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

"'Tis mine, then!" exclaimed Charley joyously. "I'll go home at once for my axe."

"You needn't take that trouble," said Champ, anxious to get away from the spectacle of a man so happy, and from such a cause. "You may use mine for the remainder of the day. When you come back after dinner, perhaps you can persuade your father to help you; I'm sure he would do it if he knew the reason. Two pairs of hands are better than one at such a job, for 'twill be no easy one, I assure you."

"Thank you," said Charley. "I'll be glad to have my father with me, for reasons which I needn't explain to you. But, Champ, I feel as if I could do the whole job myself, in a very short time. Oh, I feel like a giant."

"Indeed?" was the reply, given almost with a sneer.

"Yes, indeed. Oh, you may look that way if you like, but you don't understand the feeling. Just wait, though, until you are fairly in love yourself, an'--"

"Oh, don't talk to me in that way," exclaimed Champ, biting his lips and turning aside; he felt that if he did not quickly get away he would fly at the fellow and strangle him.

"But I must talk so," persisted Charley, "and you are the only man to whom I can do it, for no one else knows of my great fortune but you. To think that I am the only man in the village who is so richly blessed. There's no other girl in Brundy who can compare with Luce; honestly now, old fellow, is there?"

Champ took his knife from his pocket and began to shave the rough bark from the coat of a slippery-elm tree.

"I do believe you think there is," said Charley, looking curiously at his companion, "and that you're in love with her. Oh, you sly chap! You always were the quietest young man in the town, and have seldom paid attention to any of the girls, but I do believe I have found you out. Who is she? I won't tell anybody. I'd like to know that some other man is as happy as I. Has she said 'Yes'?"

"Will you kindly attend to your own business and leave mine to me?" asked Champ, suddenly turning on Charley a face like a thunder-cloud. The younger man exclaimed quickly:

"I beg a thousand pardons, Champ. I didn't mean to be impertinent. You never saw anything like that in me, did you?"

"Not until a few moments ago," was the reply. "But I don't want ever to see it again."

"You shan't, I assure you," said Charley in haste, as he began to tone down his excitement by attacking the largest tree near at hand. He worked vigorously several moments, but finally stopped to say:

"Let me talk of Luce, though. She is so grand, so good, so unlike all other girls. I've thought myself in love before, but I soon found out 'twas all fancy." Charley leaned on his axe and looked contemplatively at the ground a moment or two before he continued: "Other girls seemed to like me to make love to them, but it soon became an old story to both of us, for they seemed to have nothing in their minds but what was trifling and merely romantic, but Luce-- why, there's something in the very tone of her voice that makes her seem different from every other young woman, and better. She's-- she's-- oh, she's thoroughly womanly, while the others are merely girlish. Don't you think that is the proper distinction, so far as you have observed her and other Brundy girls?"

As Charley asked this question he raised his eyes for the answer, but Champ was no longer standing before him. Charley looked slowly about him, but could see Champ nowhere; then he quickly peered between the trees, in every direction, and finally saw Champ, some distance away, walking rapidly and with his fingers to his ears.

"I declare," exclaimed the young man to himself, yet softly, as if he feared that even the trees had ears, "I believe I've been making a fool of myself. I didn't suppose, though, that a man generally so kind and sympathetic as Champ could have been quite so rude. Did I really say anything that was dreadfully silly?"

He thought a little while about it, and this naturally set him to thinking about Luce, and the subject was so interesting that he could not give any attention to anything else, so he leaned against a tree and indulged in delightful day-dreaming for he knew not how long. Neither could he afterward imagine how long he might have continued at his congenial occupation had he not been startled by a footfall, and, looking about him, seen Champ returning with an axe in his hand. Champ at first looked sheepishly toward him and said:

"I thought I could spare half a day to help you." When, however, the big fellow cast his eyes about and saw not a tree had been felled since he made his escape he glared savagely at Charley, and exclaimed:

"You're a fine fellow to think of marrying, aren't you? You've not chopped a stroke since I left you. I had better have offered this wood to a better man, even if I had been obliged to look for one not in love. I suppose you would like me to do all the work for you, after giving you the trees-- eh?"

Charley's face turned scarlet; he seized his axe and began to make chips fly rapidly. Champ also attacked a tree, and for a few moments no sound was heard but that of the axes upon the tree-trunks. Soon Charley wanted to stop, for he was unaccustomed to the work, and his hands had begun to blister, but after what Champ had said the young man was resolved to suffer anything rather than remain under the cruel imputation of being willing that Champ should earn the money on which the younger man should wed Luce Grew. Suddenly, however, to his great relief, Champ's tree fell, and the axeman stood aside for a moment.

"I covet your strength," exclaimed Charley; "and I'm going to have it, or something like it, if hard work will get it for me. A man who is to marry Luce Grew should have as much muscle as heart."

"Talk is cheap," responded Champ. After this there was nothing for Charley to do but attack his tree again. Soon, however, the blisters in his right hand began to break, and the pain was very like torture, so he laid down his axe and began to blow upon the palms of his hands. Champ approached him, took his hand roughly and looked at it. Then he looked inquiringly into Charley's face, and said:

"You're more of a man than I thought you. You can't go on with such a hand. Wait a moment."

He went to a hollow tree, and drew from it a pair of old leather gloves and a small bottle of oil.

"Here; put some of this on your hands, and put these gloves on. Once in a while I'm afflicted in the same way, after I've been out of axe practice a little while. Give the oil a few minutes in which to get in its work."

Champ returned to his tree, lopping off the boughs as if they were twigs, cutting them into four-foot lengths and tossing them aside; then he cut the trunk itself into four-foot lengths. Charley looked on in admiration, but while the giant looked about for another foeman worthy of his steel the younger man exclaimed:

"What a magnificent specimen of manhood you are! It is a man like you whom Luce should marry. I suppose, however, she knows her own mind."

"Whether she does-- or no--" said Champ, speaking between the strokes of his axe, "her mind is-- the only one she can go by-- for the present." Then he stopped a moment and said, "Can't you possibly talk of something else? You ought to be thinking and talking about how much you will do in a day, and asking who is most likely to buy the wood and pay quickest, and where you can best put your money at interest as fast as you collect it. Talking about a girl never helped a man to marry her; 'tis work-- nothing else-- that makes a man worthy of the love he pretends to bear a woman."

"I guess you're right, Champ," sighed Charley, addressing himself once more to work, "but I wish I knew where you got so much sense. I won't ask you any more about it, as it seemed to worry you a few minutes ago, but whoever the girl is that you're fond of, why, she's going to be the happiest woman alive."

"Umph, I hope so, but-- I shan't believe it-- until I-- see it."

"Come, now, old fellow, you shouldn't distrust yourself in that stupid manner. 'Faint heart never won fair lady'-- keep that saying close in mind. Why, it was the most daring thing in the world-- my proposing to Luce; I had everything against me, and I knew it; I took my chances, though, and you know what came to pass. If you would only see yourself as you are, and as everybody else sees you, and as the girl herself can't help seeing, and--"

"Will you be quiet?" exclaimed Champ, suddenly turning with a threatening face and with his axe still uplifted.

"No, I won't," replied the younger man, with a calm but determined face. "You've done me a great favor this morning, and I want to do you one in return. You may think that I want to pry into your affairs, but I don't. I want to tell you, though, what the lecturer told all of us last night, that every man has his chance in life, that it is very close to him, and that only he is to blame if he won't see it. To be happily in love is the one thing you need to make you as happy as you are manly, and I'm sure that's saying a great deal. Instead of that you're belittling yourself. You're my friend; you've done more for me this morning than any other man ever did, and until I can do something equally good for you I want to ease my mind by giving you some good advice. You ought to do just what I have done, determining, as I did, that whatever else had to be done afterward I would do with all my might, or make a better man of myself while failing. Why don't you do it? Have you proposed yet?"

"No!"

"Doesn't the girl even know that you love her?"

"No. I don't see, at least, how she can know it."

"That's bad-- for her. 'Twould make life a very different thing for any woman in this dead-and-alive town to know that a man like you cared for her. Women in Brundy-- young women-- have a pretty dismal outlook. I'm not going again to ask you who she is, but I do wish I knew, for I'd take the responsibility of telling her; after that she'd wait forever, and be happy in spite of anything, to know that there was such great good fortune in store for her."

"You'd tell her, would you?" snarled Chump. "I've a great mind to let you, just to see what a flunk you would make of it, you--"

"I dare you to do it," said Charley, meeting Champ's scowl without flinching. The older man glared furiously, and suddenly betook himself again to his axe, dashing at the tree as if it were his rival himself. But Charley's blood also was up, and he went on, shouting so that his words should not be drowned