Everybody's Chance by John Habberton (ebook pc reader TXT) 📕

"What on earth do you mean, Mr. Pruffett?"

"Merely what I say. If you loved her, not yourself, or loved her more than you loved yourself, you can do a great deal to make her happy; far more than Charley Wurring can."

"I wish I knew what you were trying to say, Mr. Pruffett."

"Do you? Then I'll try to make myself understood. Charley is a well-meaning fellow, but nowhere near enough of a man to marry a girl like that. Splendid girls sometimes accept a husband of that kind after waiting a long time in vain for a better one; the range of choice in this town is rather small, you know. Charley's much the best of his family; indeed, he hasn't any bad habits of his own, and he has learned to hate all that he might have inherited, but you know his fix; a father who has drunk himself into incapacity for anything, and a mother who is utterly discouraged and bad-tempered. Luce will have many occasions for feeling sorry for her choice; and Charley will often have to feel desperate, for what chance can he see, at present, of marrying and supporting a wife?"

"Well!" exclaimed Champ, savagely.

"Well, you know what the lecturer said about chances? Yours is right at hand-- right now. Why don't you put Charley into that wooded marshland of yours, to clear it? Give him the wood in payment; you'd not lose a cent by that. Get his father to help him, the weakest man has enough romance in him to want to help his son to a good wife. Work is the best cure for drunkenness, and the fellow daren't and can't drink while his son is with him all the while. By doing this you would be improving a chance to greatly benefit three people; such a chance seldom comes to any one."

"And I would also help another man to marry the woman whom--"

"Whom you love? Well, for what do you love her? For her sake or for your own?"

Champ remained silent; the old man went on:

"You don't seem to know. It's well, then, that you didn't chance to marry her."

"Mr. Pruffett," exclaimed Champ-- he almost roared it-- "do you know what you are saying? Are you human? Are you a man, like other men?"

"I am, my boy," replied the old man calmly. "I don't mind telling you, in strict confidence, that I loved Luce's mother-- God bless her!-- forty years ago. I never loved any other woman-- I tried to, but I couldn't. I had an awful fight with myself, after Grew won her, and I got the worst of it, for I was obliged, as an honest man, to admit to myself that I loved myself more than I loved her. To reform myself, I determined to go on loving her, but for her sake only, and the way I did it was to do just as I am advising you. I hadn't any marshland to clear, and there was nothing in Grew's family history for the young man to be ashamed of, but I put him into the one good chance which I had here, and I went away to shift for myself. I don't deny that I hoped that something would happen to break their engagement, but there didn't. I wish Luce were my daughter, for there's no one I would rather see her marry than you, but there are some things which one can't change-- some chances which a man loses. Your chance is just as I'm putting it; I'm advising only what I did myself, and what I never had cause to regret. I know, though, it isn't the sort of thing to press on a young man too hard, and I'm sure that, while you're in your present frame of mind, you don't care to listen to any more of this kind of talk, so-- good-night."

"Good-night," was the response, as sharp as the crack of a rifle.

"Shake hands with me, won't you, Champ?" said the old man softly. "No one else knows so well how to sympathize with you. Don't forget that I loved her mother-- and lost her."

They shook hands as they parted, but Champ's head was in a whirl, and his heart was thumping angrily. What? Help the man who had just taken from him the prize toward which he had been struggling for years? Pruffett had probably told the truth, but-- well, men were not all of the same clay. Love Luce for her own sake? Why, what else had he thought of but what he would do to make Luce happy? Had not his delay been entirely because of his doubts and fears for her? What was most in his mind whenever he thought of her-- himself? Never! He thought only of her-- her great, deep eyes, her noble face, her womanly composure, her strength of character everything that was best in womanhood, so far as he knew women. He was sure that through his very admiration of all that was best in her, he knew best how to make her happy, while Charley, a mere good-natured, happy-go-lucky fellow, who had seemed to be in love with half-a-dozen other girls for no especial reason, would be utterly unable to comprehend the needs of so superior a nature.

Yet there was some truth in what old Pruffett had said about the ways in which Charley could be helped to become a more fit husband. If some one else could help him, well and good, but as to Champ-- . He struggled hard with himself a few moments; then he suddenly stopped, bared his head, looked upward, and exclaimed:

"Heaven help me, I'll do it-- for her sake! 'Tis my chance-- but what a chance."

Luce Grew told herself, after Charley had reluctantly gone home and she found herself alone with her thoughts, that she wondered how she had come to say "Yes" to the very pointed question which Charley Wurring had put to her during a certain point of the lecture. Charley had one of the sympathetic natures which are rare among men, or, perhaps, less rare than the willingness of their owners to manifest them, so Luce had always liked him. He was quick to see the application of an argument, or the inner and better sense of almost anything that might be said, so Luce had never failed to find him good company, although she regarded him very much as if he were a boy, although he was fully as old as she. She had been deeply interested in the lecture, and her better self approved all that the speaker said; so it pleased her greatly that when she looked at Charley for sympathy his face was frank and open, and he seemed to be of exactly her own way of thinking; while most of the young men about him were looking grim, or were sneering, or exchanging satirical winks with other young men.

So, when the lecturer told the hearers that their chances were all about them-- nay, right at their side, waiting only to be accepted, Charley had whispered:

"Luce, don't you think you could make a personal application of that remark? I am right at your side; won't you accept me? I won't ask any other or grander chance than you while I live."

She felt like laughing at the boy, but he looked so earnest, so manly, yet at the same time so appealing, that she did what many another woman has done in similar circumstances she began to wonder. Life was long; Brundy was a small place; there were other young men in the village, but very, very few whom she could by any possibility marry. She did not like the possibility of remaining single all her life. Charley was not the kind of man upon whom she had set her fancy, but young men were disappointing creatures; she had never been in love with one, but girls of her acquaintance had made dreadful mistakes in marrying men whom Luce herself had thought quite good. Charley was good-- she never had heard a word against him: he was very attentive to his mother and kind to his sisters. He had nothing upon which to marry, but engagements generally were long in Brundy; perhaps if she were to accept him it might be the means of making him everything he now failed to be.

"Does it take you so long to make up your mind?" whispered Charley. "I know I'm not worthy of you, but, on the other hand, neither is any one else; I'll be anything you wish, if you'll think me good enough to begin with."

She looked down into his eyes; they were very honest eyes, and at that particular instant they were very earnest. Luce blushed slightly and dropped her own eyes, Charley's hand sought hers, pressed it, and received a gentle pressure in return; then he whispered:

"Thank you. God bless you."

On the way home she talked to him kindly, but not enthusiastically; she told him that his proposal had been a great surprise, and perhaps she had accepted it too hastily, for she really had never thought of loving him; but Charley was so grateful, and so willing to wait, and so astonished at his own temerity, and so overwhelmed by his new joy, that she could not help being deeply affected, so she made but a single condition; the affair must be a secret between them until both of them were certain that they were not mistaken. Charley promised willingly, for he was concerned, for Luce's sake, about what people would say should they know of what had occurred. Marriage was a serious matter in Brundy, from the dollar and cents point of view; and he knew that every one in the village knew that he had neither money nor prospects, and that his only employment, thus far, had been several months of school teaching, during the winter months, and such occasional work as he could find in the village and among the farmers during the summer. He well knew, too, what people would say about a woman like Luce entering a family such as the Wurring family had become, through the habits of the head of the house.

The next morning, therefore, Charley made haste to find Champ, the only man to whom he had betrayed his feelings, and beg that young man to keep the matter a profound secret.

He found Champ in the marshland forest, working as if he were determined to fell all the trees in a single day. Champ rested upon his axe and kept his eyes on the ground while the communication was made; then, without raising his eyes, he said:

"What have you to marry on?"

"Not a cent," was the reply, "though here's the half dollar you lent me last night."

"Keep that to start your fortune with," said Champ. "There's money here for you if you choose to work for it."

"Here? Where? How?"

"By cutting away these trees. If you'll do it, and keep at the job until it is done, you may have all of the wood. Good firewood brings three dollars a cord in town during the winter months, which aren't far off,