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

"How can I? Do go to her and tell her from me--"

"Second-hand news is poor stuff to send to a woman you profess to regard so highly."

"Then I'll write to her-- at once."

"A person can't say much in a letter, at best; he can say wretchedly little to one who wishes to hear a great deal-- and has an undoubted right to."

Champ looked like a criminal being led to execution, but he finally gasped:

"I'll-- call."

"Promise me," said Pruffett, "that you'll go this very evening."

"I-- I promise."

"Good! Now, don't be a coward, Champ. Girls are not ogres, as a rule; even when they are, they have a fair share of manners when meeting respectable young men who they know have put them under obligations. She knows all that you have done for Charley, and she therefore thinks that you are one of the finest fellows in the world. There are thousands of great men and brilliant ones who would be delighted to call on such a woman, with such a welcome awaiting them. Don't be afraid that you won't know what to say; a girl can make any man talk, unless he chances to have lost the use of his tongue. Don't hurry, either; talk all you can about Charley, and say all the good you can of him; if there are some things about him which you're not entirely sure about, give him the benefit of the doubt; it will please her, and you'll feel the better for it afterward."

Champ promised everything asked of him, but he did it all with the manner of a man talking in a dream. The agonies of his preparations for the call need not be dwelt upon, for they were too serious to be laughed over, although the reader could do nothing else. Suffice it to say, that he received a cordial welcome, for old Pruffett had sent the girl word that Champ was to be expected, and that as the affair was very embarrassing to him womanly pity should see to it that he should not be obliged to feel uncomfortable.

Within five minutes after entering the Grews' door Champ felt quite as much at ease as if he were at home, so he had little trouble in asking after Charley.

"He has gone out West, for a little while, on business for Mr. Pruffett," said Luce.

"I heartily hope there is as much money in it for him as there was for Pruffett himself when he went West," said Champ. "I don't know of any one whom I'd rather see make a fortune in a hurry than Charley. There's splendid stuff in that young man, Miss Grew."

"Do you really think so?" the girl asked, with a look from which she could not keep a sign of curiosity. Champ met it as coolly as if it were a man's glance about a matter of business, and continued:

"Indeed I do. I'm personally proud of it, too, for I have had a little to do with bringing it out."

"Indeed you have," replied Luce heartily. "He has told me of all you have done for him, and I want to thank you, myself, for your manly friendship."

"Oh, don't say that, please!" exclaimed Champ, shading his eyes to keep the girl from seeing some thoughts which he feared might betray themselves.

"Then you are not friends, despite what you say about each other?" asked Luce anxiously. The tone of her voice compelled him to drop his hand and say:

"Miss Grew, I would do more for that young man than for any other man on the face of the earth. Can I make that any stronger?"

"No," murmured Luce, although she looked as if there was something else she would like to know. Champ wondered what it was. He was not accustomed to study women's faces, but he was sure that he knew what was in Luce's mind, so he continued:

"If he doesn't come back as soon as you want him to, I'll beg Mr. Pruffett to hurry him home; I'll offer to go out there in his place, if the old man thinks I can do the work as well as he, I'll--"

"No, no, no!" exclaimed Luce. "I don't want him to come back-- not at present, at least. He is-- he doesn't exactly know how, and it is better for both of us that he should be away for the present-- unless your work is suffering through his absence?"

"My work?" echoed Champ. This was a strange place in which to be reminded of that marshland forest! His work, indeed! What would Luce say if she knew how that work had come about? What a gulf there seemed between him and her, although they were sitting face to face, and not three feet apart! The strangeness of the situation affected Champ so strongly that he lapsed into absent-mindedness, and it took several questions to recall him.

After that the delicate subject was avoided for a little while, and Champ was so rejoiced to find that it really was not hard to talk to an intelligent young woman that he soon felt quite at ease-- nay, proud of himself. Besides, as he told himself, he had earned the right to chat with Luce Grew. Well, the right had been accorded him, most unexpectedly, and he was going to enjoy it to the best of his ability. The evening should be one which he would remember for years, and the recollection of it would help him through many a lonesome hour. He would never forget her face either; it had been in his mind for years, but never as it appeared that evening-- never so handsome, animated, so full of cheer and yet full of soul. What a fool he had been to have delayed his pleasure so long!

Had he been more of a "company man" earlier in life, he might at least have numbered Luce among his friends, and who knows what better might have happened if he had enjoyed the stimulus which her face, her eyes, her manner, her voice, her entire presence, now gave him? He tried to analyze it, but he succeeded only in informing himself that it was solely because she was Luce Grew.

Time flew rapidly, but Champ took no note of it. The old clock in the kitchen struck loudly, but Champ did not hear it. For the time being he was in Elysium; yet really they talked only of village affairs and church matters and the doings of the various farmers. How different common subjects did appear when there was such a person as Luce to talk them over with!

Suddenly one of the children entered and handed Luce a letter.

"How strange!" she exclaimed. Letters delivered by hand were as rare during Brundy evenings as snowflakes in May. Suddenly she turned pale and exclaimed:

"Why, it's from Charley!"

With trembling hands she tore the envelope; Champ frowned and arose to go. Even from a distance, and on this one evening of all evenings, that bane of his existence was still active in making trouble for him.

Luce took from the envelope two inclosures, looked at them, and said:

"Why, one of them is for you!"

"Ah, something about that wood-chopping, I suppose," said Champ, opening his letter. It did not take him long to read it, for Charley wrote a large, round, schoolboy hand. The letter ran thus:

"Dear Champ:-- Marry Luce. She knows how you love her, for I had to tell her all about it. That isn't all; she loves you too she couldn't help it after she knew all. That's why I have gone West. God bless you both. Yours always,

"CHARLEY."

Champ looked up, startled by a slight exclamation from Luce. The girl was leaning against the table, upon which she had dropped her letter. Champ did not mean to read it; but the letter itself was so short and the penmanship so large that he could not help getting its entire contents at a glance.

"Miss Grew," said he quickly, although his voice trembled, "I've accidentally seen your letter. It's only fair, therefore, that you should read mine."

He extended it toward her. She took it slowly took a long, long time, it seemed to Champ, to read it, but finally she looked up, smiled timidly, and said:

"Well?"

"Luce!" exclaimed Champ, taking the girl's hands. What either of them said afterward was entirely their own affair.

"I saw how things were going pretty soon after they began to go wrong between Luce and Charley," said old Pruffett to Champ the next day; "and when the boy admitted to me that he had told her all about your confession to him, I made up my mind that it was all up with him, because well, I knew her mother, and it's grand good stock. Eh? Then why didn't her mother take me? Because the other man was the better man, my boy, just as you are the better man than Charley. I doubted her being able-- doubted Luce, I mean, being able-- to give her heart entirely to a youth like Charley, though there are a lot of good points about him; and I hoped that it might turn out in time, as it has, that both he and she would learn their mistake, and that your chance would come. In the meantime, what I said to you, and you acted upon, was just what you needed to make you search your heart and find out for whom you really loved Luce-- for yourself, or for her. That's something that the best men sometimes fail to find out until it is too late, my boy, and they have a world of unhappiness about it."

"But how did you come to send Charley away at just the right time?"

"How? Because the right time had come. I had been giving my own entire time to watching for it. I wonder if those two young people could possibly imagine how closely their affairs interested an old man who was supposed to do nothing but gossip about town and read the newspapers. Charley made a clean breast to me about his trouble. I went to see the girl's mother-- I've already told you about her-- and found things about as I supposed. Then I talked with the girl herself. The rest of it was easy enough."

"Yes, to a man who had business in the West; but suppose there had been no such help for me?'"

"My dear boy," said the old man, "there's an old Western saying that may do you good to bear in mind: 'Never cross a stream until you reach it.' There was a man here to send Charley to the West, so you can afford to drop that part of the subject."

"But everything worked as well as if it had been managed by Heaven itself," said Champ.

"I don't for a moment doubt that it was," replied the old man, reverently dropping his head for a moment. Such things usually are-- when the parties deserve special attention.

"I don't see, though, how Charley timed those letters to arrive just right," persisted Champ. "He must be a thousand miles away by this time. He didn't know that I would ever call at the Grews' in the course of my life."

Old Pruffett looked embarrassed; then he said:

"I've heard that new-made lovers are very slow of perception. Why, you stupid fellow, Charley wrote those letters and gave them to me before he left; he did it, willingly enough, at my own suggestion. I personally made you promise to call last night; then I stood in the night air for nearly an hour, a few rods from your house, to make sure that you did it, even if I had to drag you out and carry you there. Then I followed you, hung about the Grews' for a while, with my heart In my throat, for fear you'd come away soon-- you seemed so scared at the idea