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A Jerome, Poor Man: A Novel, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 37 |
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_ Chapter XXXVII Colonel Lamson's will divided sixty-five thousand dollars among five legatees--ten thousand was given to John Jennings, five thousand to Eliphalet Means, five thousand to Eben Merritt, twenty thousand to Lucina Merritt, and twenty-five thousand to Jerome Edwards. Upham was not astonished by the first four bequests; the last almost struck it dumb. "What in creation did he leave twenty-five thousand dollars to that feller for? He wa'n't nothin' to him," Simon Basset stammered, when he first heard the news on Tuesday night in Robinson's store. His face was pale and gaping, and folk stared at him. Suddenly a man cried out, "By gosh, J'rome promised to give the hull on't away! Don't ye remember?" "That's so," cried another; "an' Doctor Prescott an' Basset have got to hand out ten thousand apiece if he does. Fork over, Simon." "Guess ye'll wait till doomsday afore J'rome sticks to his part on't," said Basset, with a sneer; but his lips were white. "No, I won't; no, I won't," responded the man, hilariously. "J'rome's goin' to do it; Jake here says he heard so; it come real straight." He winked at the others, who closed around, grinning maliciously. Basset broke through them with an oath and made for the door. "It's a damned lie, I tell ye!" he shouted, hoarsely; "an' if J'rome's sech a G-- d-- fool, I'll see ye all to h--, and him too, afore I pay a dollar on't." When the door had slammed behind him, the men looked at one another curiously. "You don't s'pose J'rome will do it," one said, meditatively. "He'll do it when the river runs uphill an' crows are white," answered another, with a hard laugh. "I dun'no'," said another, doubtfully. "J'rome Edwards 's always been next-door neighbor to a fool, an' there's no countin' on what a fool 'll do!" "S'pose you'd calculate on comin' in for some of the fool's money, if he should give it up," remarked a dry and unexpected voice at his elbow. The man looked around and saw Ozias Lamb. "Ye don't think he'll do it, do ye?" he cried, eagerly. "'Ain't got nothin' to say," replied Ozias. "I s'pose when a fool does part with his money, there's always wise men 'nough to take it." John Upham, who, with some meagre little purchases in hand, had been listening to the discussion, started for the door. When he had opened it, he turned and faced them. "I'll tell ye one thing, all of ye," he said, "an' that is, _he'll_ do it." There was a clamor of astonishment. "How d'ye know it? Did he tell ye so?" they shouted. "Wait an' see," returned John Upham, and went out. Plodding along his homeward road, a man passed him at a rapid stride. John Upham started. "Hullo, J'rome," he called, but getting no response, thought he had been mistaken. However, the man was Jerome, but the tumult of his soul almost deafened him to voices of the flesh. He was, for the time, out of the plane of purely physical sounds on one of the spirit, full of unutterable groanings and strivings. When Jerome had received the news of his legacy, he had felt, for the first time in his whole life, the joy of sudden acquisition and possession. His head reeled with it; he was, in a sense, intoxicated. "Am I rich? _I--I?_" he asked himself. Pleasures hitherto out of his imagination of possession seemed to float within his reach on this golden tide of wealth. He would have been more than man had not this first grasp of the divining-rod of the pleasures of earth filled him with the lust of them. Even his love for Lucina, and his parents and sister, seemed for a while subverted by that love for himself, to which the chance of its gratification gave rise. Vanities which he had never known within his nature, and petty emulations, rose thick, like a crop of weeds on a rich soil. He saw himself in broadcloth and fine linen, with a great festoon of gold chain on his breast and a gold watch in pocket, walking with haughty flourishes of a cane, or riding in his own carriage. He saw himself in a new house, grander than Doctor Prescott's; he saw his parlor more richly furnished, _his_ wife, _his_ mother and sister more finely attired than any women in the village, _his_ father throned like a king in the late sunshine of life. Jerome had usually sound financial judgment and conservative estimate of the value of money, but now he thought of twenty-five thousand dollars as almost unlimited wealth. That night, after he had the news from Lawyer Means, he could not sleep until nearly morning. He lay awake, spending, mentally, principal and interest of his little fortune over and over, and spending, besides that, much of the singleness and unselfishness of his own heart. However, after an hour or two of sleep, which seemed to turn, as sleep sometimes will, the erratic currents of his mind back into the old channels, from which it had been forced by this earthquake stress of life, he experienced a complete revulsion. He remembered--what he had either forgotten or ignored--the scene in the store, his vow, the drawing up of the document which registered it. He awoke into this memory as into a chilling atmosphere, and went down-stairs with a grave face. He met his mother's and sister's almost hysterical delight, which had not abated overnight, his father's child-like wonder and admiration, soberly; as soon as he could, he got away to his work, which was still in the wood where his mill had stood. Cheeseman had gone home, still Jerome was not alone much of the day. People came to congratulate him, also out of curiosity. The little village was wild over the legacy, and the document concerning its division among the poor. There were two distinct factions, one upholding the belief that Jerome would remain true to his promise, the other full of scoffing and scorn at the insanity of it. Both factions invaded Jerome, and while neither broached the matter directly, strove by indirect and sly methods to ascertain his mind. "S'pose ye'll quit work now, J'rome; s'prised to see ye here this mornin'," said one. "When ye goin' to run for Congress, J'rome?" asked another. Still another inquired, meaningly, with a sly wink at his comrades, how much money he was going to allow for home missions? and another, when he was going to Boston to buy his gold watch and chain? Until he went home at night he was haunted by the doubtful attention of the idle portion, just now large, of the village population. It was too early for planting, and quite recently the supply of work from the Dale shoe-dealer had been scanty. People were at a loss to account for it, as the business had increased during the last two years, and many Upham men had been employed. Lately there had been a rumor as to the cause, but few had given it credence. This afternoon, however, it was confirmed. Just before dark, a man, breathless, as if he had been running, joined the knot of loafers. "Well," he said, panting, "I've found out why the shoes have been so scarce." The others stared at him, inquiringly. "That--durned varmint, over to Dale, he's bought the old meetin'-house, an'--sent down to Boston fer--some machines, an'--he's goin' to have a factory. There's no more handwork to be done; that's the reason he's been holdin' it back." "How'd ye find it out? Who told ye?" asked one and another, scowling. "Saw 'em, with my own eyes, unloadin' of the new machines at the railroad, an' saw the gang of men he's got to work 'em hangin' round his store. It's the railroad that's done it. It's made freight to Boston cheap enough so's he can make it pay. Robinson's goin' to give up shoes here. I had it straight. He don't want to compete with machine-work, and he don't want to put in machines himself. It was an unlucky day for Upham when that railroad went through Dale." "Curse the railroad, an' curse all the new ideas that take the bread out of poor men's mouths to give it to the rich," said a bitter voice, and there was a hoarse amen from the crowd. "I'd give ten years of my life if I could raise enough money, or, if a few of us together could raise enough money, to start a factory in Upham," cried a man, fiercely, "then we'd see whether it was brains as good as other men's that were lacking!" The man, who had not been there long, was quite young, not much older than Jerome, and had a keen, thin face, with nervous red spots coming and going in his cheeks, and fiery, deep-set eyes. He had the reputation of being very smart and energetic, and having considerable self-taught book-knowledge. He had a wife and two babies, and was, if the truth were told, staying away from home that day that his wife, who was a delicate, anxious young thing, might think he was at work. He had eaten nothing since morning. "We shouldn't be no better off, if you put machines in your factory," said a squat, elderly man, with a surly overhanging brow and a dull weight of jaw. "I guess we who are not too old to learn could run machines as well as anybody, if we tried," returned the young man, scornfully; "and as for the rest, handwork is always going to have a market value, and there'll always be some sort of a demand for it. It would go hard if we couldn't give those that couldn't run machines something to do, if we had the factory; but we haven't, and, what's more, we sha'n't have." As he spoke, he went over to Jerome, who was prying up a heavy log, and lifted with him. "Do you think you could form a company, if you had enough money between you?" Jerome asked him. "Yes, of course; we'd be fools if we didn't," he said. "I say, curse the railroads and the machines! I wish every railroad track in the country was tore up! I wish every train of cars was kindlin'-wood, an' all the engine wheels an' the machine wheels would lock, till the crack of doom!" shouted the bitter voice again. "There's no use in damning progress because we happen to be in the way of it. I'd rather be run over than lock the wheels myself," Jerome said, suddenly. "It remains to be seen whether ye would or not," the voice returned, with sarcastic meaning. There was a smothered chuckle from the crowd, which began to disperse; the shadows were getting thick in the wood. After supper that night, Jerome went up to his room, and sat down at his window. His curtain was pulled high. He looked out into the darkness and tried to think, but directly a door slammed, and a shrill babble of feminine tongues began in the room below. Belinda Lamb had arrived. Jerome got his hat, stole softly down-stairs, and out of the front door. "I've got to be alone somewhere, where I can think," he said to himself, and forthwith made for the site of his mill; he could be sure of solitude there at that hour. When he arrived, he sat down on a pile of logs and gazed unseeingly at the broad current of the brook, silvering out of the shadows to the light of a young moon. The roar of it was loud in his ears, but he did not seem to hear it. There are times when the spirit of the living so intensifies that it comes into a silence and darkness of nature like death. Jerome, in the solitude of the woods, without another human soul near, could concentrate his own into full action. As he sat there, he began to defend his own case like a lawyer against a mighty opponent, whom he recognized from the dogmas of orthodoxy, and also from an insight inherited from generations of Calvinistic ancestors, as his own conscience. Jerome presented his case tersely, the arguments were all clearly determined beforehand. "This twenty-five thousand dollars," he said, "will lift me and mine out of grinding poverty. If I give it up, my father and mother and sister will have none of it. Father has come home unfit for any further struggles; mother has aged during the last few days. She was nerved up to bear trouble, the shock of joy has taken her last strength. She can do little now. This money will make them happy and comfortable through their last days. If I give up this money, they may come to want. I have lost my work in Dale, like the rest; I may not be able to get a living, even; we may all suffer. This money will give my sister a marriage-portion, and possibly influence Doctor Prescott to favor his son's choice. If that does not, my failure to carry out my part of the agreement, and the doctor's consequent release from his, may influence him to make no further opposition. If I give the money, and so force the doctor to give his, or put him to shame for refusing, Elmira can never marry Lawrence. I can give more to Uncle Ozias than he would receive as his share of a common division. I can send Henry Judd to Boston to have his eyes cured. And--I can marry Lucina Merritt. She loves me, she is waiting for me. I have not answered her letter. She is wondering now why I do not come. If I give up the money, I can never marry her--I can never come." Then the great still voice, which was, to his conception, within him, yet without, through all nature, had its turn, and Jerome listened. Then he answered, fiercely, as to spoken arguments. "I know the whole is greater than the parts; I know that to make a whole village prosperous and happy is more than the welfare of three or four, but the three and the four come first, and that which I would have for myself is divine, and of God, and I cannot be what I would be without it, for no man who hungers gets his full strength. If I give this, it is all. I can make no more of my life." He looked as if he listened again for a moment, and then stood up. "Well," he said, "it is true, if a man gives his all he can do no more, and no more can be asked of him. What I have said I will do, I will do, and I will save neither myself nor mine by a lie which I must lie to--my own soul!" Jerome went down the path to the road, but stopped suddenly, as if he had got a blow. "Oh, my God!" he cried, "Lucina!" All at once a consideration had struck him which had never fully done so before. All at once he grasped the possibility that Lucina might suffer from his sacrifice as much as he. "I can bear it--myself," he groaned, "but Lucina, Lucina; suppose--it should kill her--suppose it should--break her heart. I am stronger to suffer than she. If I could bear hers and mine, if I could bear it all. Oh, Lucina, I cannot hurt _you_--I cannot, I cannot! It is too much to ask. God, I _cannot!_" Jerome stood still, in an involuntary attitude of defiance. His arm was raised, his fist clinched, as if for a blow; his face uplifted with stern reprisal; then his arm dropped, his tense muscles relaxed. "I could not marry her if I did not give it up," he said. "I should not be worthy of her; there is no other way." _ |
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