Chapter Twenty-One--In Which I Leave Rivermouth
A letter with a great black seal!
I knew then what had happened as well as I know it now. But whichwas it, father or mother? I do not like to look back to the agony andsuspense of that moment.
My father had died at New Orleans during one of his weekly visits tothe city. The letter bearing these tidings had reached Rivermouth theevening of my flight--had passed me on the road by the down train.
I must turn back for a moment to that eventful evening. When I failedto make my appearance at supper, the Captain began to suspect that I hadreally started on my wild tour southward--a conjecture which Sailor Ben'sabsence helped to confirm. I had evidently got off by the train andSailor Ben had followed me.
There was no telegraphic communication between Boston and Rivermouthin those days; so my grandfather could do nothing but await the result.Even if there had been another mail to Boston, he could not have availedhimself of it, not knowing how to address a message to the fugitives.The post-office was naturally the last place either I or the Admiralwould think of visiting.
My grandfather, however, was too full of trouble to allow this to add tohis distress. He knew that the faithful old sailor would not let me cometo any harm, and even if I had managed for the time being to elude him,was sure to bring me back sooner or later.
Our return, therefore, by the first train on the following day did notsurprise him.
I was greatly puzzled, as I have said, by the gentle manner of hisreception; but when we were alone together in the sitting-room, and hebegan slowly to unfold the letter, I understood it all. I caught a sightof my mother's handwriting in the superscription, and there was nothingleft to tell me.
My grandfather held the letter a few seconds irresolutely, and thencommenced reading it aloud; but he could get no further than the date.
"I can't read it, Tom," said the old gentleman, breaking down. "Ithought I could."
He handed it to me. I took the letter mechanically, and hurried awaywith it to my little room, where I had passed so many happy hours.
The week that followed the receipt of this letter is nearly a blank inmy memory. I remember that the days appeared endless; that at timesI could not realize the misfortune that had befallen us, and my heartupbraided me for not feeling a deeper grief; that a full sense of myloss would now and then sweep over me like an inspiration, and I wouldsteal away to my chamber or wander forlornly about the gardens. Iremember this, but little more.
As the days went by my first grief subsided, and in its place grew upa want which I have experienced at every step in life from boyhood tomanhood. Often, even now, after all these years, when I see a lad oftwelve or fourteen walking by his father's side, and glancing merrilyup at his face, I turn and look after them, and am conscious that I havemissed companionship most sweet and sacred.
I shall not dwell on this portion of my story. There were many tranquil,pleasant hours in store for me at that period, and I prefer to turn tothem.
One evening the Captain came smiling into the sitting-room with an openletter in his hand. My mother had arrived at New York, and would bewith us the next day. For the first time in weeks--years, it seemed tome--something of the old cheerfulness mingled with our conversation roundthe evening lamp. I was to go to Boston with the Captain to meet her andbring her home. I need not describe that meeting. With my mother's handin mine once more, all the long years we had been parted appeared like adream. Very dear to me was the sight of that slender, pale womanpassing from room to room, and lending a patient grace and beauty to thesaddened life of the old house.
Everything was changed with us now. There were consultations withlawyers, and signing of papers, and correspondence; for my father'saffairs had been left in great confusion. And when these were settled,the evenings were not long enough for us to hear all my mother had totell of the scenes she had passed through in the ill-fated city.
Then there were old times to talk over, full of reminiscences of AuntChloe and little Black Sam. Little Black Sam, by the by, had been takenby his master from my father's service ten months previously, and put ona sugar-plantation near Baton Rouge. Not relishing the change, Sam hadrun away, and by some mysterious agency got into Canada, from whichplace he had sent back several indecorous messages to his late owner.Aunt Chloe was still in New Orleans, employed as nurse in one of thecholera hospital wards, and the Desmoulins, near neighbors of ours, hadpurchased the pretty stone house among the orange-trees.
How all these simple details interested me will be readily understood byany boy who has been long absent from home.
I was sorry when it became necessary to discuss questions more nearlyaffecting myself. I had been removed from school temporarily, but itwas decided, after much consideration, that I should not return, thedecision being left, in a manner, in my own hands.
The Captain wished to carry out his son's intention and send me tocollege, for which I was nearly fitted; but our means did not admit ofthis. The Captain, too, could ill afford to bear the expense, for hislosses by the failure of the New Orleans business had been heavy. Yet heinsisted on the plan, not seeing clearly what other disposal to make ofme.
In the midst of our discussions a letter came from my Uncle Snow,a merchant in New York, generously offering me a place in hiscounting-house. The case resolved itself into this: If I went tocollege, I should have to be dependent on Captain Nutter for severalyears, and at the end of the collegiate course would have no settledprofession. If I accepted my uncle's offer, I might hope to work myway to independence without loss of time. It was hard to give up thelong-cherished dream of being a Harvard boy; but I gave it up.
The decision once made, it was Uncle Snow's wish that I should enterhis counting-house immediately. The cause of my good uncle's haste wasthis--he was afraid that I would turn out to be a poet before he couldmake a merchant of me. His fears were based upon the fact that I hadpublished in the Rivermouth Barnacle some verses addressed in a familiarmanner "To the Moon." Now, the idea of a boy, with his living to get,placing himself in communication with the Moon, struck the mercantilemind as monstrous. It was not only a bad investment, it was lunacy.
'We adopted Uncle Snow's views so far as to accede to his propositionforthwith. My mother, I neglected to say, was also to reside in NewYork.
I shall not draw a picture of Pepper Whitcomb's disgust when the newswas imparted to him, nor attempt to paint Sailor Ben's distress at theprospect of losing his little messmate.
In the excitement of preparing for the journey I didn't feel any verydeep regret myself. But when the moment came for leaving, and I saw mysmall trunk lashed up behind the carriage, then the pleasantness of theold life and a vague dread of the new came over me, and a mist filled myeyes, shutting out the group of schoolfellows, including all the membersof the Centipede Club, who had come down to the house to see me off.
As the carriage swept round the corner, I leaned out of the window totake a last look at Sailor Ben's cottage, and there was the Admiral'sflag flying at half-mast.
So I left Rivermouth, little dreaming that I was not to see the oldplace again for many and many a year.
Chapter Twenty-Two--Exeunt Omnes
With the close of my school-days at Rivermouth this modest chronicleends.
The new life upon which I entered, the new friends and foes Iencountered on the road, and what I did and what I did not, are mattersthat do not come within the scope of these pages. But before I writeFinis to the record as it stands, before I leave it--feeling as if Iwere once more going away from my boyhood--I have a word or two to sayconcerning a few of the personages who have figured in the story, if youwill allow me to call Gypsy a personage.
I am sure that the reader who has followed me thus far will be willingto hear what became of her, and Sailor Ben and Miss Abigail and theCaptain.
First about Gypsy. A month after my departure from Rivermouth the Captaininformed me by letter that he had parted with the little mare, ac
cordingto agreement. She had been sold to the ring-master of a travellingcircus (I had stipulated on this disposal of her), and was about to setout on her travels. She did not disappoint my glowing anticipations, butbecame quite a celebrity in her way--by dancing the polka to slow musicon a pine-board ball-room constructed for the purpose.
I chanced once, a long while afterwards, to be in a country town whereher troupe was giving exhibitions; I even read the gaudily illuminedshow-bill, setting forth the accomplishments of Zuleika, the famedArabian Trick Pony--but I failed to recognize my dear little Mustanggirl behind those high-sounding titles, and so, alas, did not attend theperformance! I hope all the praises she received and all the spangledtrappings she wore did not spoil her; but I am afraid they did, for shewas always over much given to the vanities of this world!
Miss Abigail regulated the domestic destinies of my grandfather'shousehold until the day of her death, which Dr. Theophilus Tredicksolemnly averred was hastened by the inveterate habit she had contractedof swallowing unknown quantities of hot-drops whenever she fanciedherself out of sorts. Eighty-seven empty phials were found in abonnet-box on a shelf in her bedroom closet.
The old house became very lonely when the family got reduced to CaptainNutter and Kitty; and when Kitty passed away, my grandfather divided histime between Rivermouth and New York.
Sailor Ben did not long survive his little Irish lass, as he alwaysfondly called her. At his demise, which took place about six yearssince, he left his property in trust to the managers of a "Home for AgedMariners." In his will, which was a very whimsical document--written byhimself, and worded with much shrewdness, too--he warned the Trusteesthat when he got "aloft" he intended to keep his "weather eye" on them,and should send "a speritual shot across their bows" and bring them to,if they didn't treat the Aged Mariners handsomely.
He also expressed a wish to have his body stitched up in a shottedhammock and dropped into the harbor; but as he did not strenuouslyinsist on this, and as it was not in accordance with my grandfather'spreconceived notions of Christian burial, the Admiral was laid to restbeside Kitty, in the Old South Burying Ground, with an anchor that wouldhave delighted him neatly carved on his headstone.
I am sorry the fire has gone out in the old ship's stove in thatsky-blue cottage at the head of the wharf; I am sorry they have takendown the flag-staff and painted over the funny port-holes; for I lovedthe old cabin as it was. They might have let it alone!
For several months after leaving Rivermouth I carried on a voluminouscorrespondence with Pepper Whitcomb; but it gradually dwindled down to asingle letter a month, and then to none at all. But while he remainedat the Temple Grammar School he kept me advised of the current gossip ofthe town and the doings of the Centipedes.
As one by one the boys left the academy--Adams, Harris, Marden, Blake,and Langdon--to seek their fortunes elsewhere, there was less to interestme in the old seaport; and when Pepper himself went to Philadelphia toread law, I had no one to give me an inkling of what was going on.
There wasn't much to go on, to be sure. Great events no longerconsidered it worth their while to honor so quiet a place.
One Fourth of July the Temple Grammar School burnt down--set on fire, itwas supposed, by an eccentric squib that was seen to bolt into an upperwindow--and Mr. Grimshaw retired from public life, married, "and livedhappily ever after," as the story-books say.
The Widow Conway, I am able to state, did not succeed in enslaving Mr.Meeks, the apothecary, who united himself clandestinely to one of MissDorothy Gibbs's young ladies, and lost the patronage of Primrose Hall inconsequence.
Young Conway went into the grocery business with his ancient chum,Rodgers--RODGERS & CONWAY! I read the sign only last summer when I wasdown in Rivermouth, and had half a mind to pop into the shop and shakehands with him, and ask him if he wanted to fight. I contented myself,however, with flattening my nose against his dingy shop-window, andbeheld Conway, in red whiskers and blue overalls, weighing out sugar fora customer--giving him short weight, I'll bet anything!
I have reserved my pleasantest word for the last. It is touching theCaptain. The Captain is still hale and rosy, and if he doesn't relatehis exploit in the War of 1812 as spiritedly as he used to, he makes upby relating it more frequently and telling it differently every time!He passes his winters in New York and his summers in the Nutter House,which threatens to prove a hard nut for the destructive gentleman withthe scythe and the hour-glass, for the seaward gable has not yielded aclapboard to the eastwind these twenty years. The Captain has now becomethe Oldest Inhabitant in Rivermouth, and so I don't laugh at the OldestInhabitant any more, but pray in my heart that he may occupy the post ofhonor for half a century to come!
So ends the Story of a Bad Boy--but not such a very bad boy, as I toldyou to begin with.
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