Risen from the Ranks: Harry Walton's Success

Aunt Deborah.

Miss Deborah Kensington sat in an old-fashioned rocking-chair covered with a cheap print, industriously engaged in footing a stocking.  She was a maiden lady of about sixty, with a thin face, thick seamed with wrinkles, a prominent nose, bridged by spectacles, sharp gray eyes, and thin lips.  She was a shrewd New England woman, who knew very well how to take care of and increase the property which she had inherited.  Her nephew had been correctly informed as to her being close-fisted.  All her establishment was carried on with due regard to economy, and though her income in the eyes of a city man would be counted small, she saved half of it every year, thus increasing her accumulations.

As she sat placidly knitting, an interruption came in the shape of a knock at the front door.

“I’ll go myself,” she said, rising, and laying down the stocking.  “Hannah’s out in the back room, and won’t hear.  I hope it aint Mrs. Smith, come to borrow some butter.  She aint returned that last half-pound she borrowed.  She seems to think her neighbors have got to support her.”

These thoughts were in her mind as she opened the door.  But no Mrs. Smith presented her figure to the old lady’s gaze.  She saw instead, with considerable surprise, a stylish young man with a book under his arm.  She jumped to the conclusion that he was a book-pedler, having been annoyed by several persistent specimens of that class of travelling merchants.

“If you’ve got books to sell,” she said, opening the attack, “you may as well go away.  I aint got no money to throw away.”

Mr. Ferdinand B. Kensington—­for he was the young man in question—­laughed heartily, while the old lady stared at him half amazed, half angry.

“I don’t see what there is to laugh at,” said she, offended.

“I was laughing at the idea of my being taken for a book-pedler.”

“Well, aint you one?” she retorted.  “If you aint, what be you?”

“Aunt Deborah, don’t you know me?” asked the young man, familiarly.

“Who are you that calls me aunt?” demanded the old lady, puzzled.

“I’m your brother Henry’s son.  My name is Ferdinand.”

“You don’t say so!” ejaculated the old lady.  “Why, I’d never ’ave thought it.  I aint seen you since you was a little boy.”

“This don’t look as if I was a little boy, aunt,” said the young man, touching his luxuriant whiskers.

“How time passes, I do declare!” said Deborah.  “Well, come in, and we’ll talk over old times.  Where did you come from?”

“From the city of New York.  That’s where I’ve been living for some time.”

“You don’t say!  Well, what brings you this way?”

“To see you, Aunt Deborah.  It’s so long since I’ve seen you that I thought I’d like to come.”

“I’m glad to see you, Ferdinand,” said the old lady, flattered by such a degree of dutiful attention from a fine-looking young man.  “So your poor father’s dead?”

“Yes, aunt, he’s been dead three years.”

“I suppose he didn’t leave much.  He wasn’t very forehanded.”

“No, aunt; he left next to nothing.”

“Well, it didn’t matter much, seein’ as you was the only child, and big enough to take care of yourself.”

“Still, aunt, it would have been comfortable if he had left me a few thousand dollars.”

“Aint you doin’ well?  You look as if you was,” said Deborah, surveying critically her nephew’s good clothes.

“Well, I’ve been earning a fair salary, but it’s very expensive living in a great city like New York.”

“Humph! that’s accordin’ as you manage.  If you live snug, you can get along there cheap as well as anywhere, I reckon.  What was you doin’?”

“I was a salesman for A. T. Stewart, our leading dry-goods merchant.”

“What pay did you get?”

“A thousand dollars a year.”

“Why, that’s a fine salary.  You’d ought to save up a good deal.”

“You don’t realize how much it costs to live in New York, aunt.  Of course, if I lived here, I could live on half the sum, but I have to pay high prices for everything in New York.”

“You don’t need to spend such a sight on dress,” said Deborah, disapprovingly.

“I beg your pardon, Aunt Deborah; that’s where you are mistaken.  The store-keepers in New York expect you to dress tip-top and look genteel, so as to do credit to them.  If it hadn’t been for that, I shouldn’t have spent half so much for dress.  Then, board’s very expensive.”

“You can get boarded here for two dollars and a half a week,” said Aunt Deborah.

“Two dollars and a half!  Why, I never paid less than eight dollars a week in the city, and you can only get poor board for that.”

“The boarding-houses must make a great deal of money,” said Deborah.  “If I was younger, I’d maybe go to New York, and keep one myself.”

“You’re rich, aunt.  You don’t need to do that.”

“Who told you I was rich?” said the old lady, quickly.

“Why, you’ve only got yourself to take care of, and you own this farm, don’t you?”

“Yes, but farmin’ don’t pay much.”

“I always heard you were pretty comfortable.”

“So I am,” said the old lady, “and maybe I save something; but my income aint as great as yours.”

“You have only yourself to look after, and it is cheap living in Centreville.”

“I don’t fling money away.  I don’t spend quarter as much as you on dress.”

Looking at the old lady’a faded bombazine dress, Ferdinand was very ready to believe this.

“You don’t have to dress here, I suppose,” he answered.  “But, aunt, we won’t talk about money matters just yet.  It was funny you took me for a book-pedler.”

“It was that book you had, that made me think so.”

“It’s a book I brought as a present to you, Aunt Deborah.”

“You don’t say!” said the old lady, gratified.  “What is it?  Let me look at it.”

“It’s a copy of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ illustrated.  I knew you wouldn’t like the trashy books they write nowadays, so I brought you this.”

“Really, Ferdinand, you’re very considerate,” said Aunt Deborah, turning over the leaves with manifest pleasure.  “It’s a good book, and I shall be glad to have it.  Where are you stoppin’?”

“At the hotel in the village.”

“You must come and stay here.  You can get ’em to send round your things any time.”

“Thank you, aunt, I shall be delighted to do so.  It seems so pleasant to see you again after so many years.  You don’t look any older than when I saw you last.”

Miss Deborah knew very well that she did look older, but still she was pleased by the compliment.  Is there any one who does not like to receive the same assurance?

“I’m afraid your eyes aint very sharp, Ferdinand,” she said.  “I feel I’m gettin’ old.  Why, I’m sixty-one, come October.”

“Are you?  I shouldn’t call you over fifty, from your looks, aunt.  Really I shouldn’t.”

“I’m afraid you tell fibs sometimes,” said Aunt Deborah, but she said it very graciously, and surveyed her nephew very kindly.  “Heigh ho! it’s a good while since your poor father and I were children together, and went to the school-house on the hill.  Now he’s gone, and I’m left alone.”

“Not alone, aunt.  If he is dead, you have got a nephew.”

“Well, Ferdinand, I’m glad to see you, and I shall be glad to have you pay me a good long visit.  But how can you be away from your place so long?  Did Mr. Stewart give you a vacation?”

“No, aunt; I left him.”

“For good?”

“Yes.”

“Left a place where you was gettin’ a thousand dollars a year!” said the old lady in accents of strong disapproval.

“Yes, aunt.”

“Then I think you was very foolish,” said Deborah with emphasis.

“Perhaps you won’t, when you know why I left it.”

“Why did you?”

“Because I could do better.”

“Better than a thousand dollars a year!” said Deborah with surprise.

“Yes, I am offered two thousand dollars in San Francisco.”

“You don’t say!” ejaculated Deborah, letting her stocking drop in sheer amazement.

“Yes, I do.  It’s a positive fact.”

“You must be a smart clerk!”

“Well, it isn’t for me to say,” said Ferdinand, laughing.

“When be you goin’ out?”

“In a week, but I thought I must come and bid you good-by first.”

“I’m real glad to see you, Ferdinand,” said Aunt Deborah, the more warmly because she considered him so prosperous that she would have no call to help him.  But here she was destined to find herself mistaken.