Mercy Philbrick's Choice Part 8

Still injudicious and unlike himself, Stephen answered, "Yes, I think I shall enjoy it very much, and I think you will enjoy it more than I shall; for you may see great deal of her. I have only seen her once, you know."

"I don't suppose she will care any thing about me," replied Mrs. White, with an emphasis on the last personal p.r.o.noun which spoke volumes. "Very few people do."

Stephen made no reply. It had just dawned on his consciousness that he had been blundering frightfully, and his mind stood still for a moment, as a man halts suddenly, when he finds himself in a totally wrong road. To turn short about is not always the best way of getting off a wrong road, though it may be the quickest way. Stephen turned short about, and exclaimed with a forced laugh, "Well, mother, I don't suppose it will make any great difference to you, if she doesn't. It is not a matter of any moment, anyhow, whether we see any thing of either of them or not. I thought she seemed a bright, cheery sort of body, that's all. Good-by," and he ran out of the house.

Mrs. White lay for a long time with her eyes fixed on the wall. The expression of her face was of mingled perplexity and displeasure. After a time, these gave place to a more composed and defiant look. She had taken her resolve, had marked out her line of conduct.

"I won't say another word to Stephen about her," she thought. "I'll just watch and see how things go. Nothing can happen in this house without my knowing it."

The mischief was done; but Mrs. White was very much mistaken in the last clause of her soliloquy.

Meantime, Mercy was slowly walking towards the village, revolving her own little perplexities, and with a mind much freer from the thought of Stephen White than it had been for four weeks. Mercy was in a dilemma.

Their clock was broken, hopelessly broken. It had been packed in too frail a box; and heavier boxes placed above it had crashed through, making a complete wreck of the whole thing,--frame, works, all. It was a high, old-fas.h.i.+oned Dutch clock, and had stood in the corner of their sitting-room ever since Mercy could recollect. It had belonged to her father's father, and had been her mother's wedding gift from him.

"It's easy enough to get a clock that will keep good time," thought Mercy, as she walked along; "but, oh, how I shall miss the dear old thing! It looked like a sort of belfry in the corner. I wonder if there are any such clocks to be bought anywhere nowadays?" She stopped presently before a jeweller's and watchmaker's shop in the Brick Row, and eagerly scrutinized the long line of clocks standing in the window. Very ugly they all were,--cheap, painted wood, of a s.h.i.+ning red, and tawdry pictures on the doors, which ran up to a sharp point in a travesty of the Gothic arch outline.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Mercy, involuntarily aloud.

"Bless my soul! Bless my soul!" fell suddenly upon her ear, in sharp, jerking syllables, accompanied by clicking taps of a cane on the sidewalk.

She turned and looked into the face of her friend, "Old Man Wheeler," who was standing so near her that with each of his rapid s.h.i.+ftings from foot to foot he threatened to tread on the hem of her gown.

"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Glad to see ye. Missed your face. How're ye gettin' on? Gone into your house? How's your mother? I'll come see you, if you're settled. Don't go to see anybody,--never go! never go! People are all wolves, wolves, wolves; but I'll come an' see you. Like your face,--good face, good face. What're you lookin' at? What're you lookin'

at? Ain't goin' to buy any thin' out o' that winder, be ye? Trash, trash, tras.h.!.+ People are all cheats, cheats," said the old man, breathlessly.

"I'm afraid I'll have to, sir," replied Mercy, vainly trying to keep the muscles of her face quiet. "I must buy a clock. Our clock got broken on the way."

"Broken? Clock broken? Mend it, mend it, child. I'll show you a good man, not this feller in here,--he's only good for outsides. Holler sham, holler sham! What kind o' clock was it?"

"Oh, that's the worst of it. It was an old clock my grandfather brought from Holland. It reached up to the ceiling, and had beautiful carved work on it. But it's in five hundred pieces, I do believe. A heavy box crushed it. Even the bra.s.s work inside is all jammed and twisted. Our things came by sea," replied Mercy.

"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Come on, come on! I'll show you," exclaimed the eccentric old man, starting off at a quick pace. Mercy did not stir.

Presently, he looked back, wheeled, and came again so near that he nearly trod on her gown.

"Bless my soul! Didn't tell her,--bad habit, bad habit. Never do make people understand. Come on, child,--come on! I've got a clock like yours.

Don't want it. Never use it. Run down twenty years ago. Guess we can find it. Come on, come on!" he exclaimed.

"But, Mr. Wheeler," said Mercy, half-frightened at his manner, yet trusting him in spite of herself, "do you really want to sell the clock?

If you have no use for it, I'd be very glad to buy it of you, if it looks even a little like our old one. I will bring my mother to look at it."

"Fine young woman! fine young woman! Good face. Never mistaken in a face yet. Don't sell clocks: never sold a clock yet. I'll give yer the clock, if yer like it. Come on, child,--come on!" and he laid his hand on Mercy's arm and drew her along.

Mercy held back. "Thank you, Mr. Wheeler," she said. "You're very kind.

But I think my mother would not like to have you give us a clock. I will buy it of you; but I really cannot go with you now. Tell me where the clock is, and I will come with my mother to see it."

The old man stamped his foot and his cane both with impatience. "Pshaw!

pshaw!" he said: "women all alike, all alike." Then with an evident effort to control his vexation, and speak more slowly, he said, "Can't you see I'm an old man, child? Don't pester me now. Come, on, come on! I tell you I want to show yer that clock. Give it to you 's well 's not. Stood in the lumber-room twenty years. Come on, come on! It's right up here, ten steps." And again he took Mercy by the arm. Reluctantly she followed him, thinking to herself, "Oh, what a rash thing this is to do! How do I know but he really is crazy?"

He led the way up an outside staircase at the end of the Brick Row, and, after fumbling a long time in several deep pockets, produced a huge rusty iron key, and unlocked the door at the head of the stairs. A very strange life that key had led in pockets. For many years it had slept under Miss Orra White's maidenly black alpacas, and had been the token of confinement and of release to scores of Miss Orra's unruly pupils; then it had had an interval of dignified leisure, lifted to the level of the Odd Fellows regalia, and only used by them on rare occasions. For the last ten years, however, it had done miscellaneous duty as warder of Old Man Wheeler's lumber-room. If a key could be supposed to peep through a keyhole, and speculate on the nature of the service it was rendering to humanity, in keeping safe the contents of the room into which it gazed, this key might have indulged in fine conjectures, and have pa.s.sed its lifetime in a state of chronic bewilderment. Each time that the door of this old storehouse opened, it opened to admit some new, strange, nondescript article, bearing no relation to any thing that had preceded it. "Old Man Wheeler" added to all his other eccentricities a most eccentric way of collecting his debts.

He had dealings of one sort or another with everybody. He drove hard bargains, and was inexorable as to dates. When a debtor came, pleading for a short delay on a payment, the old man had but one reply,--

"No, no, no! What yer got? what yer got? Gie me somethin', gie me somethin'. Settle, settle, settle! Gie me any thin' yer got. Settle, settle, settle!" The consequences of twenty years' such traffic as this can more easily be imagined than described. The room was piled from floor to roof with its miscellaneous collections: junk-shops, p.a.w.nbrokers'

cellars, and old women's garrets seemed all to have disgorged themselves here. A huge stack of calico comforters, their tufts gray with dust and cobwebs, lay on top of two old ploughs, in one corner: kegs of nails, boxes of soap, rolls of leather, harnesses stiff and cracking with age, piles of books, chairs, bedsteads, andirons, tubs, stone ware, crockery ware, carpets, files of old newspapers, casks, feather-beds, jars of druggists' medicines, old signboards, rakes, spades, school-desks,--in short, all things that mortal man ever bought or sold,--were here, packed in piles and layers, and covered with dust as with a gray coverlid. At each foot-fall on the loose boards of the floor, clouds of stifling dust arose, and strange sounds were heard in and behind the piles of rubbish, as if all sorts of small animals might be skurrying about, and giving alarms to each other.

Mercy stood still on the threshold, her face full of astonishment. The dust made her cough; and at first she could hardly see which way to step.

The old man threw down his cane, and ran swiftly from corner to corner, and pile to pile, peering around, pulling out first one thing and then another. He darted from spot to spot, bending lower and lower, as he grew more impatient in his search, till he looked like a sort of human weasel gliding about in quest of prey.

"Trash, trash, nothin' but tras.h.!.+" he muttered to himself as he ran. "Burn it up some day. Trash, tras.h.!.+"

"How did you get all these queer things together, Mr. Wheeler?" Mercy ventured to say at last "Did you keep a store?"

The old man did not reply. He was tugging away at a high stack of rolls of undressed leather, which reached to the ceiling in one corner. He pulled them too hastily, and the whole stack tumbled forward, and rolled heavily in all directions, raising a suffocating dust, through which the old man's figure seemed to loom up as through a fog, as he skipped to the right and left to escape the rolling bales.

"O Mr. Wheeler!" cried Mercy, "are you hurt?"

He laughed a choked laugh, more like a chuckle than like a laugh.

"He! he! child. Dust don't hurt me. Goin' to return to 't presently. Made on 't! made on 't! Don't see why folks need be so 'fraid on 't! He! he! 'T is pretty choky, though." And he sat down on one of the leather rolls, and held his sides through a hard coughing fit. As the dust slowly subsided, Mercy saw standing far back in the corner, where the bales of leather had hidden it, an old-fas.h.i.+oned clock, so like her own that she gave a low cry of surprise.

"Oh, is that the clock you meant, Mr. Wheeler?" she exclaimed.

"Yes, yes, that's it. Nice old clock. Took it for debt. Cost me more'n 't's wuth. As fur that matter, 'tain't wuth nothin' to me. Wouldn't hev it in the house 'n' more than I'd git the town 'us tower in for a clock. D'ye like it, child? Ye can hev it's well's not. I'd like to give it to ye."

"I should like it very much, very much indeed," replied Mercy. "But I really cannot think of taking it, unless you let us pay for it."

The old man sprung to his feet with such impatience that the leather bale rolled away from him, and he nearly lost his balance. Mercy sprang forward and caught him.

"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Don't pester me, child! Don't you see I'm an old man? I tell ye I'll give ye the clock, an' I won't sell it ter ye,--won't, won't, won't," and he picked up his cane, and stood leaning upon it with both his hands clasped on it, and his head bent forward, eagerly scanning Mercy's face. She hesitated still, and began to speak again.

"But, Mr. Wheeler,"--

"Don't 'but' me. There ain't any buts about it. There's the clock. Take it, child,--take it, take it, take it, or else leave it, just's you like.

I ain't a-goin' to saddle ye with it; but I think ye'd be very silly not to take it,--silly, silly."

Mercy began to think so too. The clock was its own advocate, almost as strong as the old man's pleading.

"Very well, Mr. Wheeler," she said. "I will take the clock, though I don't know what my mother will say. It is a most valuable present. I hope we can do something for you some day."

"Tut, tut, tut!" growled the old man. "Just like all the rest o' the world. Got no faith,--can't believe in gettin' somethin' for nothin'.

You're right, child,--right, right. 'S a general thing, people are cheats, cheats, cheats. Get all your money away,--wolves, wolves, wolves! Stay here, child, a minute. I'll get two men to carry it." And, before Mercy realized his intention, he had shut the door, locked it, and left her alone in the warehouse. Her first sensation was of sharp terror; but she ran to the one window which was accessible, and, seeing that it looked out on the busiest thoroughfare of the town, she sat down by it to await the old man's return. In a very few moments, she heard the sounds of steps on the stairs, the door was thrown open, and the old man, still talking to himself in muttered tones, pushed into the room two ragged vagabonds whom he had picked up on the street.

They looked as astonished at the nature of the place as Mercy had. With gaping mouths and roving eyes, they halted on the threshold.

"Come in, come in! What 're ye 'bout? Earn yer money, earn yer money!"

exclaimed the old man, pointing to the clock, and bidding them take it up and carry it out.

"Now mind! Quarter a piece, quarter a piece,--not a cent more. Do ye understand? Hark 'e! do ye understand? Not a cent more," he said, following them out of the door. Then turning to Mercy, he exclaimed,--

"Bless my soul! Bless my soul! Forgot you, child. Come on, come on! I'll go with you, else those rascals will cheat you. Men are wolves, wolves, wolves. They're to carry the clock up to your house for a quarter apiece.

But I'll come on with you. Got half a dollar?"