The Fortunes of Oliver Horn Part 17

Riley's: 8 p.m. Third floor back.

The following week he packed his two tin boxes, boarded the Scotia, and sailed for home.

The keystone having dropped out, it was not long before the balance of the structure came down about the ears of the members. My Lord c.o.c.kburn the following week was ordered South by the bank to look after some securities locked up in a vault in a Georgia trust company, and which required a special messenger to recover them--the growing uneasiness in mercantile circles over the political outlook of the country having a.s.sumed a serious aspect. c.o.c.kburn had to swim rivers, he wrote Oliver in his first letter, and cross mountains on horseback, and sleep in a negro hut, besides having a variety of other experiences, to say nothing of several hair-breadth escapes, none of which availed him, as he returned home after all, without the bonds.

These financial straws, indicating the direction and force of the coming political winds, began to acc.u.mulate. The lull before the hurricane--the stagnation in commercial circles--became so ominous that soon the outside members and guests of the club ceased coming, being diligently occupied in earning their bread, and then Simmons sent the piano home--it had been loaned to him by reason of his profession and position--and only Fog-horn Cranch, Waller, Fred, Oliver, and Ruffle-s.h.i.+rt Tomlins were left. Alter a while, Waller gave up his room and slept in his studio and got his meals at the St. Clair, or went without them, so light, by reason of the hard times, was the demand for sheep pictures of Waller's particular make. And later on Tomlins went abroad, and Cranch moved West. And so the ruin of the club was complete; and so, too, this merry band of roysterers, with one or two exceptions, pa.s.ses out of those pages.

Dear boys of the long ago, what has become of you all since those old days in that garret-room on Union Square? Tomlins, I know, turned up in Australia, where he married a very rich and very lovely woman, because he distinctly stated both of those facts in an exuberant letter to Oliver when he invited him to the wedding. "Not a bad journey--only a step, my dear Ollie, and we shall be so delighted to see you." I know this, to be true, for Oliver showed me the letter. Bowdoin went to Paris, where, as we all remember, he had a swell studio opening on to a garden, somewhere near the Arc de Triomphe, and had carriages stop at his door, and a butler to open it, and two maids in white caps to help the ladies off with their wraps. Poor Cranch died in Montana while hunting for gold, and my Lord c.o.c.kburn went back to London.

But does anybody know what has become of McFudd--irresistible, irresponsible, altogether delightful McFudd? that condensation of all that was joyous, rollicking, and spontaneous; that devotee of the tub and pink of neatness, immaculate, clean-shaven and well-groomed; that soul of good-nature, which no number of flowing bowls could disturb nor succeeding headaches dull; that most generous of souls, whose first impulse was to cut squarely in half everything he owned and give you your choice of the pieces, and who never lost his temper until you refused them both. If you, my dear boy, are still wandering about this earth, and your eye should happen to fall on these pages, remember, I send you my greeting. If you have been sent for, and have gone aloft to cheer those others who have gone before, and who could spare you no longer, speak a good word for me, please, and then, perhaps, I may shake your hand again.

With the dissolution of the happy coterie there came to Oliver many a lonely night under the cheap lamp, the desolate hall outside looking all the more desolate and uninviting with the piano gone and the lights extinguished.

Yet these nights were not altogether distasteful to Oliver. Fred had noticed for months that his room-mate no longer entered into the frolics of the club with the zest and vim that characterized the earlier days of the young Southerner's sojourn among them. Our hero had said nothing while the men had held together, and to all outward appearances had done his share not only with his singing, but in any other way in which he could help on the merriment. He had covered the s.p.a.ce allotted to him on the walls with caricatures of the several boarders below. He had mixed the salad at Riley's the night of McFudd's farewell supper, with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and the cook's cap on his head. He had lined up with the others at Brown's on the Bowery; drank his "crystal c.o.c.ktails"--the mildest of beverages--and had solemnly marched out again with his comrades in a lock-step like a gang of convicts. He had indulged in forty-cent opera, leaning over the iron railing of the top row of the Academy of Music, and had finished the evening at Pfaff's, drinking beer and munching hardtack and pickles, and had laughed and sung in a dozen other equally absurd escapades. And yet it was as plain as daylight to Fred that Oliver's heart was no longer centred in the life about him.

The fact is, the scribe is compelled to admit, the life indulged in by these merry bohemians had begun to pall upon this most sensitive of young gentlemen. It really had not satisfied him at all. This was not the sort of life that Mr. Crocker meant, he had said to himself after a night at Riley's when Cranch had sounded his horn so loud that the proprietor had threatened to turn the whole party into the street. Mr.

Crocker's temperament was too restful to be interested in such performances. As for himself, he was tired of it.

Nothing of all this did he keep from his mother. The record of his likes and dislikes which formed the subject-matter of his daily letters was an absorbing study with her, and she let no variation of the weather-vane of his tastes escape her. Nor did she keep their contents from her intimate friends. She had read to Colonel Clayton one of his earlier ones, in which he had told her of the concerts and of the way c.o.c.kburn had served the brew that McFudd had concocted, and had shown him an ill.u.s.tration Oliver had drawn on the margin of the sheet--an outline of the china mug that held the mixture--to which that Chesterfield of a Clayton had replied:

"What did I tell you, madame--just what I expected of those Yankees--punch from mugs! Bah!"

She had, too, talked their contents over with Amos Cobb, who, since the confidence reposed in him by the Horn family, had become a frequent visitor at the house.

"There's no harm come to him yet, madame, or he wouldn't write you of what he does. Boys will be boys. Let him have his fling," the Vermonter had replied with a gleam of pleasure in his eye. "If he has the stuff in him that I think he has, he will swim out and get to higher ground; if he hasn't, better let him drown early. It will give everybody less trouble."

The dear lady had lost no sleep over these escapades. She, too, realized that as long as Oliver poured out his heart unreservedly to her there was little to fear. In her efforts to cheer him she had sought, in her almost daily letters sent him in return, to lead his thoughts into other channels. She knew how fond he had always been of the society of women, and how necessary they were to his happiness, and she begged him to go out more. "Surely there must be some young girls in so great a city who can help to make your life happier," she wrote.

In accordance with her suggestions, he had at last put on his best clothes and had accompanied Tomlins and Fred to some very delightful houses away up in Thirty-third Street, and another on Was.h.i.+ngton Square, and still another near St. Mark's Place, where his personality and his sweet, sympathetic voice had gained him friends and most pressing invitations to call again. Some he had accepted, and some he had not--it depended very largely on his mood and upon the people whom he met. If they reminded him in any way, either in manners or appointments, of his life at home, he went again--if not, he generally stayed away.

Among these was the house of his employer, Mr. Slade, who had treated him with marked kindness, not only inviting him to his own house, but introducing him to many of his friends--an unusual civility Oliver discovered afterward--not many of the clerks being given a seat at Mr.

Slade's table. "I like his brusque, hearty manner," Oliver wrote to his mother after the first visit. "His wife is a charming woman, and so are the two daughters, quite independent and fearless, and entirely different from the girls at home, but most interesting and so well bred."

Another incident, too, had greatly pleased not only Oliver and his mother, but Richard as well. It happened that a consignment of goods belonging to Morton, Slade & Co. was stored in a warehouse in Charleston, and it became necessary to send one of the clerks South to res.h.i.+p or sell them, the ordinary business methods being unsafe, owing to the continued rumblings of the now rapidly approaching political storm--a storm that promised to be infinitely more serious than the financial stringency. The choice had fallen on Oliver, he being a Southerner, and knowing the ways of the people. He had advised with his mother and stood ready to leave at an hour's notice, when Mr. Slade's heart failed him.

"It's too dangerous, my lad," he said to Oliver. "I could trust you, I know, and I believe you would return safely and bring the goods or the money with you, but I should never forgive myself if anything should happen to you. I will send an older man." And he did.

It was at this time that Oliver had received c.o.c.kburn's letter telling him of his own experiences, and he, therefore, knew something of the risks a man would run, and could appreciate Mr. Slade's action all the more. Richard, as soon as he heard of it, had put down his tools, left his work-bench, and had gone into his library, where he had written the firm a letter of thanks, couched in terms so quaint and courtly, and so full of generous appreciation of their interest in Oliver, that Mr.

Slade, equally appreciative, had worn it into ribbons in showing it to his friends as a model of style and chirography.

Remembering his mother's wishes, and in appreciation of his employer's courtesy, he had kept up this intimacy with the Slade family until an unfortunate catastrophe had occurred, which while it did not affect his welcome at their house, ruined his pleasure while there.

Mr. Slade had invited Oliver to dinner one rainy night, and, being too poor to pay for a cab, Oliver, in attempting to cross Broadway, had stepped into a mud-puddle a foot deep. He must either walk back and change his shoes and be late for dinner--an unpardonable offence--or he must keep on and run his chances of cleaning them in the dressing-room.

There was no dressing-room available, as it turned out, and the fat English butler had to bring a wet cloth out into the hall (oh! how he wished for Malachi!) and get down on his stiff knees and wipe away vigorously before Oliver could present himself before his hostess, the dinner in the meantime getting cold and the guests being kept waiting.

Oliver could never look at those shoes after that without s.h.i.+vering.

This incident had kept him at home for a time and had made him chary of exposing himself to similar mortifications. His stock of clothes at best was limited--especially his shoes--and as the weather continued bad and the streets impa.s.sable, he preferred waiting for clearer skies and safer walking. So he spent his nights in his room, crooning over the c.o.ke fire with Fred, or all alone if Fred were at the Academy, drawing from the cast.

On these nights he would begin to long for Kennedy Square. He had said nothing yet about returning, even for a day's visit. He knew how his mother felt about it, and he knew how he had seen her struggle to keep the interest paid up on the mortgage and to meet the daily necessities of the house. The motor was still incomplete, she wrote him, and success was as far off as ever. The mortgage had again been extended and the note renewed--this time for a longer term, owing to some friend's interest in the matter whose name she could not learn. She, therefore, felt no uneasiness on that score, although there were still no pennies which could be spared for Olivers travelling expenses, even if he could get leave of absence from his employers.

At these times, as he sat alone in his garret-room, Malachi's chuckle, without cause or reminder would suddenly ring in his ears, or some low strain from his father's violin or a soft note from Nathan's flute would float through his brain. "Dear Uncle Nat," he would break out, speaking aloud and springing from his chair--"I wish I could hear you tonight."

His only relief while in these moods was to again seize his pen and pour out his heart to his mother or to his father, or to Miss Clendenning or old Mr. Crocker. Occasionally he would write to Sue--not often--for that volatile young lady had so far forgotten Oliver as to leave his letters unanswered for weeks at a time. She was singing "Dixie," she told him in her last billet-doux, now a month old, and wondering whether Oliver was getting to be a Yankee, and whether he would be coming home with a high collar and his hair cut short and parted in the middle.

His father's letters in return did not lessen his gloom. "These agitators will destroy the country, my son, if they keep on," Richard had written in his last letter. "It is a sin against civilization to hold your fellow-men in bondage, and that is why years ago I gave Malachi and Hannah and the others their freedom, but Virginia has unquestionably the right to govern her internal affairs without consulting Ma.s.sachusetts, and that is what many of these Northern leaders do not or will not understand. I am greatly disturbed over the situation, and I sincerely hope your own career will not be affected by these troubles. As to my own affairs, all I can say is that I work early and late, and am out of debt." Poor fellow! He thought he was.

Oliver was sitting thus one night, his head in his hands, elbows on his knees, gazing into the smouldering coals of his grate, his favorite att.i.tude when his mind was troubled, when Fred, his face aglow, his big blue eyes dancing, threw wide the door and bounded in, bringing in his clothes the fresh, cool air of the night. He had been at work in the School of the Academy of Design, and had a drawing in chalk under his arm--a head of the young Augustus.

"What's the matter, Ollie, got the blues?"

"No, Freddie, only thinking."

"What's her name? I'll go and see her and make it up. Out with it--do I know her?"

Oliver smiled faintly, examined the drawing for a moment, and handing it back to Fred, said, sadly, "It's not a girl, Freddie, but I don't seem to get anywhere."

Fred threw the drawing on the bed and squeezed himself into the chair beside his chum, his arm around his neck.

"Where do you want to get, old man? What's the matter--any trouble at the store?"

"No--none that I know of. But the life is so monotonous, Fred. You do what you love to do. I mark boxes all day till lunch-time, then I roll them out on the sidewalk and make out dray tickets till I come home.

I've been doing that all winter; I expect to be doing it for years.

That don't get me anywhere, does it? I hate the life more and more every day."

(Was our hero's old love of change again a.s.serting itself, or was it only the pinching of that Chinese shoe which his mother in her anxiety had slipped on his unresisting foot, and which he was still wearing to please her? Or was it the upper pressure of some inherent talent--some gift of his ancestors that would not down at his own bidding or that of his mother or anybody else's?)

"Somebody's got to do it, Ollie, and you are the last man hired,"

remarked Fred, quietly. "What would you like to do?"

Oliver s.h.i.+fted himself in the crowded chair until he could look into his room-mate's eyes.

"Fred, old man," he answered, his voice choking, "I haven't said a word to you about it all the time I've been here, for I don't like to talk about a thing that hurts me, and so I've kept it to myself. Now I'll tell you the truth just as it is. I don't want Mr. Slade's work nor anybody else's work. I don't like business and never will. I want to paint, and I'll never be happy until I do. That's it, fair and square."

"Well, quit Slade, then, and come with me."

"I would if it wasn't for mother. I promised her I would see this through, and I will." As he spoke the overdue mortgage and his mother's efforts to keep the interest paid pa.s.sed in review before him.

Fred caught his breath. It astonished him, independent young Northerner as he was, to hear a full-grown man confess that his mother's'

ap.r.o.n-strings still held him up, but he made no comment.

"Why not try both?" he cried. "There's a place in the school alongside of me--we'll work together nights. It won't interfere with what you do downtown. You'll get a good start, and when you have a day off in the summer you can do some out-door work. Waller has told me a dozen times that you draw better than he did when he commenced. Come along with me."

This conversation, with the other incidents of the day, or rather that part of it which had reference to the Academy, was duly set forth in his next letter to his mother--not as an argument to gain her consent to his studying with Fred, for he knew it was the last thing she would agree to--but because it was his habit to tell her everything. It would show her, too, how good a fellow Fred was and what an interest he took in his welfare. Her answer, three days later, sent him bounding upstairs and into their room like a whirlwind.

"Read, Fred, read!" he cried. "I can go. Mother says she thinks it would be the best thing in the world for me. Here, clap your eyes on that--" and Oliver held the letter out to Fred, his finger pointing to this pa.s.sage: "I wish you would join Fred at the Academy. Now that you have a regular business that occupies your mind, and are earning your living, I have no objection to your studying drawing or learning any other accomplishment. You work hard all day, and this will rest you."