Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

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TOIL AND TROUBLE

"Happy New Year!" said Calvin Parks. "Happy New Year, Mr. Cheeseman! Happy New Year, Lonzo! happy New Year, the whole concern!"

"Humph!" said Mr. Ivory Cheeseman.

"If this ain't a pretty day to start the new year with, then I never see one, that's all," Calvin went on. "Crisp and clear, everything cracklin' with frost. Hossy's got a white mustash on him like a general. How's trade, Mr. Cheeseman?"

"Humph!" said Mr. Cheeseman again.

Calvin looked at him. The old gentleman's alert cheerfulness was gone; his aspect was grim, and the glance that met Calvin's was stern enough.

"What's wrong, sir?" Calvin inquired solicitously. "Ain't you feelin' well? You don't seem like yourself."

"I ain't!" said Mr. Cheeseman briefly.

"I want to know!" said Calvin, with an inflection of sympathetic inquiry. "Is it anything you feel disposed to mention, Mr. Cheeseman, or do I intrude?"

"It's something I've got to mention!" said Mr. Cheeseman.

He looked at Calvin again, and meeting his glance of open wonder, his own softened as if in spite of himself.

"Step inside, Mr. Parks!" he said, gravely. "I guess we've got to have a little talk. Lonzo, you might run on home if you're a mind to; that's a good son!"

In the warm, cosy kitchen, where the little stove still glowed like a friendly demon, the old man took his customary seat, and Calvin Parks, his brown eyes very round and large, sat down beside him. There was a moment's silence; then—

"Friend Parks," said Mr. Cheeseman, "I've taken a great interest in you ever since you first come to my store. You've been a man I liked, and a man I trusted; and I've tried to help you when and how I could."

"I should say you had!" said Calvin warmly. "You've been the best friend ever I had, Mr. Cheeseman, except one, and I want you to understand that I appreciate it, sir."

"I've tried," Mr. Cheeseman repeated, "partly on the accounts just mentioned, and partly because I understood you was wishful to marry a lady that is well spoken of by all, and that you appeared to set store by. That's so, ain't it?"

"That's so!" said Calvin briefly.

"Well, now!" the old man continued. "Havin' so helped, and so understood, it ain't real pleasant to me to hear all round that you are goin' to marry another woman."

"What!" Calvin Parks sprang from his seat, and seemed to fill the little room. "Say that again! Me marry another woman? What do you mean, sir?"

"Easy there!" said the old man fretfully. "Don't set down in the butter-scotch; it's just behind ye. It's all over town that you are goin' to marry Phrony Marlin a week from Sunday."

He looked up, and after one glance at Calvin, rose hurriedly in his turn.

"There, friend Parks! there! don't say a word! I see by your face it ain't true, and I ask your pardon. Set down, son!"

But Calvin Parks still towered up among the rafters, and his brown eyes blazed down on the old candy-maker.

"It's a lie!" he said simply. "Don't tell me you believed it, Mr. Cheeseman; don't!"

The old man groaned. "I'm a woodenhead, friend Parks; a plumb, dum old woodenhead!" he said; "but I won't add another lie to that one. I did believe it, and I've been half sick about it all day. I won't say another word till you set down, except to ask your pardon again. I'm an old man, Calvin," he added, with a piteous quaver in his voice, "and I regard you as a son, sir!"

Calvin sat down instantly, and laid his hand on the old man's arm for a moment.

"That's all right, Mr. Cheeseman!" he said briefly but kindly. "We'll forget that part. Now let's get on to the rest on't."

Mr. Cheeseman drew a long breath that was almost a sob, and his frosty blue eyes were dim for a moment. He wiped them quietly with a blue cotton handkerchief.

"I thank you, sir!" he said. "Well, I found the whole street buzzin' with it yesterday. They said you gave her a fur tippet. How was that, friend Calvin?"

"I did!" Calvin's brown face flushed.

"I just plain fool did. She as good as asked me for it, Mr. Cheeseman, and what could I do? If ever I gredged money in my life 'twas that, and me turnin' every cent twice to make it go further. But when she went on about her brown keeters, and the doctor sayin' she must wrop her throat up, and if only she could have a fur tippet it might save her life—and goin' so fur as to name the special one she wanted in Hoskins's window—and Christmas time and all, and nobody seemin' to have any feelin' for them two forlorn creatur's—Mr. Cheeseman, if you're a woodenhead, I'm a sheep's-head, that's all there is to it. So that started the talk, did it? What in caniption makes folks want to talk I don't know!" he broke out. "Darn their hides!"

"That started it!" said Mr. Cheeseman; "and she has seen to it that the talk went on. She was in town all day yesterday, flyin' round like a hen with her head cut off—"

"She'd look a sight better with hers that way!" said Calvin sotto voce.

"Buyin' this and that, and givin' folks to understand 'twas her weddin' things. I don't know as she used them precise words, but I do know she said to Hoskins—she was in there gettin' some dress goods, and he told me himself—'I'll take the blue,' she says, "for Cap'n Parks admires blue, and I have to dress to please him now!' she says."

Calvin Parks groaned. A vision rose before him of Mary Sands in her blue dress, with the sun shining on her hair.

"Then she went to Jinny Bascom's," the old man went on, "and bought her a bunnet. Where she got the money I don't know, nor Jinny didn't. I guess she nor the old woman ever spent more than fifty cents at a time in their lives before; but she got a ten dollar bunnet, no two ways about that; and she was a caution gettin' it, by all accounts. Jinny has always knowed Phrony; every one round about Cyrus knows them two and their goin's on. Lived mostly on grocery samples and borrowed garden truck till you come to board with 'em; and I don't believe they've fed you high enough to hurt you any, have they?"

"Well! I don't know as I've been in any real danger of apoplexy from over-eatin'," said Calvin slowly; "but I ain't made no complaint."

"I know you ain't!" said Mr. Cheeseman. "That's one thing has made folks anxious. You mustn't take it amiss, friend Calvin. You are well liked all round the neighborhood; and folks will talk about what interests them, sir, it's the natur' of human bein's so to do. Well, about this bunnet. Jinny showed her a quiet, decent article, suitable to her years and appearance; but she tossed her head up, and says she, 'I guess not!' she says. 'Show me a bridal bunnet, please, Miss Bascom!' Well, Jinny Bascom runs mostly to eyes and ears, any way of it, and you may suppose that was nuts to her. So she fetched out a white bunnet, and says, 'You goin' to be married, Phrony?' Phrony she tosses her head again, and simpers up. 'I ain't sayin' anything yet,' she says, 'nor yet I don't want it should be said till after a week from next Sunday; but if you should see me then in this bunnet, you can draw your own conclusions!' she says. Then she begun to turn her ridic'lous old head this way and that before the glass. 'Cap'n Parks likes a handsome bunnet!' she says. 'He wouldn't wish for me to wear any other;' and goes on like that till Jinny had all she could do to keep her face straight. Now you know, friend Calvin, that was pretty straight talk, and Jinny Bascom wasn't one to keep it to herself; so you can't wonder it got about, can you?"

"Not a mite!" said Calvin moodily.

"But you could wonder at my bein' taken in by it," Mr. Cheeseman went on, "and I wonder myself. But I was startled, you see, and took aback, and—well, that's all over. Now, what are you goin' to do about this, friend Parks?"

Calvin rose again, running his fingers through his thick brown hair as he did so, and seeming to draw himself up to a portentous height.

"I—don't—know, Mr. Cheeseman!" he said slowly. "I've got to study over it a bit. I can't say right away just what I shall do."

"You won't—" Mr. Cheeseman began; but broke off suddenly, and looked anxiously at Calvin.

"Won't what? Marry Phrony Marlin? I will not! You may lay out your stock on that. I think I'll be goin' now, Mr. Cheeseman. That my butter-scotch? I'll take it right along, if you say so."

Mr. Cheeseman rose, and began packing the butter-scotch, glancing anxiously now and then at Calvin, who stood lost in thought, his hand still in his brown locks.

"I'll stop the talk in the street, Calvin," he said solicitously. "That I can do, and will before an hour's over. But isn't there something else I can do? I'd take it as a kindness if you'd let me help you, any way, shape or manner that you can think of."

"I guess not, sir!" said Calvin; "full as much obliged to you, though. I guess I've got to work this out for myself. I've got a long route to-day, all round by Tupham and the Corners, and I'll study it out as I go along. I've got to think of—of the woman I hope to marry, God bless her, and yet I've got to think of them two poor misfortunate creatur's that haven't a friend in the world as I know of except me. And as for the talk," he added, "well,—yes! if you'll stop that I'll be greatly obliged to you. But do it as easy as you can, Mr. Cheeseman! Just say it ain't so, you know, or she was jokin', or like that; let her off as easy as you can, poor creatur'. I don't think she's just right in her mind. Why, she can't be! There! now I'll be ramblin' along."

He started to leave the kitchen, but the old candy-maker caught his sleeve eagerly.

"Friend Calvin," he said, "how did the Christmas trade come out? You haven't told me a word."

"That so?" said Calvin. "This confounded rinktum put it out of both our heads, I expect. Why, I done first-rate, Mr. Cheeseman; first-rate! I've got five hundred dollars laid by now, sir; and as I reckon it out that's enough to start out on, with a good route, doin' well. What say?"

"Full enough!" said Mr. Cheeseman heartily. "I wish you joy, friend Calvin! Have you got it in the bank?"

Calvin's face fell slightly.

"Not yet," he said. "I only got my full sum made up last night; 'twarn't convenient for some to pay cash, you know, and to-day's bank holiday. But to-morrow mornin', Mr. Cheeseman, at nine o'clock, you look out and you'll see little Calvin on them bank steps over yonder, with his wallet in his hand; and then, Mr. Cheeseman,—then's my time!"

Mr. Cheeseman looked after him as he drove slowly away, his head bent in thought, a very different Calvin Parks from the one who had burst in so joyously an hour before with his New Year greeting.

"He's a good feller!" said the old gentleman. "I never see a better feller than that. I hope he'll come through all right; but there's just one thing troubles me, and yet I couldn't feel to say it to him. Where did Phrony Marlin get that money?