nurture, and not surgery, was the
doctrine of Squire Merritt. "Let the earth take what it gave," he
said; "I'll not interfere."

Jerome had heard these sayings of Squire Merritt's about the trees.
They had been repeated, because people thought such ideas queer and
showing lack of common-sense. He had heard them unthinkingly, but
now, standing on Squire Merritt's door-step, looking at his old tree
pensioners, whom he would not desert in their infirmity, he
remembered, and the great man's love for his trees gave him reason,
with a sudden leap of faith, to believe in his kindness towards him.
"I'm better than an old tree," reasoned Jerome, and raised the
knocker again boldly and let it fall with a great brazen clang. Then
he jumped and almost fell backward when the door was flung open
suddenly, and there stood Squire Merritt himself.

"What the devil--" began Squire Merritt; then he stopped and chuckled
behind his great beard when he saw Jerome's alarmed eyes. "Hullo,"
said he, "who have we got here?" Eben Merritt had a soft place in
his heart for all small young creatures of his kind, and always
returned their timid obeisances, when he met them, with a friendly
smile twinkling like light through his bushy beard. Still, like many
a man of such general kindly bearings, he could not easily compass
details, and oftener than not could not have told which child he
greeted.

Eben Merritt, outside his own family, was utterly impartial in
magnanimity, and dealt with broad principles rather than individuals.
Now he looked hard at Jerome, and could not for the life of him tell
what particular boy he was, yet recognized him fully in the broader
sense of young helplessness and timid need. "Speak up," said he;
"don't be scared. I know all the children, and I don't know one of
'em. Speak up like a man."

Then Jerome, stung to the resolution to show this great Squire, Eben
Merritt, that he was not to be classed among the children, but was a
man indeed, and equivalent to those duties of one which had suddenly
been thrust upon him, looked his questioner boldly in the face and
answered. "I'm Jerome Edwards," said he; "and Abel Edwards was my
father."

Eben Merritt's face changed in a minute. He looked gravely at the
boy, and nodded with understanding. "Yes, I know now," said he; "I
remember. You look like your father." Then he added, kindly, but
with a scowl of perplexity as to what the boy was standing there for,
and what he wanted: "Well, my boy, what is it? Did your mother send
you on some errand to Mrs. Merritt?"

Jerome scraped his foot, his manners at his command by this time, and
his old hat was in his hand. "No, sir," said he; "I came to see you,
sir, if you please, sir, and mother didn't send me. I came myself."

"You came to see me?"

"Yes, sir," Jerome scraped again, but his black eyes on the Squire's
face were quite fearless and steady.

Squire Eben Merritt stared at him wonderingly; then he cast an uneasy
glance at his fishing-pole, for he had come to the door with his
tackle in his hands, and he gave a wistful thought to the brooks
running through the young shadows of the spring woods, and the
greening fields, and the still trout-pools he had meant to invade
with no delay, and from which this childish visitor, bound probably
upon some foolish errand, would keep him. Then he found his own
manners, which were those of his good old family, courteous alike to
young and old, and rich and poor.

"Well, if you've come to see me, walk in, sir," cried Squire Merritt,
with a great access of heartiness, and he laid his fishing-tackle
carefully on the long mahogany table in the entry, and motioned
Jerome to follow him into the room on the left.

Jerome had never been inside the house before, but this room had a
strangeness of its own which made him feel, when he entered, as if he
had crossed the border of a foreign land. It was typically unlike any
other room in the village. Jerome, whose tastes were as yet only
imitative and departed not from the lines to which they had been born
and trained, surveyed it with astonishment and some contempt. "No
carpet," he thought, "and no haircloth sofa, and no rocking-chair!"

He stared at the skins of bear and deer which covered the floor, at
the black settle with a high carven back, at a carved chest of black
oak, at the smaller pelts of wolf and fox which decorated walls and
chairs, at a great pair of antlers, and even a noble eagle sitting in
state upon the top of a secretary. Squire Merritt had filled this
room and others with his trophies of the chase, for he had been a
mighty hunter from his youth.

"Sit down, sir," he told Jerome, a little impatiently, for he longed
to be away for his fishing, and the stupid abstraction from purpose
which unwonted spectacles always cause in childhood are perplexing
and annoying to their elders, who cannot leave their concentration
for any sight of the eyes, if they wish.

He indicated a chair, at which Jerome, suddenly brought to himself,
looked dubiously, for it had a fine fox-skin over the back, and he
wondered if he might sit on it or should remove it.

The Squire laughed. "Sit down," he ordered; "you won't hurt the
pelt." And then he asked, to put him at his ease, "Did you ever
shoot a fox, sir?"

"No, sir."

"Ever fire a gun?"

"No, sir."

"Want to?"

"Yes, sir."

Jerome did not respond with the ready eagerness which the Squire had
expected. He had suddenly resolved, in his kindness and pity towards
his fatherless state, knowing well the longings of a boy, to take him
out in the field and let him fire his gun, and change, if he could,
that sad old look he wore, even if he fished none that day; but
Jerome disappointed him in his purpose. "He hasn't much spirit," he
thought, and stood upon the hearth, before the open fireplace, and
said no more, but waited to hear what Jerome had come for.

The Squire was far from an old man, though he seemed so to the boy.
He was scarcely middle-aged, and indeed many still called him the
"young Squire," as they had done when his father died, some fifteen
years before. He was a massively built man, standing a good six feet
tall in his boots; and in his boots, thick-soled, and rusty with old
mud splashes, reaching high above his knees over his buckskin
breeches, Squire Eben Merritt almost always stood. He was scarcely
ever seen without them, except in the meeting-house on a Sunday--when
he went, which was not often. There was a tradition that he in his
boots, just home from a quail sortie in the swamp, had once invaded
the best parlor, where his wife had her lady friends to tea, and
which boasted a real Turkey carpet--the only one in town.

Eben Merritt in these great hunting-boots, clad as to the rest of him
in stout old buckskin and rough coat and leather waistcoat, with his
fair and ruddy face well covered by his golden furze of beard, which
hung over his breast, lounged heavily on the hearth, and waited with
a noble patience, eschewing all desire of fishing, until this pale,
grave little lad should declare his errand.

But Jerome, with the great Squire standing waiting before him, felt
suddenly tongue-tied. He was not scared, though his heart beat fast;
it was only that the words would not come.

The Squire watched him kindly with his bright, twinkling blue eyes
under his brush of yellow hair. "Take your time," said he, and threw
one arm up over the mantel-shelf, and stood as if it were easier for
him than to sit, and indeed it might have been so, for from his
stalking of woods and long motionless watches at the lair of game, he
had had good opportunities to accustom himself to rest at ease upon
his feet.

Jerome might have spoken sooner had the Squire moved away from before
him and taken his eyes from his face, for sometimes too ardent
attention becomes a citadel for storming to a young and modest soul.
However, at last he turned his own head aside, and his black eyes
from the Squire's keen blue eyes, and would then have spoken had not
the door opened suddenly and little Lucina come in on a run and
stopped short a minute with timid finger to her mouth, and eyes as
innocently surprised as a little rabbit's.

Lucina, being unhooded to-day, showed all her shower of shining
yellow curls, which covered her little shoulders and fell to her
childish waist. Her fat white neck and dimpled arms were bare and
gleaming through the curls, and she wore a lace-trimmed pinafore, and
a frock of soft blue wool scalloped with silk around the hem,
revealing below the finest starched pantalets, and little morocco
shoes.

Squire Eben laughed fondly, to see her start and hesitate, as a man
will laugh at the pretty tricks of one he loves. "Come here, Pretty,"
he cried. "There's nothing for you to be afraid of. This is only poor
little Jerome Edwards. Come and shake hands with him," and bade her
thus, thinking another child might encourage the boy.

With that Lucina hesitated no longer, but advanced, smiling softly,
with the little lady-ways her mother had taught her, and held out her
white morsel of a hand to the boy. "How do you do?" she said,
prettily, though still a little shyly, for she was mindful how her
gingerbread had been refused, and might not this strange poor boy
also thrust the hand away with scorn? She said that, and looking
down, lest that black angry flash of his eyes startle her again, she
saw his poor broken shoes, and gave a soft little cry, then made a
pitiful lip, and stared hard at them with wide eyes full of
astonished compassion, for the shoes seemed to her much more forlorn
than bare feet.

Jerome's eyes followed hers, and he sprang up suddenly, his face
blazing, and made out that he did not see the proffered little hand.
"Pretty well," he returned, gruffly. Then he said to the Squire, with
no lack of daring now, "Can I see you alone, sir?"

The Squire stared at him a second, then his great chest heaved with
silent laughter and his yellow beard stirred as with a breeze of
mirth.

"You don't object to my daughter's presence?" he queried, his eyes
twinkling still, but with the formality with which he might have
addressed the minister.

Jerome scowled with important indignation. Nothing escaped him; he
saw that Squire Merritt was laughing at him. Again the pitiful
rebellion at his state of boyhood seized him. He would have torn out
of the room had it not been for his dire need. He looked straight at
the Squire, and nodded stubbornly.

Squire Merritt turned to his little daughter and laid a tenderly
heavy hand on her smooth curled head. "You'd better run away now and
see mother, Pretty," he said. "Father has some business to talk over
with this gentleman."

Little Lucina gave a bewildered look up in her father's face, then
another at Jerome, as if she fancied she had not heard aright, then
she went out obediently, like the good and gentle little girl that
she was.

When the door closed behind her, Jerome began at once. Somehow, that
other child's compassion in the midst of her comfort and security had
brought his courage up to the point of attack on fate.

"I want to ask you about the mortgage," said Jerome.

The Squire looked at him with quick interest. "The mortgage on your
father's place?"

"Yes, sir."

"Doctor Prescott holds it?"

"Yes, sir."

"How much is it?"

"A thousand dollars." Jerome said that with a gasp of horror and
admiration at the vastness of it. Sometimes to him that thousand
dollars almost represented infinity, and seemed more than the stars
of heaven. His childish brain, which had scarcely contemplated in
verity more than a shilling at a time of the coin of the realm,
reeled at a thousand dollars.

"Well?" observed Squire Merritt, kindly but perplexedly. He wondered
vaguely if the boy had come to ask him to pay the mortgage, and
reflected how little ready money he had in pocket, for Eben Merritt
was not thrifty with his income, which was indeed none too large, and
was always in debt himself, though always sure to pay in time.
Chances were, if Squire Merritt had had the thousand dollars to hand
that morning, he might have thrust it upon the boy, with no further
parley, taken his rod and line, and gone forth to his fishing. As it
was, he waited for Jerome to proceed, merely adding that he was sorry
that his mother did not own the place clear.

The plan that the boy unfolded, clumsily but sturdily to the end, he
had thought out for himself in the darkness of the night before. The
Squire listened. "Who planned this out?" he asked, when Jerome had
finished.

"I did."

"Who helped you?"

"Nobody did."

"Nobody?"

"No, sir."

Suddenly Squire Eben Merritt seated himself in the chair which Jerome
had vacated, seized the boy, and set him upon his knee. Jerome
struggled half in wrath, half in fear, but he could not free himself
from that strong grasp. "Sit still," ordered Squire Eben. "How old
are you, my boy?"

"Goin' on twelve, sir," gasped Jerome.

"Only four years older than Lucina. Good Lord!"

The Squire's grasp tightened tenderly. The boy did not struggle
longer, but looked up with a wonder of comprehensiveness in the
bearded face bent kindly over his. "He looks at me the way father use
to," thought Jerome.

"What made you come to me, my boy?" asked the Squire, presently. "Did
you think I could pay the mortgage for you?"

Then Jerome colored furiously and threw up his head. "No, _sir_,"
said he, proudly.

"Why, then?"

"I came because you are a justice of the peace, and know what law is,
and--"

"And what?"

"I've always heard you were pleasanter-spoken than he was."

The Squire laughed. "Pleasant words are cheap coin," said he. "I wish
I had something better for your sake, child. Now let me see what it
is you propose. That wood-lot of your father's, you say, Doctor
Prescott has offered three hundred dollars for."

"Yes, sir."

The Squire whistled. "Didn't your father think it was worth more than
that?"

"Yes, sir, but he didn't think he could get any more. He said--"

"What did he say?"

"He said that a poor seller was the slave of a rich buyer; but I
think--" Jerome hesitated. He was not used yet to expressing his
independent thought.

"Go on," said the Squire.

"I think it works both ways, and the poor man is the slave either
way, whether he buys or sells," said the boy, half defiantly, half
timidly.

"I guess you're about right," said the Squire, looking at him
curiously. "Ever hear your uncle Ozias Lamb say anything like that?"

"No, sir."

"Thought it yourself, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, let's get to business now," said the Squire. "What you want is
this, if I understand it. You want Doctor Prescott to buy that
wood-lot of your father's for three hundred dollars, or whatever over
that sum he will agree to, and you don't want him to pay you money
down, but give you his note for it, with interest at six per cent.,
for as long a term as he will. You did not say give you a note,
because you did not know about it, but that is what you want."

Jerome nodded soberly. "I know father paid interest at six per cent.,
and it was sixty dollars a year, and I know it would be eighteen
dollars if it was three hundred dollars instead of a thousand. I
figured it out on my slate," he said.

"You are right," said the Squire, gravely. "Now you think that will
bring your interest down to forty-two dollars a year, and maybe you
can manage that; and if you cannot, you think that Doctor Prescott
will pay you cash down for the wood-lot?"

The boy seemed to be engaged in an arithmetical calculation. He bent
his brows, and his lips moved. "That would be over seven years'
interest money, at forty-two dollars a year, anyway," he said at
length, looking at the Squire with shrewdly innocent eyes.

Suddenly Eben Merritt burst into a great roar of laughter, and struck
the boy a kindly slap upon his small back.

"By the Lord Harry!" cried he, "you've struck a scheme worthy of the
Jews. But you need good Christians to deal with!"

Jerome started and stared at him, half anxiously, half resentfully.
"Ain't it right, sir?" he stammered.

"Oh, your scheme is right enough; no trouble about that. The question
is whether Doctor Prescott is right."

Eben Merritt burst into another roar of laughter as he arose and set
the boy on his feet. "I am not laughing at you, my boy," he said,
though Jerome's wondering, indignant eyes upon his face were, to his
thinking, past humorous.

Then he laid a hand upon each of the boy's little homespun shoulders.
"Go and see Doctor Prescott, and tell him your plan, and--if he does
not approve of it, come here and let me know," he said, and seriously
enough to suit even Jerome's jealous self-respect.

"Yes, sir," said Jerome.

"And," added the Squire, "you had better go a little after noon--you
will be more likely to find him at home."

"Yes, sir."

"Are you afraid to go out alone after dark?" asked the Squire.

"No, sir," replied Jerome, proudly.

"Well, then," said the Squire, "come and see me this evening, and
tell me what Doctor Prescott says."

"Yes, sir," replied Jerome, and bobbed his head, and turned to go.
The Squire moved before him with his lounging gait, and opened the
door for him with ceremony, as for an honored guest.

Out in the south entry, with her back against the opposite wall, well
removed from the south-room door, that she might not hear one word
not intended for her ears, stood Lucina waiting, with one little
white hand clinched tight, as over a treasure. When her father came
out, following Jerome, she ran forward to him, pulled his head down
by a gentle tug at his long beard, and whispered. Squire Eben laughed
and smoothed her hair, but looked at her doubtfully. "I don't know
about it, Pretty," he whispered back.

"Please, father," she whispered again, and rubbed her soft cheek
against his great arm, and he laughed again, and looked at her as a
man looks at the apple of his eye.

"Well," said he, "do as you like, Pretty." With that the little
Lucina sprang eagerly forward before Jerome, who, hardly certain
whether he were dismissed or not, yet eager to be gone, was edging
towards the outer door, and held out to him her little hand curved
into a sweet hollow like a cup of pearl, all full of silver coins.

Jerome looked at her, gave a quick, shamed glance at the little
outstretched hand, colored red, and began backing away.

But Lucina pressed forward, thrusting in his very face her little
precious cup of treasure. "Please take this, boy," said she, and her
voice rang soft and sweet as a silver flute. "It is money I've been
saving up to buy a parrot. But a parrot is a noisy bird, mother says,
and maybe I could not love it as well as I love my lamb, and so its
feelings would be hurt. I don't want a parrot, after all, and I want
you to take this and buy some shoes." So said little Lucina Merritt,
making her sweet assumption of selfishness to cover her
unselfishness, for the noisy parrot was the desire of her heart, and
to her father's eyes she bore the aspect of an angel, and he
swallowed a great sob of mingled admiration and awe and intensest
love. And indeed the child's face as she stood there had about it
something celestial, for every line and every curve therein were as
the written words of purest compassion; and in her innocent blue eyes
stood self-forgetful tears.

Even the boy Jerome, with the pride of poverty to which he had been
born and bred, like a bitter savor in his heart, stared at her a
moment, his eyes dilated, his mouth quivering, and half advanced his
hand to take the gift so sweetly offered. Then all at once the full
tide of self rushed over him with all its hard memories and
resolutions. His eyes gave out that black flash of wrath, which the
poor little Lucina had feared, yet braved and forgot through her fond
pity, he dashed out the back of his hand so roughly against that
small tender one that all the silver pieces were jostled out to the
floor, and rushed out of the door.

Squire Eben Merritt made an indignant exclamation and one threatening
stride after him, then stopped, and caught up the weeping little
Lucina, and sought to soothe her as best he might.

"Never mind, Pretty; never mind, Pretty," he said, rubbing his rough
face against her soft one, in a way which was used to make her laugh.
"Father 'll buy you a parrot that will talk the roof off."

"I don't--want a parrot, father," sobbed the little girl. "I want the
boy to have shoes."

"Summer is coming, Pretty," said Squire Eben, laughingly and
caressingly, "and a boy is better off without shoes than with them."

"He won't--have any--for next winter."

"Oh yes, he shall. I'll fix it so he shall earn some for himself
before then--that's the way, Pretty. Father was to blame. He ought to
have known better than to let you offer money to him. He's a proud
child." The Squire laughed. "Now, don't cry any more, Pretty. Run
away and play. Father's going fishing, and he'll bring you home some
pretty pink fishes for your supper. Don't cry any more, because poor
father can't go while you cry, and he has been delayed a long time,
and the fishes will have eaten their dinner and won't bite if he
doesn't hurry."

Lucina, who was docile even in grief, tried to laugh, and when her
father set her down with a great kiss, which seemed to include her
whole rosy face pressed betwixt his two hands, picked up her rejected
silver from the floor, put it away in the little box in which she
kept it, and sat down in a window of the south room to nurse her
doll. She nodded and laughed dutifully when her father, going forth
at last to the still pools and the brook courses, with his tackle in
hand, looked back and nodded whimsically at her.

However, her childish heart was sore beyond immediate healing, for
the wounds received from kindness spurned and turned back as a weapon
against one's self are deep.

Chapter VII

In every household which includes a beloved child there is apt to be
one above another, who acts as an intercessor towards furthering its
little plans and ends. Little Lucina's was her father. Her mother was
no less indulgent in effect, but she was anxiously solicitous lest
too much concession spoil the child, and had often to reconcile a
permission to her own conscience before giving it, even in trivial
matters.

Therefore little Lucina, having in mind some walk abroad or childish
treasure, would often seek her father, and, lifting up her face like
a flower against his rough-coated breast, beg him, in that small,
wheedling voice which he so loved, to ask her mother that she might
go or have; for well she knew, being astute, though so small and
innocent and gentle, that such a measure was calculated to serve her
ends, and allay her mother's scruples through a shift of
responsibility.

However, to-day, since her father was away fishing, Lucina was driven
to seek other aid in the carrying out of a small plan which she had
formed for her delectation.

Right anxiously the child watched for her father to come home to the
noonday dinner; but he did not come, and she and her mother ate
alone. Then she stole away up-stairs to her little dimity-hung
chamber, opening out of her parents' and facing towards the sun, and
all twinkling and swaying with little white tassels on curtains and
covers and counterpane, in the draught, as she opened the door. Then
she went down on her knees beside her bed and prayed, in the
simplicity of her heart, which would seek a Heavenly Father in lieu
of an earthly one, for all her small desires, and think no
irreverence: "Our Father, who art in heaven, please make mother let
me go to Aunt Camilla's this afternoon. Amen."

Then she rose, with no delay for lack of faith, and went straight
down to her mother, and proffered her request timidly, and yet with a
confidence as of one who has a larger voice of authority at her back.

"Please, mother, may I go over to Aunt Camilla's this afternoon?"
asked little Lucina.

And her mother, not knowing what principle of childish faith was
involved, hesitated, knitting her small, dark face, which had no look
like Lucina's, perplexedly.

"I don't know, child," said she.

"Please, mother!"

"I am afraid you'll trouble your aunt, Lucina."

"No, I won't, mother! I'll take my doll, and I'll play with her real
quiet."

"I am afraid your aunt Camilla will have something else to do."

"She can do it, mother. I won't trouble her--I won't speak to
her--honest! Please, mother."

"You ought to sit down at home this afternoon and do some work,
Lucina."

"I'll take over my garter-knitting, mother, and I'll knit ten times
across."

It happened at length, whether through effectual prayer, or such
skilful fencing against weak maternal odds, that the little Lucina,
all fresh frilled and curled, with her silk knitting-bag dangling at
her side, and her doll nestled to her small mother-shoulder, stepping
with dainty primness in her jostling starched pantalets, lifting each
foot carefully lest she hit her nice morocco toes against the stones,
went up the road to her aunt Camilla's.

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