On the other hand, the Hopes and the Barrys had always been great friends; and, from some odd freak of unlikeness, Sylvie and Irene Lawrence carried on the intimacy.
She stopped now, and talked about the kitten with Jack; and he carried her milk-pail home to the gate.
It was a long, wearisome vacation to poor Jack. Fishing lost its charm, even tramps in the woods became monotonous. He spent hours in his father's shop, inspecting machinery, though he seldom asked a question or ventured upon a remark. Indeed, some of the hands thought "Darcy's boy wasn't over-bright." Yet here he laid the foundation of the problem that was to vex and puzzle his soul in after-years. Here was the great, whirring machinery, belts, bands, spindles, looms, and oftentimes a stupid and stolid enough workman at one end, grinding out luxury and elegance for David Lawrence, Esq.; that his family might tread on Wilton and Axminster, dine from silver and crystal, dress in silks and velvets, drive about with high-stepping bays, and scorn all beneath them. Once as Jack was thinking it over he laughed aloud.
"You must feel very much amused," said a rather sour-looking man standing near by, with a peculiar touchiness as if he had been laughed at.
"No, I wasn't amused, I was only thinking" – But Jack stopped in the middle of his sentence. Could this man take any such position as that of Mr. Lawrence?
Then he came across a volume of self-made men, which he eagerly devoured. Every one seemed to have commenced life without a dollar, and almost without friends. Were those the important factors in the race, to be light-weighted? And he had a triple chain.
Fred returned, handsomer than ever, and doubly glad to get back to Jack. There was just four days grace. They revisited old haunts, talked endlessly and to little purpose, like so much of the talk of youth, and now they were parting at the gate for the last time. Unlike girls they exchanged no vows or kisses. It is not in boy-nature to be effusive.
"To think that I shall not be home until Christmas! If only you were going with me, Jack, what jolly times we would have!"
"I could have gone," answered Jack with some pride, "that is, if I had been prepared. Father was willing, and grandmother would have been proud enough;" and just then Jack wondered why going to seek his fortune appeared so much more terrible to them.
"Well, why not, Jack?" with impetuous eagerness. "It isn't too late."
"I don't want the years of study. I should come to hate the sight of a book. No, I'll find out where I belong, some day. Don't worry about me," with an abrupt laugh.
"But I am so sorry!" Then they looked into each other's eyes. All these years had been filled with such good, honest boy-love.
"Good-by, old chap!" cried Jack suddenly; for the wrench must come, and lingering over it was painful. "I shall miss you lots! it seems so queer to be without you! Of course you'll succeed: there's no use wishing about that."
"It's a good wish from you, Jack. Good-by. I hate awfully to say it: I hate to think that our jolly boyish frolics are over."
"But we'll have many a good row on the river, and tramps through the woods. We can't outgrow every thing. And there'll be summers and summers."
"Good-by."
The gate-latch clicked: Jack walked rapidly down the street, whistling "Kathleen Mavourneen" unconsciously. Did he dream the simple faith of boyhood had reached its culmination, and was henceforth to wane?
"Dear old Jack," thought Fred: "I don't know as he is quite Launcelot, though I used to think so at first. But there was Sir Gawain and Sir Bedevere and a host of worthies, and if he only would he could come up to the highest. What makes him so obstinate and unambitious, I wonder? Are there any King Arthurs and loyal knights nowadays, or only common men and women?"
His sisters opened upon him with the fatal persistency of narrow feminine natures.
"You may say what you like about Jack Darcy," he flung out angrily, "but you'll never make me give him up, – never, never!"
"Do hush, children," interposed Mrs. Lawrence. "Fred, I hope you will learn to modulate your voice, and not shriek so."
Sylvie put on her hat to go home. As she passed Fred she said just above her breath, —
"You are right and brave. I wouldn't give up my friend because he was poor; and Jack is so nice!"
"Much she knows about it," thought Fred, with a true boyish disdain. Yet her approval of Jack was a virtue in his eyes.
CHAPTER II
"Father!" exclaimed Jack a few days after this parting from his bosom friend, "I think I will go in the mill for a year or two, if there is any thing for me to do. Meanwhile my inspiration may come along."
"But what would you like best, Jack?"
"That's just the trouble," and the youthful brows knit in perplexity. "All things seem alike to me: I haven't any choice."
Mr. Darcy drew a long breath that was almost a sigh. If Jack only would evince some preference!
However, a place was found as under-bookkeeper. It was desperately tiresome to Jack to sit perched on a high stool all day; and after three months of it he begged to be put at something else.
At this period we had gone through our costly civil war; and, instead of being exhausted as friends and enemies predicted, the machinery of business appeared to have been set in motion with a new and overwhelming impetus. Every thing was wanted; everybody had work or money; and the most useless commodity found a purchaser: as if our anguish had crazed us, and we went into a delirium of mental opium, and dreamed wild, exhilarating dreams which we mistook for reality.
Yerbury had been a slow, solid, conservative town. Property was low, taxes light and easily paid, a balance on hand in the treasury to commence the new year, and very little pauperism in the town. Yerbury officials utilized their inefficient population, and their county jail was not made a palace of luxury. The old-fashioned element in the place held crime as the result of sin instead of occult disease, – a thing to be punished, rather than petted. It had good railroad connections, plenty of water, with one navigable stream, and a variety of industries. Iron, shoes, hats, paper, and clothing were manufactured to a considerable extent, to say nothing of many smaller branches. Hope Mills was the largest, the focus of the town, and had the prestige of being handed down through three generations, though never as extensive as now.
Toward the west there was a succession of pretty hills that lay in the broad sunshine, making you think somehow of Spanish slopes, covered with vineyards, olives, and luxuriant verdure. Over beyond, a wide, diversified country range, farms, woodland, hills and valleys, with a branch of the river winding through, called, rather unromantically, Little Creek.
On these slopes, the new part, dwelt the aristocracy. Streets wound around in picturesque fashion to make easy grades, and many old forest-trees were preserved by that means, giving the place an air of years, rather than yesterday and improvement. There were two pretty parks, – one devoted to Fourth-of-July orations from time immemorial; there were churches of every denomination; a boarding and day school for young ladies, the academy, some excellent district schools; a hall with library and reading-room; a bank; rows of attractive shops and stores; and, coming down in the scale of refinement, beer-saloons and concert-halls, kept generally up to a certain point of morality. There were so many laboring-men, and they must have something by way of entertainment.
It struck Jack with a curious wonder. These stolid faces and plodding steps were part of the human machines out of which wealth was being ground. They went to the beer-shops at night in their dirty clothes, smelling of grease and dye, drank beer, played a few games, and harangued each other, and went home maudlin or stupefied. Perhaps it was more comfortable than the slatternly wives and crying children. Did it need to be so? If you gave the workingman a helping hand, did he turn straightway into an unreasoning demagogue?
He was not likely to