Only page of title Very Easy
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was, for many reasons, a fortunate man. For many other reasons he was
not. He was chiefly fortunate in being, as certain opponents often
strove to witheringly designate him, "the son of his father," since
that sound old gentleman was the wealthiest farmer in that section,
with but one son and heir to, in time, supplant him in the role of
"county god," and haply perpetuate the prouder title of "the biggest
tax-payer on the assessment list. " And this fact, too, fortunate as it
would seem, was doubtless the indirect occasion of a liberal
percentage of all John's misfortunes. From his earliest school-days in
the little town, up to his tardy graduation from a distant college,
the influence of his father's wealth invited his procrastination,
humored its results, encouraged the laxity of his ambition, "and even
now," as John used, in bitter irony, to put it, "it is aiding and
abetting me in the ostensible practice of my chosen profession, a
listless, aimless undetermined man of forty, and a confirmed bachelor
at that! " At the utterance of this self-depreciating statement, John
generally jerked his legs down from the top of his desk; and, rising
and kicking his chair back to the wall, he would stump around his
littered office till the manilla carpet steamed with dust. Then he
would wildly break away, seeking refuge either in the open street, or
in his room at the old-time tavern, The Eagle House, "where," he would
say, "I have lodged and boarded, I do solemnly asseverate, for a long,
unbroken, middle-aged eternity of ten years, and can yet assert, in
the words of the more fortunately-dying Webster, that 'I still live!"
indefinable drollery about him that made him agreeable company to his
friends, at least; and such an admiring friend he had constantly at
hand in the person of Bert Haines. Both were Bohemians in natural
tendency, and, though John was far in Bert's advance in point of age,
he found the young man "just the kind of a fellow to have around; "
while Bert, in turn, held his senior in profound esteem -- looked up to
him, in fact, and in even his eccentricities strove to pattern after
him. And so it was, when summer days were dull and tedious, these two
could muse and doze the hours away together; and when the nights were
long, and dark, and deep, and beautiful, they could drift out in the
noon-light of the stars, and with "the soft complaining flute" and
"warbling lute," "lay the pipes," as John would say, for their
enduring popularity with the girls! And it was immediately subsequent
to one of these romantic excursions, when the belated pair, at two
o'clock in the morning, had skulked up a side stairway of the old
hotel, and gained John's room, with nothing more serious happening
than Bert falling over a trunk and smashing his guitar, -- just after
such a night of romance and adventure it was that, in the seclusion of
John's room, Bert had something of especial import to communicate.
lamp-flue, and turning on a welcome flame at last. "Well, you said
'Mack! ' Why don't you go on? And don't bawl at the top of your lungs,
either. You've already succeeded in waking every boarder in the house
with that guitar, and you want to make amends now by letting them go
to sleep again!"
any further! I know just what malady is throttling you. It's
reform -- reform! You're going to 'turn over a new leaf,' and all that,
and sign the pledge, and quit cigars, and go to work, and pay your
debts, and gravitate back into Sunday-School, where you can make love
to the preacher's daughter under the guise of religion, and desecrate
the sanctity of the innermost pale of the church by confessions at
Class of your 'thorough conversion! ' Oh, you're going to -- "
resentfully. "What I mean -- if you'll let me finish -- is, I'm getting
too old to be eternally undignifying myself with this 'singing of
midnight strains under Bonnybell's window panes,' and too old to be
keeping myself in constant humiliation and expense by the borrowing
and stringing up of old guitars, together with the breakage of the
same, and the general wear-and-tear on a constitution that is slowly
being sapped to its foundations by exposure in the night-air and the
dew. " "And while you receive no further compensation in return," said
John, "than, perhaps, the coy turning up of a lamp at an upper
casement where the jasmine climbs; or an exasperating patter of
invisible palms; or a huge dank wedge of fruit-cake shoved at you by
the old man, through a crack in the door."
Bert, "and exchange the lover's life for the benedict's. Going to hunt
out a good, sensible girl and marry her. " And as the young man
concluded this desperate avowal he jerked the bow of his cravat into a
hard knot, kicked his hat under the bed, and threw himself on the sofa
like an old suit.
"and all that harangue of incoherency about your growing old. Why, my
dear fellow, you're at least a dozen years my junior, and look at me! "
and John glanced at himself in the glass with a feeble pride, noting
the gray sparseness of his side-hair, and its plaintive dearth on top.
"Of course I've got to admit," he continued, "that my hair is
gradually evaporating; but for all that, I'm 'still in the ring,'
don't you know; as young in society, for the matter of that, as
yourself! And this is just the reason why I don't want you to blight
every prospect in your life by marrying at your age -- especially a
woman -- I mean the kind of woman you'd be sure to fancy at your age."
and just how you'd talk me out of it; and I made up my mind that for
once, at least, I'd follow the dictations of a heart that -- however
capricious in youthful frivolties -- should beat, in manhood, loyal to
itself and loyal to its own affinity."
some sleep. -- So 'register' and come to bed. -- And lie up on edge, too,
when you _do_ come -- 'cause this old catafalque-of-a-bed is just about
as narrow as your views of single blessedness! Peace! Not another
word! Pile in! Pile in! I'm three-parts sick, anyhow, and I want
rest! " And very truly he spoke.
vociferous pounding on the door. He started up in bed to find himself
alone -- the victim of his wrathful irony having evidently risen and
fled away while his pitiless tormentor slept -- "Doubtless to at once
accomplish that nefarious intent as set forth by his unblushing
confession of last night," mused the miserable John. And he ground his
fingers in the corners of his swollen eyes, and leered grimly in the
glass at the feverish orbs, blood-shotten, blurred and aching.
female voice. "It's 8 o'clock, and I want to put your room in order;
and I'm not going to wait all day about it, either! Get up and go down
to your breakfast, and let me have the room! " And the clamor at the
door was industriously renewed.
here? Doubtless you're the girl that's been hanging up the new
window-blinds that won't roll, and disguising the pillows with clean
slips, and 'hennin' round among my books and papers on the table here,
and ageing me generally till I don't know my own handwriting by the
time I find it! Oh, yes! you're going to revolutionize things here;
you're going to introduce promptness, and system, and order. See
you've even filled the wash-pitcher and tucked two starched towels
through the handle. Haven't got any tin towels, have you? I rather
like this new soap, too! So solid and durable, you know; warranted not
to raise a lather. Might as well wash one's hands with a door-knob! "
And as John's voice grumbled away into the sullen silence again, the
determined voice without responded: "Oh, you can growl away to your
heart's content, Mr. McKinney, but I want you to distinctly understand
that I'm not going to humor you in any of your old bachelor,
sluggardly, slovenly ways, and whims and notions. And I want you to
understand, too, that I'm not hired help in this house, nor a
chambermaid, nor anything of the kind. I'm the landlady here; and I'll
give you just ten minutes more to get down to your breakfast, or
you'll not get any -- that's all! " And as the reversed cuff John was in
the act of buttoning slid from his wrist and rolled under the dresser,
he heard a stiff rustling of starched muslin flouncing past the door,
and the quick italicized patter of determined gaiters down the hall.
addressed in the well-known hand of his old chum. He eyed the missive
apprehensively, and there was a positive pathos in his voice as he
said aloud, "It's our divorce. I feel it! " The note, headed, "At the
Office, 4 in Morning," ran like this:
"Dear Mack -- I left you slumbering so soundly that, by noon,
when you waken, I hope, in your refreshed state, you will
look more tolerantly on my intentions as partially confided
to you this night. I will not see you here again to say
good-bye. I wanted to, but was afraid to 'rouse the sleeping
lion. ' I will not close my eyes to-night -- fact is, I haven't
time. Our serenade at Josie's was a pre-arranged signal by
which she is to be ready and at the station for the 5
morning train. You may remember the lighting of three
consecutive matches at her window before the igniting of her
lamp. That meant, 'Thrice dearest one, I'll meet thee at the
depot at 4: 30 sharp. ' So, my dear Mack, this is to inform
you that, even as you read, Josie and I have eloped. It is
all the old man's fault, yet I forgive him. Hope he'll
return the favor. Josie predicts he will, inside of a
week -- or two weeks, anyhow. Good-bye, Mack, old boy; and let
a fellow down as easy as you can. Thompson, I don't mean that," he called after him. "Here's a half
dollar for you, and I want you to lock up the office, and tell anybody
that wants to see me that I've been set upon, and sacked and
assassinated in cold blood; and I've fled to my father's in the
country, and am lying there in the convulsions of dissolution,
babbling of green fields and running brooks, and thirsting for the
life of every woman that comes in gunshot! " And then, more like a
confirmed invalid than a man in the strength and pride of his prime,
he crept down into the street again, and thence back to his hotel.
landing above, a little woman in a jaunty dusting-cap and a trim habit
of crisp muslin. He tried to evade her, but in vain. She looked him
squarely in the face -- occasioning him the dubious impression of either
needing shaving very badly, or having egg-stains on his chin.
and gave no affirmation in response to his proposition as to the
quality of the weather, John, utterly abashed and nonplussed, darted
into his room and closed the door. "Deucedly extraordinary woman! " he
thought; "wonder what's her idea!"
promptly emerged for that occasion, there was a very noticeable
improvement in his personal appearance, in point of dress, at least,
though there still lingered about his smoothly-shaven features a
certain haggard, care-worn, anxious look that would not out.
though in reservation for some honored guest. What did it mean? Oh, he
remembered now. Told the boy to tell his mother he would have a friend
to dine with him. Bert -- and, blast the fellow! he was, doubtless,
dining then with a far preferable companion -- his wife -- in a palace-car
on the P., C. & St. L., a hundred miles away. The thought was
maddening. Of course, now, the landlady would have material for a new
assault. And how could he avert it? A despairing film blurred his
sight for the moment -- then the eyes flashed daringly. "I will meet it
like a man! " he said, mentally -- "like a State's Attorney, -- I will
invite it! Let her do her worst!"
censure, but I can't stand it -- I can't positively! " and there was a
pleading look in John's lifted eyes that changed the little woman's
smile to an expression of real solicitude. "I have sent for you,"
continued John, "to ask of you three great favors. Please be seated
while I enumerate them. First -- I want you to forgive and forget that
ill-natured, uncalled-for grumbling of mine this morning when you
wakened me."
woman, in astonishment. -- "Why, it's been the talk of the town all
morning. Elopement in high life -- son of a grain-dealer, name of Hines,
or Himes, or something, and a preacher's daughter -- Josie
somebody -- didn't catch her last name. Wonder if you don't know the
parties -- Why, Mr. McKinney, are you ill?"
some important evidence; "and they say, too, that the plot of the
runaway was quite ingenious. It seems the young lovers were assisted
in their flight by some old fellow -- friend of the young man's -- Why,
Mr. McKinney, you _are_ ill, surely?"
of her companion. "They say, though, that the law can do nothing with
him, and that this fact only intensifies the agony of the
broken-hearted parents -- for it seems they have, till now, regarded him
both as a gentleman and family friend in whom" --
beg you not to be alarmed. Tell your little boy to come to my room,
where I will retire at once, if you'll excuse me, and send for my
physician. It is simply a nervous attack. I am often troubled so; and
only perfect quiet and seclusion restores me. You have done me a great
honor, Mrs. " -- ("Mrs. -- Miller," sighed the sympathetic little
woman) -- "Mrs. Miller, -- and I thank you more than I have words to
express. " He bowed limply, turned through a side door opening on a
stair, and tottered to his room.
every attention -- much more, indeed, than he had consciousness to
appreciate. For the most part his mind wandered, and he talked of
curious things, and laughed hysterically, and serenaded mermaids that
dwelt in grassy seas of dew, and were bald-headed like himself. He
played upon a fourteen-jointed flute of solid gold, with diamond
holes, and keys carved out of thawless ice. His old father came at
first to take him home; but he could not be moved, the doctor said.
young man, in a traveling duster, and a high hat, came up the stairs
to see him. A handsome young lady was clinging to his arm. It was Bert
and Josie. She had guessed the very date of their forgiveness. John
wakened even clearer in mind than usual that afternoon. He recognized
his old chum at a glance, and Josie -- now Bert's wife. Yes, he
comprehended that. He was holding a hand of each when another figure
entered. His thin, white fingers loosened their clasp, and he held a
hand toward the new comer. "Here," he said, "is my best friend in the
world -- Bert, you and Josie will love her, I know; for this is
Mrs. -- Mrs. " -- "Mrs. Miller," said the radiant little
woman. -- "Yes, -- Mrs. Miller," said John, very proudly.
End of title
