FAMILY COUNCILS.

“Husband,” said Mrs. Hayn to her husband one night, when the person addressed was about to drop asleep, “something’s the matter with Phil.”

“A touch of malaria, I suppose,” said the farmer. “He’s been gettin’ out muck earlier than usual, and spreadin’ it on the ridge of the pasture. The sun’s been pretty hot, though it is October, and hot sun on that sort of stuff always breeds malaria.”

“I wasn’t talkin’ of sickness,” said the wife. “The dear boy’s health is as good as ever. It’s his mind that’s out o’ sorts.”

A long soft sigh was the farmer’s only reply for a moment. It was followed by the remark,—

“That city gal, I s’pose,—confound her!”

“I don’t see what you want her confounded for: she hasn’t done anythin’. They don’t correspond.”

“I should hope not,” said Hayn, with considerable vigor: he now was wide awake, “What could they write about? You don’t s’pose Phil could write anythin’ about our goin’s-on that would interest her, do you?”

“No, but young people sometimes do find somethin’ to exchange letters about. You and I didn’t, when we were boy and girl, because we lived within{17} a stone’s throw of each other, an’ you couldn’t keep away from our house after dark; but Philip and——”

“For goodness sake, old lady,” interrupted the husband, “don’t you go to settin’ yourself down, at your time of life, by gettin’ the match-makin’ fever. There isn’t the slightest chance that——”

“I didn’t say there was; but boys will be boys.”

“It doesn’t follow that they should be fools, does it?—not when they’re our boys?”

“ ‘Tisn’t bein’ a fool to be interested in a rich man’s daughter. I’ve often thought how different your life might have been if I’d had anything besides myself to give you when you married me.”

“I got all I expected, and a thousand times more than I deserved.” This assertion was followed by a kiss, which, though delivered in the dark, was of absolutely accurate aim.

“Don’t put it into Phil’s head that he can get more than a wife when he marries; ’twill do him a great deal more harm than good.”

“I’d like to see the dear boy so fixed that he won’t have to work so hard as you’ve had to do.”

“Then you’ll see him less of a man than his father, when he ought to be better. Isn’t that rather poor business for a mother in Israel to be in, old lady?”

“Well, anyhow, I believe Phil’s heart is set on makin’ a trip down to York.”

“Oh, is that all? Well, he’s been promised it, for some day, this long while. Something’s always prevented it, but I s’pose now would be as good a time as any. He deserves it; he’s as good a son as man ever had.”{18}

Mrs. Hayn probably agreed with her husband as to the goodness of their son, but that was not the view of him in which she was interested just then. Said she,—

“If he goes, of course he’ll see her.”

Again the farmer sighed; then he said, quite earnestly,—

“Let him see her, then; the sooner he does it the sooner he’ll stop thinkin’ about her. Bless your dear foolish old heart, her ways and his are as far apart as Haynton and heaven when there’s a spiritual drought in this portion of the Lord’s vineyard.”

“I don’t think the Tramlays are so much better than we, if they have got money,” said Mrs. Hayn, with some indignation. “I always did say that you didn’t set enough store by yourself. Mrs. Tramlay is a nice enough woman, but I never could see how she was any smarter than I; and as to her husband, I always noticed that you generally held your own when the two of you were talking about anything.”

“Bless you!” exclaimed the farmer, “you are rather proud of your old husband, aren’t you? But Phil will soon see, with half an eye, that it would be the silliest thing in the world for him to fall in love with a girl like that.”

“I can’t for the life of me see why,” said the mother. “He’s just as good as she, and a good deal smarter, or I’m no judge.”

“See here, Lou Ann,” said the farmer, with more than a hint of impatience in his voice, “you know ’twon’t do either of ’em any good to fall in love if they can’t marry each other. An’ what would Phil{19} have to support his wife on? Would she come out here an’ ’tend to all the house-work of the farm, like you do, just for the sake of havin’ Phil for a husband? Not unless she’s a fool, even if Phil is our boy an’ about as good as they make ’em. An’ you know well enough that he couldn’t afford to live in New York: he’s got nothin’ to do it on.”

“Not now, but he might go in business there, and make enough to live in style. Other young fellows have done it!”

“Yes,—in stories,” said the old man. “Lou Ann, don’t you kind o’ think that for a church-member of thirty years’ standin’ you’re gettin’ mighty worldly-minded?”

“No, I don’t,” Mrs. Hayn answered. “If not to want my boy to drudge away his life like his father’s done is bein’ worldly, then I’m goin’ to be a backslider, an’ stay one. I don’t think ’twould be a bit bad to have a married son down to York, so’s his old mother could have some place to go once in a while when she’s tired to death of work an’ worry.”

“Oho!” said the old man: “that’s the point of it, eh? Well, I don’t mind backslidin’ enough myself to say the boy may marry one of Satan’s daughters, if it’ll make life any easier for you, old lady.”

“Much obliged,” the mother replied, “but I don’t know as I care to do visitin’ down there.”

The conversation soon subsided, husband and wife dropping into revery from which they dropped into slumber. In one way or other, however, the subject came up again. Said Mrs. Hayn one day, just as her{20} husband was leaving the dinner-table for the field in which he was cutting and stacking corn,—

“I do believe Phil’s best coat is finer stuff than anything Mr. Tramlay wore when they were up here. I don’t believe what he wore Sundays could hold a candle to Phil’s.”

“Like enough,” said the farmer; “and yet the old man always looked better dressed. I think his clothes made him look a little younger than Phil, too.”

“Now, husband, you know it isn’t fair to make fun of the dear boy’s clothes in that way. You know well enough that the stuff for his coat was cut from the same bolt of broadcloth as the minister’s best.”

“Yes,” drawled the farmer through half a dozen inflections, any one of which would have driven frantic any woman but his own wife.

“It’s real mean in you to say ‘Yes’ in that way, Reuben!”

“ ‘Tisn’t the wearer that makes the man, old lady; it’s the tailor.”

“I’m sure Sarah Tweege cut an’ made Phil’s coat, an’ if there’s a better sewin’-woman in this part of the county I’d like to know where you find her.”

“Oh, Sarah Tweege can sew, Lou Ann,” the old man admitted. “Goodness! I wish she’d made my new harness, instead of whatever fellow did it. Mebbe, too, if she’d made the sacks for the last oats I bought I wouldn’t have lost about half a bushel on the way home. Yesm’, Sarah Tweege can sew a bedquilt up as square as an honest man’s conscience. But sewin’ ain’t tailorin’.”{21}

“Don’t she always make the minister’s clothes?” demanded Mrs. Hayn.

“I never thought of it before, but of course she does. I don’t believe anybody else could do it in that way. Yet the minister ain’t got so bad a figure, when you see him workin’ in his garden, in his shirt-sleeves.”

“It’s time for you to go back to the cornfield,” suggested Mrs. Hayn.

“Yes, I reckon ’tis,” said the farmer, caressing what might have been nap had not his old hat been of felt. “ ‘Tain’t safe for an old farmer to be givin’ his time an’ thought to pomps an’ vanities,—like the minister’s broadcloth coat.”

“Get out!” exclaimed Mrs. Hayn, with a threatening gesture. The old man kissed her, laughed, and began to obey her command; but as, like countrymen in general, he made his exit by the longest possible route, wandering through the sitting-room, the hall, the dining-room, and the kitchen, his wife had time to waylay him at the door-step and remark,—

“I was only goin’ to say that if Phil does make that trip to York I don’t see that he’ll need to buy new clothes. He’s never wore that Sunday coat on other days, except to two or three funerals an’ parties. I was goin’ it over this very mornin’, an’ it’s about as good as new.”

“I wonder how this family would ever have got along if I hadn’t got such a caretakin’ wife?” said the old man. “It’s the best coat in the United States, if you’ve been goin’ it over.”

Phil was already in the corn,—he had left the table{22} some minutes before his father,—and as the old man approached, Phil said,—

“Father, don’t you think that wind-break for the sheep needs patching this fall?”

“It generally does, my son, before cold weather sets in.”

“I guess I’ll get at it, then, as soon as we get the corn stacked.”

“What’s the hurry? The middle of November is early enough for that.”

“Oh, when it’s done it’ll be off our minds.”

“See here, old boy,” said the father, dropping the old ship’s cutlass with which he had begun to cut the corn-stalks, “you’re doin’ all your work a month ahead this fall. What are you goin’ to do with all your time when there’s no more work to be done?”

“I can’t say, I’m sure,” said Phil, piling an armful of stalks against a stack with more than ordinary care.

“Can’t, eh? Then I’ll have to, I s’pose, seein’ I’m your father. I guess I’ll have to send you down to New York for a month, to look aroun’ an’ see somethin’ of the world.”

Phil turned so quickly that he ruined all his elaborate work of the moment before, almost burying his father under the toppling stack.

“That went to the spot, didn’t it?” said the old man. “I mean the proposition,—not the fodder,” he continued, as he extricated himself from the mass of corn-stalks.

“It’s exactly what I’ve been wanting to do,” said Phil, “but—{23}—”

“But you didn’t like to say so, eh? Well, ’twasn’t necessary to mention it; as I told you t’other day, I can see through the back of your head any time, old boy.”

“ ‘Twouldn’t cost much money,” said Phil. “I could go down on Sol Mantring’s sloop for nothing, some time when he’s short-handed.”

“Guess I can afford to pay my oldest son’s travellin’ expenses when I send him out to see the world. You’ll go down to York by railroad, an’ in the best car, too, if there’s any difference.”

“I won’t have to buy clothes, anyhow,” said the younger man.

“Yes, you will,—lots of ’em. York ain’t Haynton, old boy; an’ as the Yorkers don’t know enough to take their style from you, you’ll have to take yours from them. I was there once, when I was ’long about your age: I didn’t have to buy no more meetin’-clothes after that until I got married,—nigh on to ten years.”

“If it’s as expensive as that, I’m not going,” said Phil, looking very solemn and beginning to reconstruct the demolished stack.

“Yes, you are, sir. I’ll have you understand you’re not much over age yet, an’ have got to mind your old father. Now let that corn alone. If it won’t stay down, sit on it,—this way,—see.” And, suiting the action to the word, the old man sprawled at ease on the fallen fodder, dragged his son down after him, and said,—

“You shall have a hundred dollars to start with, and more afterward, if you need it, as I know you{24} will. The first thing to do when you get to the city is to go to the best-looking clothing-store you can find, and buy a suit such as you see well-dressed men wearing to business. Keep your eyes open on men as sharply as if they were hosses and clothes were their only points, and then see that you get as good clothes as any of them. It don’t matter so much about the stuff; but have your clothes fit you, an’ cut like other people’s.”

“I don’t want to put on city airs,” said Phil.

“That’s right,—that’s right; but city clothes and city airs aren’t any more alike than country airs an’ good manners. You may be the smartest, brightest young fellow that ever went to York,—as of course you are, bein’ my son,—but folks at York’ll never find it out if you don’t dress properly,—that means, dress as they do. I’ll trade watches with you, to trade back after the trip: mine is gold, you know. You’ll have to buy a decent chain, though.”

“I won’t take your watch, father. I can’t; that’s all about it.”

“Nonsense! of course you can, if you try. It isn’t good manners to wear silver watches in the city.”

“But your watch——” Phil could get no further; for his father’s gold watch was venerated by the family as if it were a Mayflower chair or the musket of a soldier of the Revolution. Once while old farmer Hayn was young Captain Hayn, of the whaling-ship Lou Ann, he saved the crew of a sinking British bark. Unlike modern ship-captains (who do not own their vessels), he went in the boat with the rescuing-party instead of merely sending it out, and he{25} suffered so much through exposure, strain, and the fear of the death which seemed impending that he abandoned the sea as soon thereafter as possible. Nevertheless he thought only of the work before him, until he had rescued the imperilled crew and stowed them safely in his own ship. The circumstances of the rescue were so unusual that they formed the subject of long columns in foreign newspapers; and in a few months Captain Hayn received through the State Department at Washington a gold watch, with sundry complimentary papers from the British Admiralty. The young seaman never talked of either; his neighbors first learned of the presentation by conning their favorite weekly newspapers; nevertheless the papers were framed and hung in the young captain’s bedchamber, and, however carelessly he dressed afterward, nobody ever saw him when he had not the watch in his pocket.

“Father,” said Phil, after some moments spent in silence and facial contortion, “I can’t take your watch, even for a little while. You’ve always worn it: it’s your—the family’s—patent of nobility.”

“Well,” said the old farmer, after contemplating the toes of his boots a few seconds, “I don’t mind ownin’ up to my oldest son that I look at the old watch in about the same light; but a patent of nobility is a disgrace to a family if the owner’s heir isn’t fit to inherit it. See? Guess you’d better make up your mind to break yourself into your comin’ responsibilities, by carryin’ that watch in New York. Wonder what time ’tis?”

The question was a good pretext on which to take{26} the “patent of nobility” from his fob-pocket and look at it. He did it in a way which caused Phil quickly to avert his face and devote himself with great industry to stacking corn. Half a minute later the old man, cutlass in hand, was cutting corn as if his life depended upon it.