Bart Ridgeley. A. G. Riddle
of laughter, in which Bart heartily joined. Indeed, it was his first sincere laugh for many a day.
Johnson asked him "whether he went to the Ohio river," and being answered in the affirmative, asked him "by what route he went, and what he saw."
Uncle Jonah, as Bart usually called him, was one of his very few recognized friends, and asked in a way that induced him to make a serious answer.
"I walked the most of the way there, and all the way back. I went by way of Canton, Columbus, Dayton, and so to Cincinnati, and returned the same way."
"What do you think of that part of the State which you saw?"
"Unquestionably we have the poorest part of it. As our ancestors landed on the most desolate part of the continent, so we took the worst part of Ohio. If you were to see the wheat-fields of Stark, or the corn on the Scioto, and the whole of the region about Xenia and Dayton, and on the Miami, you would want to emigrate."
"What about the people?"
"Oh, dear! I didn't see much of them, and that little did not make me wish to see more. The moment you step across the south line of the Reserve you step into a foreign country, and among a foreign people, who speak a foreign language, and who know one of us as quick as they see us; and they seem to have a very prudent distrust of us. After passing this black, Dutch region, you enter a population of emigrants from Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, and some from North Carolina, and all unite in detesting and distrusting the Reserve Yankee.
"It is singular, the difference between the lake and river side of the State. At Cincinnati you seem to be within a step of New Orleans, and hear of no other place—not a word of New York, and less of Boston. There everything looks and goes south-west, while we all tend eastward." In reply to questions, Bart told them of Columbus and Cincinnati, giving fresh and graphic descriptions, for he observed closely, and described with a racy, piquant exaggeration what he saw. Breaking off rather abruptly, he seemed vexed at the length of his monologue, and went on towards the post-office.
"That young man will not come to a single darn," said Uncle Josh; "not one darn. He is not good for anything, and never will be. His father was a very likely man, and so is his mother, and his older brothers are very likely men, but he is not worth a cuss."
"Uncle Josh is thinking about Bart's sketch of him, clawing old Nore
Morton's face," said Uncle Jonah.
"I did not like that; I did not like it at all. It made me look like hell amazingly," said the old man, much moved.
"You had good reason for not liking it," rejoined Uncle Jonah, "for it was exactly like you."
"Dr. Lyman, what do you think of this young man? He was with you, wa'n't he, studyin' something or other?" asked Uncle Josh; "don't you agree with me?"
"I don't know," answered the Doctor, "I am out of all patience with him. He is quick and ready, and wants to try his hand at every new thing; and the moment he finds he can do it, he quits it. There is no stability to him. He studied botany a week, and Latin a month, and Euclid ten days."
"He hunts well, and fishes well—don't he?" asked another.
"They say he shoots well," said Uncle Josh, "but he will wander in the woods all day, and let game run off from under his eyes, amazingly! They said at the big hunt, in the woods, he opened the lines and let all the deer out. He isn't good for a thing—not a cussed thing."
"Isn't he as smart as his brother Henry?" asked Uncle Jonah.
"It is not a question of smartness," replied the Doctor. "He is too smart; but Henry has steadiness, and bottom, and purpose, and power, and will, and industry. But Bart, if you start him on a thing, runs away out of sight of you in an hour. The next you see of him he is off loafing about, quizzing somebody; and if you call his attention back to what you set him at, he laughs at you. I have given him up, utterly; though I mean to ask him to go a-fishing one of these nights."
"Exactly," said Uncle Jonah, "make him useful. But, Dr. Lyman and
Joshua Burnett, the boy has got the stuff in him—the stuff in him.
Why, he told you here, in fifteen minutes, more about the State of
Ohio than you both ever knew. You will see—"
"You will see, too, that he will not come to a darn," said Uncle Josh, regarding that as a sad doom indeed.
CHAPTER IV.
AT THE POST-OFFICE.
Barton found a more attractive group at the store. The post-office occupied a window and corner near the front of the large, old-fashioned, square store-room; and, as he entered the front door, he saw, in the back part of the room, a gay, laughing, warbling, giggling, chirping group of girls gathered about Julia Markham, as their natural centre. Barton was a little abashed; he might have moved up more cautiously, and reconnoitred, had he not been taken by surprise. There was no help for it. He deposited his letters and called for his mail, which gave him time to gather his forces in hand.
Now Barton was born to love and serve women in all places, and under all forms and circumstances. His was not a light, silly, vapid, complimentary devotion, but deep in his nature, through and through, he reverenced woman as something sacred and high, and above the vulgar nature of men; this reformed his mind, and inspired his manners; and, while he was generally disliked by men, he was favorably regarded by women. It was not in woman's nature to think ill of a youth who was always so modestly respectful, and anxious to please and oblige; and no man thus constituted was ever awkward or long embarrassed in woman's presence. She always gets from him, if not his best, what is proper. If he can lose self-consciousness, and receive the full inspiration of her presence, he will soon be at his ease, if not graceful.
The last thing absolutely that ever could occur to Barton, and it never had as yet, was the possibility of his being an object of interest personally to a woman, or to women. He was modest—almost to bashfulness; but as he never presumed, he was never snubbed; and now, on this summer afternoon, he had came upon a group of seven or eight of the most attractive girls of the neighborhood, accompanied by one or two strangers. There was Julia, never so lovely before, with a warm color on her cheek, and a liquid light in her dark eyes, in whose presence all other girls were commonplace; and her friends Nell Roberts and Kate Fisher, Lizzie Mun and Pearlie Burnett, and several others. The young man was seen and recognized, and had to advance. Think of walking thirty feet alone in the faces of seven or eight beautiful girls, and at the same time be easy and graceful! It is funny, what a hush the presence of one young man will bring over a laughing, romping cluster of young women. At his entrance, their girlish clamor sunk to a liquid murmur; and, when he approached, they were nearly silent, all but Julia and a stylish blonde, whom Barton had never seen before. They were gathered around a cloud and tangle of women's mysterious fabrics, whose names are as unknown to men as their uses. Most of the young girls suspended their examinations and rippling comments, and, with a little heightened color, awaited the approach of the enemy. He came on, and gracefully bowed to each, was permitted to take the hands of two or three, and greeted with a little chorus of—"You have come back!" "Where have you been?" "How do you do?" Julia greeted him with her eyes, as he entered, with a sweet woman's way, that thrilled him, and which enabled him to approach her so well. She had remained examining a bit of goods, as if unaware of his immediate presence for a moment, and he had been introduced to the strange lady by Kate Fisher as her cousin, Miss Walters, from Pittsburgh.
Then Julia turned to him, and, with a charming manner, asked: "Mr. Ridgeley"—she had not called him Bart, or Barton, since her return from Boston—"Mr. Ridgeley, what do the girls mean? Have you really been away?"
"Have I really been away? And if I really have, am I to be permitted to take your hand, and asked how I really do? as if you really cared?"
"Really," was her answer,