Bart Ridgeley. A. G. Riddle
nights, and listening to the unutterably sweet and mournful singing of his mother, unable to sleep in her loneliness; of the putting away of his baby brother, and the jubilee when he was brought back; of the final breaking up of the family, and of his own first goings away; of the unceasing homesickness and pining with which he always languished for home in his young boy years; of the joy with which he always hurried home, the means by which he would prolong his stay, and the anguish with which he went away again. His mother was to him the chief good. For him, like Providence, she always was, and he could imagine no possible good, or even existence, without her—it would be the end of the world when she ceased to be. And he remembered all the places where he had lived, and the many times he had run away. And then came the memory of Julia Markham, as she was years ago, when he lived in her neighborhood, and her sweet and beautiful mother used to intrust her to his care, in the walks to and from school, down on the State road—Julia, with her great wonderful eyes, and world of wavy hair, and red lips; and then, as she grew into beautiful and ever more beautiful girlhood, he used to be more and more at Judge Markham's house, and used to read to Julia's mother and herself. It was there that he discovered Shakespeare, and learned to like him, and Milton, whom he didn't like and wouldn't read, and the Sketch Book, and Knickerbocker's History, and Cooper's novels, and Scott, and, more than all, Byron, whom Mrs. Markham did not want him to read, recommending, instead, Young's Night Thoughts, and Pollock's Course of Time, and Southey—the dear good woman!
And then came a time when he was in the store of Markham & Co., and finally was taken from the counter, because of his sharp words to customers, and set at the books, and sent away from that post because he illustrated them with caricatures on the margins, and smart personal rhymes. Julia was sixteen, and as sweet a romping, hoydenish, laughing, brave, strong girl as ever bewitched the heart of dreaming youth; and he had taught her to ride on horseback; and then she was sent off, away "down country," to the centre of the world, to Boston, where were uncles and aunts, and was gone, oh, ever and ever so long!—half a lifetime—nearly two years—and came back; and then his thoughts became confused. Then he thought of Judge Markham, and now he was sure that the Judge did not like him; and he remembered that Julia's mother, as he came towards manhood, was kind and patronizing, and that when he went to say good-by to Julia, three months ago, although she knew he was coming, she was not at home, and he only saw her mother and Nell Roberts. Then he thought of all the things he had tried to do within the last two years, and how he had done none of them. People had not liked him, and he had not suspected why, and had not cared. People liked his elder brothers, and he was glad and proud of it; and a jumble of odds and ends and fragments became tangled and snarled in his mind. What would people say of his return? Did he care? He asked nobody's leave to go, and came back on his own account. But his mother—she would look sad; but she would be glad. It certainly was a mistake, his going; could it be a blunder, his returning?
He was thinking shallowly; but deeper thoughts came to him. He began to believe that easy places did not exist; and he scorned to seek them for himself, if they did. The world was as much to be struggled with in one place as another; and, after all, was not the struggle mainly with one's own self, and could that be avoided? Then what in himself was wrong? what should be fought against? Who would tell him? Men spoke roughly to him, and he answered back sharply. He couldn't help doing that. How could he be blamed? He suspected he might be.
He knew there were better things than to chop and clear land, and make black salts, or tend a saw-mill, or drive oxen, or sell tape and calico; but, in these woods, poor and unfriended, how could he find them? Was not his brother Henry studying law at Jefferson, and were they not all proud of him, and did not everybody expect great things of him? But Henry was different from him. Dr. Lyman believed in him; Judge Markham spoke with respect of him. Julia Markham—how inexpressibly lovely and radiant and distant and inaccessible she appeared! And then he felt sore, as if her father had dealt him a blow, and he thought of his sending him away the year before, and wished he had explained. No matter. How he writhed again and again under the sting of his contemptuous sarcasm! "He wouldn't even pick me up; would leave me to lie by the wayside."
Towards sundown, weary and saddened, he reached the centre, "Jugville," as he had named it, years before, in derision. He was a mile and a half from home, and paused a moment to sit on the platform in front of "Marlow's Hotel," and rest. The loungers were present in more than usual force—Jo and Biather Alexander, old Neaze Savage, old Cal Chase, Tinker—any number of old and not highly-esteemed acquaintances.
"Hullo, Bart Ridgeley! is that you?"
Bart did not seem to think it necessary to affirm or deny.
"Ben away, hain't ye? Must a-gone purty much all over all creation, these last three months. How's all the folks where you ben?"
No reply. A nod to one or two of the dozen attracted towards him was the only notice he took of them, seeming not to hear the question and comments of Tinker. His silence tempted old Cal, the small joker of the place, to open:
"You's gone an everlastin' while. S'pose you hardly know the place, it's changed so."
"It has changed some," he answered to this; "its bar-room loafers are a good deal more unendurable, and its fools, always large, have increased in size."
A good-natured laugh welcomed this reply.
"There, uncle Cal, it 'pears to me you've got it," said one.
"'Pears to me we've all got it," was the response of that worthy.
"Come in, Bart," said the landlord, "and take something on the strength o' that."
"Thank you, I will be excused; I have a horror of a sudden death;" and, taking up his valise, he started across the fields to the near woods.
"Bully!" "Good!" "You've got that!" cried several to the discomfited seller of drinks. "It is your treat; we'll risk the stuff!" and the party turned in to the bar to realize their expectations.
"There is one thing 'bout it," said Bi, "Bart hain't changed much, anyway."
"And there's another thing 'bout it," said uncle Bill, "a chap that carries such a sassy tongue should be sassy able. He'll answer some chap, some day, that wun't stan' it."
"The man that picks him up'll find an ugly customer; he'd be licked afore he begun. I tell you what, them Ridgeley boys is no fighters, but the stuff's in 'em, and Bart's filled jest full. I'd as liv tackle a young painter." This was Neaze's view.
"That's so," said Jo. "Do you remember the time he had here last fall, with that braggin' hunter chap, Mc-Something, who came along with his rifle, darin' all hands about here to shute with him? He had one of them new peck-lock rifles, and nobody dared shute with him; and Bart came along, and asked to look at the feller's gun, and said something 'bout it, and Mc-Somebody dared him to shute, and Bart sent over to Haw's and got 'old Potleg,' that Steve Patterson shot himself with, and loaded 'er up, and then the hunter feller wouldn't shute except on a bet, and Bart hadn't but fifty cents, and they shot twenty rods off-hand, and Bart beat him; and they doubled the bet, and Bart beat agin, and they went on till Bart won more'n sixty dollars. Sometimes the feller shot wild, and Bart told him he'd have to get a dog to hunt where he hit, and he got mad, and Bart picked up his first half-dollar and pitched it to Jotham, who put up the mark, and left the rest on the ground."
"There come mighty near bein' trouble then, an' there would ha' ben ef the Major hadn't took Bart off," said Bi.
And while these rough, good-natured men talked him over, Barton walked off southerly, across the newly-shorn meadow, to the woods. Twilight was in their depths, and shadows were stealing mysteriously out, and already the faint and subtle aroma which the gathering dew releases from foliage, came out like an incense to bathe the quick and healthy senses of the wearied youth. He removed his hat, opened his bosom, expanded his nostrils and lungs, and drank it as the bee takes nectar from the flowers. What an exquisite sense of relief and quiet came to him, as he found himself lost in the shadows of the young night! Not a tree in these woods that he did not know, and they all seemed to reach out their mossy arms with their myriad of little, cool, green hands, to welcome him back. They knew nothing of his failures and disappointments, and were more sympathizing than the coarse and ribald