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Samuel the Seeker, a fiction by Upton Sinclair |
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Chapter 10 |
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_ CHAPTER X Samuel presented himself the next morning and was turned over to the head gardener and duly installed as an assistant. "Let me know how you're getting along," was young Lockman's last word to him. "And if there's anything else I can do for you come and tell me." "Thank you very much, sir," said the boy gratefully; but without realizing how these magic words, pronounced in the gardener's hearing, would make him a privileged character about the place--an object of mingled deference and envy to the other servants. It was a little world all in itself, the "Fairview" menage. Without counting the stable hands, and the employees of the different farms, it took no less than twenty-three people to minister to the personal wants of Bertie Lockman. And they were divided into ranks and classes, with a rigid code of etiquette, upon which they insisted with vehemence. A housekeeper's assistant looked with infinite scorn upon a kitchen maid, and there had to be no less than four dining rooms for the various classes of servants who would not eat at the same table. All this was very puzzling to the stranger; but after a while he came to see how the system had grown up. It was just like a court; and the privileged beings who waited upon the sovereign necessarily were esteemed according to the importance of the service they performed for him and the access which they attained to his person. A good many of these servants were foreigners, and Samuel was pained to discover that they were for the most part without any ennobling conception of their calling. They were much given to gluttony and drinking; and there was an unthinkable amount of scandal and backbiting and jealousy. But it was only by degrees that he realized this, for he had one great motive in common with them--they were all possessed with a sense of the greatness of the Lockmans, and none of them wanted anything better than to talk for hours about the family and its wealth and power, and the habits and tastes of its members and their friends. It was Katie Reilly, a bright little Irish damsel, the housekeeper's sewing girl, who first captured Samuel with her smile; she carried him off for a walk, in spite of the efforts of the second parlor maid, and Samuel drank up eagerly the stream of gossip which poured from her lips. Master Albert--that was what they all called him--was said to have an income of over seven hundred thousand dollars a year. What he did with such a sum no one could imagine; he had lived quite alone since his father's death. The house had always been run by Miss Aurelia, old Mr. Lockman's sister, a lady with the lumbago and a terrible temper; but she had died a couple of years ago. Mr. Lockman had taken great interest in his stock farm, but very little in his house; and Master Albert took even less, spending most of his time in New York. Consequently everything was at sixes and sevens, and he was being robbed most terribly. But in spite of all his relatives' suggestions, he would not have anyone to come and live with him. Master Albert was still a minor, and his affairs were managed by Mr. Hickman, the family lawyer, and also by his uncle, Mr. Wygant. The latter was a manufacturer and capitalist--also a great scholar, so Katie said. It was he Samuel had seen that afternoon in the automobile, a tall and very proud-looking man with an iron-gray mustache. He lived in the big white house just after you climbed the ridge; and Miss Gladys was his only daughter. She had been old Mr. Lockman's favorite niece, and he had left her a great deal of money. People were always planning a match between her and Master Albert, but that always made Miss Gladys very angry. They both declared they were not in love with each other, and Katie was inclined to think this was true. Miss Gladys had been away to a rich boarding school, and she wanted to visit some friends at Newport; but her father wanted her to stay with him, and that made her discontented. She was very beautiful, and everybody was her slave. "But oh, I tell you, when she's angry!" said Katie with a shake of her head. This little Irish girl was a rare find for Samuel, because her brother was the "fellow" to Miss Gladys's maid, and so there was nothing she could not tell Samuel about his divinity. He learned about Miss Gladys's beautiful party dresses, and about her wonderful riding horse, and about her skill at tennis, and even her fondness for chocolate fudge. Miss Gladys had been to Paris the summer before; and her family had a camp in the Adirondacks, and they went there every August in an automobile and flew about on a mountain lake in a motor- boat the shape of a knife blade. Katie wanted to talk about Samuel a part of the time, and even, perhaps, about herself; but Samuel plied her with questions about Miss Wygant. He had her two pictures folded away in his vest pocket; and all the time that he trimmed the hedges he listened for the sound of her horse's hoofs or for the chug of her motor. And then, one blissful morning, when he was carrying in an armful of roses for the housekeeper, he ran full upon her in the hall. His heart leaped so that it hurt him; and instead of passing straight on, as he should have done, he stood stock still, and almost spilled his roses on the floor. Miss Gladys's face lighted with pleasure. "Why, it's Samuel!" she exclaimed. "Yes, Miss Gladys," said he. "And how do you like your position?" "Very well, Miss Gladys," he replied; and then, feeling the inadequacy of this, he added with fervor, "I'm so happy I can't tell you." "I'm very glad to hear it," she said. "And I'm sure you fill it very well." "I've done the best I can, Miss Gladys," said he. There was a moment's pause. "You find there is a good deal to learn?" she inquired. "Yes," he answered. "But you see, it's about flowers, and I was always interested in flowers." And again there was a pause; and then suddenly Miss Wygant flung a question at him--"Samuel, why do you look at me like that?" Samuel was almost knocked over. "Why--why--" he gasped. "Miss Gladys! I don't--!" "Ah!" she said, "but you do." Poor Samuel was in an agony of horror. "I--I--really--" he stammered. "I didn't mean it--I wouldn't for the world---" He stopped, utterly at a loss; and Miss Wygant kept her merciless gaze upon him. "Am I so very beautiful?" she asked. This startled Samuel into lifting his eyes. He stared at her, transfixed; and at last he whispered, faintly, "Yes." "Tell me about it," she said, and her look shook him to the depths of his soul. He stood there, trembling; he could feel the blood pouring in a warm flood about his throat and neck. "Tell me," she said again. "You--you are more beautiful than anyone I have ever seen," he panted. "You are not used to women, Samuel!" "No," said he. "I'm just a country boy." She stood waiting for him to continue. "The girls there"--he whispered--"they are pretty--but you--you---" And then suddenly the words came to him. "You are like a princess!" he cried. "Ah, if you ever find your tongue!" she said with a smile; and then after a pause she added, "You don't know how different you are, Samuel." "Different?" he echoed. "Yes. You are so fresh--so young. You would do anything for me, wouldn't you?" "Yes," he said. "You'd risk your life for me, as you did for Bertie?" And Samuel answered her with fervor that left no room for doubt. "I wish there was a chance," she laughed. "But there's only this dull every-day round!" There was a pause; the boy dropped his eyes and stood trembling. "Where are you going with the roses?" she asked. "I'm to take them to the housekeeper." "Let me have one." She took one from the bunch, and he stood watching while she pinned it to her dress. "You may bring me some, now and then," she said with one of her marvelous smiles. "Don't forget." And then, as she went on, she touched him upon the hand. At the touch of her warm, living fingers such a thrill passed through the boy as made him reel. It was something blind and elemental, outside of anything that he had dreamed of in his life. She went on down the hall and left him there, and he had to lean against a table for support. And all that day he was in a daze--with bursts of rapture sweeping over him. She was interested in him! She had smiled upon him! She had touched his hand! He went home that evening on purpose to tell Sophie; and the two of them talked about it for hours. He told the story over and over again. And Sophie listened, with her eyes shining and her hands clasped in an ecstasy of delight. "Oh, Samuel!" she whispered. "I knew it--I knew she'd appreciate you! She was so beautiful--I knew she must be kind and good!" _ |
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