LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2410, 26 December 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

; i THE VILLAGE CONVICT. ; | From “Scribner’s Monthly,"' . ( Concluded.) -j. "' : • ‘T can’t buy flab,’ ha said; ‘I have no • scales to weigh ’em.’ 11 * Then send ourn in separate barrels/, said one of them. 1 Bat X haven’t any money to pay yon,!’ hs said ;■* I only get 'my pay ohoe a month/ ‘ We’ll git tick at William's, and yon can settle ’th us when you git your pay/'. ‘Well/ said he, unable to refuse, ‘l’ll 1 taka’em if .yon say so/’ ’ " Before the season was over 1 he had still ’ another customer, and oontd have had thrio or four mors if he had had Ice enough. He /was strongly inclined to fall to bnilda larger 1 *no house, and although he was a little afraid ‘of bringing" ridicule upon himself incase ho fim should be brought to" him the next I summer, he decided todo so, on the assurance of three or four men that they would deal ’ with him. Nobody else had such a chance, he thought —a pond right by the shore. One evening there was a knock at the door ’ of HHphalet Wood, the owner of the burned barn. Eliphalet'went to the‘door, but ' turned pale at seeing Eph there. J ‘Oh, come in, coma ini’ he panted ; ‘glad 1 to see yon. Walk in. ‘Have a chair. Taka a-seat. ‘Sit down/ f ' y ■* But he thought his hour had come; he was alone in the 'house, and there was no 1 neighbor within call. Bph toot out a roll of bills, counted oat eighty dollars, laid the money on the table, ami qaid, quietly;— “Hive me a receipt on account/ - When it was written he walked out, leaving Eliphalet stupefied. • ’■' ’* ' 1 i ■ Joshua Carr was at work, one June afteriirvon, by the road side, in front of his low cottage, by an enormous pile of poles, which be was shaving down for barrel-hoops, when t Cfph appeared. Jk ' ! ;■ ‘ Hard at it, Joshua!’ he said. ‘Yes, yes!’ said Joshua, looking up through hia steel-bowed spectacles ; *hev to work hard to make a livin'though I don’t know’s I ought to call it hard, neither; and yet It is rather hard,' too; but then," on t'other hand, ’taint so hard as a good many other things,—though there is a good many jobs that’s easier. That’s sol That’s so I' Epb sat down on, a pile of shavings and chewed a sliver ; and the old man kept on at hia work. ■ ■. - 1 ;■ ‘Hoop-poles goin’ np and hoops goln’ down,’ he continued; ; ‘car’ua, aint It? I 3ut then, I don’t know as ■ ’tis ; woods all bein’; out off—poles- gittin' scarcer ; hoops bein’ shoved in front Down East. That

don’t seem jost right, now, does it—but then, other folks most make a livin’,, too. Still, I , should think they might take up Bathin’ else ; and yet, they might say that about me. Understand, I don’t mean to say that they actually do say so ; I don’t want to run . down any man unless I know ’ 4 I can’t stand this,’ said Eph to himself; *1 don’t wonder , that they always used to pat Joshua off at the first pert, when he Cried to go coasting. They said he talked i them crazy with nothing. ‘ I’ll go into the house and see aunt Lyddy,' ha siid, aloud; 4 I’m loafing this afternoon.’ ‘AH right! all right 1’ said Joshua; 4 Lyddy ’ll ba glad to see ye, that is, as glad I as she would be to see anybody,’ he added, reaching out frr a pole. Joshua's wife, whom everybody called aunt Lyddy, was oscillating in a rocking onair In the kitchen, and knitting. It was currently reported that Joshua’s habit of endlessly retracting and qualifying every Idea and modification of an Idea which he advanced, so as to commit himself to nothing, was the effect of aunt Lyddy’a careful revision. ‘ I a’pose she thought ’twaa fun to be talked deef when they was courtin’,’ Captain Beth had once sagely remarked ; 4 prob’Jy it sounded then like a putty pieoe on s aeraphino ; but 1 oilers collated she’d git her fill of it, sooner or later. You most gia’Uy git your fill ’o one tune.’: 4 How are you this afternoon, aunt Lyddy?’ asked Eph, walking In without knocking, and sitting down near her. 4 So as to bo able to keep about,’ she renlied ; l lt la a great mercy I ain’t afflicted with falling out of my obalr, like Hepay Jones, ain’t it ?’ 4 I’ve brought you some oysters,’ ho said ; 4 1 set the basket down on the doorstep. I just took them out of the water myself from the bed I planted to the west of the waterfence.’

4 I always heard ycu was a groat fisherman,’ said aunt Lyddy, * bat I had no idea you would ever come here and boast of being ablo to oatoh oysters. Poor things I How could they have got awpy ? But why don’t you bring thorn in ? Thoy won’t be afraid of me, will they ?’

He stepped to the door and brought in a peck basket full of large, black, twisted shells, and, with a heavy clasp-knife, proceeded to open one, and took out a great oyster, which he held up on the point of the blade.

'Try it,’ he said ; and then aunt Lyddy, after ohe bad swallowed it, laughed to think ■what a tableau they had made—a man who bad been in the State prison standing over her with a great knife. And then she laughed again. 4 What are you laughing at ?’ ha said. ‘ It popped into my head, supposing Susan should have looked In at the south window mad Joshua into the door when yon was feeding ont that oyster to me, what they would have thought,' Bph laughed too ;i and sorely enough, just then a stout, light-haired, rather plain - looking young woman oama up to the south window and leaned in. She bad on a sunbonnet, which had not prevented her from securing a few choice freckles. She had been working with a trowel In her flowergarden, ‘What’s the matter?' aha said, nodding courtly to Eph: ‘what do you two always find to langh about V

‘ Ephraim was feeding me with 'spoonmoat,' said aunt Lyddy, pointing to the

basket:, which looked like a basket of an thraoite coal.

‘lt looks like spoon-meat,’ said Susan, and then she laughed too ; ' I’ll roast some of them for supper,’ she added, ‘a new way that I know.*’ ■ > 1 i. 1 ' * ■

Eph was not invited to stay to supper, but he staid, none the less ; that was alwayo unden-tood.

• Well! Well! Well 1’ said Joshua, coming to the door step, and washing his bauds and arms just outside, in a tin baaln : ' I thought I see you set down a parcel of oysters—but there was a seaweed over ’em, and I don’ know’s I could hev said they was oysters; but then, if the square question had been put to me, “Mr Carr, be them oysters or not ?’■’ I s’pose I should hev said they was ; still, if they'd asked me bow I knew ’

* Come, come father !’ said Aunt Lyddy, ‘do give poor Ephraim a little peace Why don’t you jast say you thought they were oysters, and done with it V • Say I thought they was ?’ he replied innocently ; ‘ I knew well enough they was ; that is, knew ? No, I didn’t know, but— —’ Aunt Lyddy, with an air of mook resignation, gave up, while Joshua endeavored to fix, to a hair, the exact extent of hid knowledge. Eph smiled, but he remembered what would have made him pardon, a thousand times over, tho old man’s garrnlousneso. He remembered who alone had never failed, once a year, to visit a certain; prisoner, at the cost of a long and tiresome journey, and who had written to that homesick prisoner kind and cheering letters, and had sent him baskets of simple dainties for, holidays. • > 1 1 ," ' •'! Susan hustled about, and made a fire ofi crackling sticks, and began to roast tho oysters In a way that made a most savoury! smell. She set the table, and then sat down! at tho melodeon, while she was waiting, and sang a hymn—for she was of a musical turn,: and was one of the choir. Then she jumped, up, and took ont the steaming oysters, 1 and, they all sat down. ’ j ‘ Well, well, well!’ saldher father; ‘these be good ! I didn’t s’pose yon had any very good oysters in your bed, Ephraim.’ But there, now—l don’t s’pose I ought to have said that ; that wasn’t very oolite ; but wbat I mean was—l didn’t s’poso you had any that was real good—though I don’t know but that I’ve said about the same thing now 1 . Wall, anyway, those bo splendid ; they’rA full as good as those oohogs we had t’other night.’ ‘Quahaugal’ said Snsan j ‘the idea oi comparing these oysters with qnahangs ?’ 4 Well, well! that’s so ! r said her father li ‘ I didn’t (ay right, did I, wheaX said that] 1 ; Of course, they ain’t ho: comparison—that xs ( —ho comparison—why, of course, they Isia comparison between every thing,. but then, cohogs don’t really compare with oysters. ' That’s true.’ ,’. . ■ ctfi fie-s :t cf! j And then he paused to eat a few. . He was silent, so long. at this Occupation' that theyall laughed. . V u X '■id ‘ Well, well!’.-said ha,.laying down his. fork, and smiling innocently ; f what be yob all laughin’ at 1 Not but what I aliens like to hev folks laugh—but, thou— l didn’t see nothin’ to laugh at. SHU, perhaps,.-they, was snthln’ to langh l didn’t see ; , somethlmes one. man *ll be lookin’ downinto ■ his plate, all taken up with his vlttles, and others,-that’s lookin’ round the room, may see the kittens froliokln’, or some such thing. ’Taint the fust time I’ve known all hands to laugh all to onot, when I didn’t see nothin’.’' ’ 5 - ■: ■ I"

Susan helped him again,' and secured,; another brief respite. i u r / ; , ‘Ephraim,’-said he, after a while, ‘ yon aint skilled to cook oysters like this, I don ft believe. You ought to git married ! I was Bayin’ to Susan t’other day—well, now, mother, have I said an’tbing oat o’ the way?—well, I, don't s’poaa.’twias jnet my place to hey said an’tbing -about gittin’. married, to Ephraim, qeeln „ ‘Come, come, father/-said aunt Lyddy, ‘that'll do, now. Yon must let Ephraim alone, and not joke him about such things.’ Meanwhile, Susan bad hastily gone into the pantry to look for a pie, which" she seemed unable at once to find, i" . "i |

‘Pie got adrift?’ called but JOshu^; ' seems to me yon don’t hook on to It very quick. Now that looks good/ he aided, when she came but'; '‘that looks like cookin’ ! All I meant , was, ’fc Ephraim,ought not doin’ his own cookin’—that la—if yon can call it cookin v —bat then,, of odurse, 'tis cookin’—there's "all kinds 'o’ cookin’. , I went cook, myself, when I was a boy/ , ;;J ! ’ | After anpper, aunt Lyddy sat down to knit, and Joshua dfew,nia ohair up to an-' open window, to smoke his pipe, Inthier vice aunt Lyddy encouraged him.’ The, odour of , Virginia ' tobacco was a sweet, savour In her nostrils.'No Toreezes from Araby ever-„ awoke more, grateful faelihgs' than did the fragrance of uncle'Jpahua’s pipe. To aunt. Lyddy It meant qniet and peace.,';' , " v ,. : I Susan and Eph sat’down on the broad flag door stone, and talked qnletlydf l the,, simple news of the neighborhood, and of the days when they used to go to the school, and. come home, always’together. " '' j ‘ I didn't much think, then/ said Eph,’' • that I should ever bring up where I have, and get ashore'before’l was fairly oat to sea 1’ ‘ r '-'

‘ Jehiol’a schooner got ashore on the bar, years ago,’ said Susan, * and yet they tOwed her off, and I saw her this morning, from'my chamber window, before sunrise, alt sail set, going by to the eastward,’ • ' ' n . ‘ ‘ I know what you mean,’ said Eph; ‘ but here—l got mad once, and I almost had a right to, and I can’t get started again ; ; I never shall. I can gel a livin', of course ; but I shall always be pointed out as a jailbird, and could no more get any footin’ in the world than Portuguese Jim.’ \ J Portuguese Jim was the sole professional criminal of the town, a weak, good-natured, knock-kneed vagabond, who stole hens,iand spent every winter in‘the house of correction as an ‘ Idle and disorderly person.’ ’' ! Susan laughed outright at the . picture. Eph smiled, too, hut a little bitterly. } ‘ I suppose It was more ugliness anything else,’ he sad, ‘ that made me oorae back here to live, where everybody kqows I’ve been in jail and is down on me.’ ; I

* They are not down on you,! said Susan j ‘ nobody is down on you. It’s all your own imagination. And if you had gone £njrwhere that you was a stranger, you know that the first thing that you would have done would have been to call a mastin' and tell all the people that you had burned; down a man’s barn, and been in the State's prison, and that you wanted them all to know It at the start ; and you wouldn’t have told them why you did it, and how young you was then, and how Eliphalet treated your mother, and how you was going to pay! him for all he lost. Here, everybody kuows'that aide of it. In fact,’ she added, with a little twinkle ia her eye, ‘ I'have sometimes had an idea that the main thing they don’t] like Is to see you savin' every cent, to pfty to Eliphalet, ’

• And yet It was on your say that I.took np that plan,’ said Bph ; ‘ I never thought of it till you asked me when I was goln’ to begin to pay him up. ’ ‘ And you ought to, ’ said Susan ; I ha has a right to the money—and then you don’t, want to bo nnder obligations to that man all your life. Now, what you want to do le tt>' cheer up and go round among folk), Why, now, you’re the only fish buyer there la that the men don’t watch when he’s weighing their fish. You’ll own up to that, for one thing, won’t you?’ 1 •’ ‘ Well, thoy are good-fellows that firing fish to me,’ ho said, ‘They weren’t good fallows when [they traded at the great wharf,’ said Susan 'they had a quarrel down there once a week, reg’larly.’ j ‘ Well, suppose they do trust ms in that,’ said Kph ; 4 I can never rub out that I’ve been In State’a-prison.’ > :

' You don’t want to mb It out. You can’t rub anything ont that’s ever been ; but you can do better than rub it out.’

• What do you moan ?’ ~ ' i 4 Take things just the way they are,’ said Susan ; 4 and show what can be done. Per hap* you’ll stako a new channel out, for others to follow in that haven’t half so much chance as you have. And that's what] you will do, too, ’ she added. , ' Susan 1’ he said, ‘ if there’s anything I can ever do, in this world or the next, for you or yonr folks, that’s all I ask for, the chance to do It, Yonr folks and you'shall never want for anything whllo I’m alive. There’s one thing sure,’ he added, rising; • I’ll live ’by tnyelf and be independent of everybody, and make my way all alone la; the world; and If I can make ’em all finally own up and admit that I’m honest with ’em, I’m satisfied. That’s all I’ll’ever ask of any-

body. But there’s one thing that worries mo sometimes—that Is, whether I ought to oome here so often. I’m afraid, sometimes, that it’ll hinder your father from gettin’ work, or —something—for yon folks to bo friends with me.’

• I think suoh things take care: of themselves,’ said Susan, quietly ; ‘if a chip ypn’t rtoat, let it sink.’ ‘ Good-night,’ said Eph, and ho walked off, and wont home to his echoing house. After that, hla visits to Joshua’s became less f e juont. It was a bright day in March —one of those which almost redeem the reputation of that desperado of a month. Eph was leaning on his fence, looking now down the bay and now to where the sun was sinking in the marshes. He know that all the other men had gone to the town meeting, where ho had h ad no heart to intrude himself—that free democratic parliament where he had often gone with his father In childhood; where the boys, rejoicing in a general assembly of their own, had played ball outside, while the men debated gravely within. He recalled the time when he himself had so proudly given his first vote for president, and how his father had introduced him then to friends from distant parts of the town. He remembered how he had hoard his father speak there, and how respectfully everybody had listened to him. That was in the long ago, when they had lived at the great farm. And then came the thought of the mortgage, and of EHphalet’s foreclosure, and ’ ‘ Hallo, Eph!’ It was one of the men from whom he took fish—a plain spoxen, sincere little man ; * why wa’n’t you down to town moet’n ?’ 1 1 was busy, ’ said Eph. ‘ How’d ye like the news ?’ ‘What news?’ There was never any good news for him how.

‘ Hain’t heard who’s e’eoted town clerk ?’ r ‘No.’ Had they elected EHphalet, and so expressed their settled distrust of him, and syblpathy for the man whom he had injured P j . • Who’s elected V he naked, harshly. ' , ‘ Ton be !’ said tho man ; ‘ went in flyin’, all hands olappin’ and stompin’ their feet!’ '■! An hour later the doctor drove up, stopped, and walked toward the. kitchen d00r..... As he passed the window, he looked it/’ Eph was ' lying on his face, upon the settle, aa he had first seen him there, his , arms beneath his head. ‘ I will not disturb him now,’ said the doctor. 1 Ono breezy afternoon, in the following summer, ‘Captain Seth laid aside bis easy i every-day clothes, and transformed himself Into a .-ejlifr broadcloth image, with a small silk tatand creaking boots. So attired, be set out'ui a high open buggy, with his wife, also In '■black, but with gold spectacles, to the funeral, of an aunt. As they pursued thoir,. jog’trot journey along the Salt Hay road; and bame to Ephraim Morse’s oottage, they saw Susan sitting in a shady little the front door, shelling peas, and looking dqyvn the bay. ~ .‘How is everything, Susan I’ called out Captain Seth; ‘ ’bout time for Eph to be glti’n’ in'?' ' 1 ,' • Tea/ she answered, nodding and smiling, an 4 pointing with a peapod ; ‘ that s our boat, juat coming up to the wharf, with her peak down. 1 i>.i ”fi<r