Best Fellow in the World: His Haps and Mishaps

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Preface

BY REV. THEO. L. CUYLER.

T is not needful that I write a single word to introduce Mrs. J. McNair Wright to the American people. Her ready and graceful pen has been a “ door-key ” to unlock ten thousand hearts ; and she has been a giver of good gifts to our Sunday-schools and firesides. Nor does this volume need my commendation. It tells its own story. Like her previous writings, it is destined to a wide circulation and a happy influence.

Nowhere has the destructive navoc of the social glass been so manifest and terrible as among that class of young men who are popularly styled “ the best fellows in the world.” Their excitable temperaments and generous natures make them an easy prey to the tempter. They, in turn, become the most fascinating tempters of others. One such “ sinner destroyed much good,” and will poison a whole circle of companions.

A touching and eloquent letter now lies before me, which was written by a former resident of Mrs. Wright’s own State — Ohio. It is in an elegant style of composition and

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penmanship. The writer was once in a prosperous business and courted in society. But from a charity-hospital — in sickness, poverty, and want— he sends these bitter confessions of a broken heart :

“ How I have so far escaped with my life is, to me, a miracle. I have been at death’s portal a score of times during the past few years. And what has been the cause of all my misery and wretchedness? Rum . How well I remember the first glass of liquor I ever

took! It was in Columbus at the Hotel.

I took it with Mr. K , and I drank it at the

time under protest. Could K have seen

the fruits of that 4 sherry cobbler,’ that one drink , he might better have given me a potion of strychnine in its stead. I am an embodiment of the fruits of that one drink. The bottle has been the skeleton in my closet ever since.”

There are thousands of just such “ best fellows in the world,” who are rapidly rushing on just such a doom. This volume goes out as a' warning signal to ward off the unwary youth from the fatal first glass. May the blessing of God go with this faithful “ word in season”! And may the blessings of many who “were ready to perish ” be the reward of its gifted author!

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know a good person is ever a satisfaction, but the happiness of knowing the Best Fellow in the World was reserved solely for the friends of Geoffrey Hunter. The fact of Geoffrey’s pre-eminence is abundantly attested ; he was by birth, by act, by acclamation, the very Best Fellow in the World. Moulded in prodigal nature’s choicest fashion, of a rich and generous disposition, jolly and free-handed, he was lifted up to a throne as the king of good fellows by a plebiscitum of all who knew him. Geoffrey Hunter, Geoffrey the unrivalled, Geoffrey the good fellow, we would type him by the ripest fruit of the most glorious of Octobers — a very child of the sun, as if the daygod had' bronzed his cheek and touched his flowing hair with tawny gold, while all his words were cheerful and sweet from the overflowing satisfaction of his heart. It is evident that, happiest of all who knew him, must have been this good fellow’s family. The family consisted of father, mother, and two sisters ; of these sisters, Charlotte was Geoffrey’s twin, and Eva several years his junior. Between Geoffrey and Charlotte there was not that close similarity that sometimes exists between twins. Lying in their cradle, Charlotte had probably stolen from Geoffrey any little tempers, obstinacy, irritability, or sharpness that might have made him less than the king of good fellows ; so, while Geoffrey was left all honey and sweetness, Charlotte was a commingling of gentle and hard, of bitter and sweet, of genial and sharp. By a law of compensation, Geoffrey had most likely won some qualities that rightly belonged to his twin-sister, and here, as ever, Geoffrey’s happy star had aided him. He had gathered in all those little talents

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and facilities which should have been Charlotte’s, and this made him such an “ Admirable Crichton ” that he was every one’s delight. Geoffrey could do anything and everything. He could learn a lesson while other people were finding the place ; he could compose a song and sing it ; he could draw a caricature, tell a story, make a killing pun, deliver a fluent speech, argue both sides of a question at the same time, convince all who heard him, and yet never seem inconsistent. Nature had evidently designed this young man for a lawyer! As for Charlotte, she could only mark out a plan, and diligently follow it up to its conclusion ; if she could not, like that pink and admiration of all virgins, Elizabeth of England, swear a round oath, she could say that unbecoming word “ no ” whenever it seemed appropriate. She could not, like Geoffrey, do half-a-dozen things at the same time, but she could do some one thing thoroughly. While Geoffrey was beautiful, his twin-sister was neither handsome nor plain ; her parents called her Charlotte,

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and Eva called her Lottie, while Geoffrey’s name for her was Charley, and that seemed to fit her best of all.

During all their early years, these twins were inseparable. It was necessary that this should be so, for it needed Geoffrey’s bonhomie to smooth Charlotte’s path in everyday life, and Charlotte’s decision and zeal to keep Geoffrey in action. At home, when little tasks were given them, Charlotte’s duty was quickly done ; but Geoffrey, fully resolved to mind his mother, must yet catch butterflies for Eva ; convert himself into an elephant draped in a table-cover that she might ride on his back ; frolic with the dog, because the dog was lonesome ; sing an Irish song to cheer the maid, and chat with the hired man “to make the poor fellow feel at home,” until Charlotte either performed Geoffrey’s task alone or helped him do it, her own concluded.

It was much the same at school. Geoffrey loved and honored his teacher, and meant to please him. He also meant to please the boys.

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Geoffrey could learn his lesson by taking one look at it ; and in the matter of firing balls of chewed paper, he was as skilful as a sharpshooter. As the boys enjoyed seeing paper-balls fired, our Geoffrey was constrained to occupy much time in stuccoing the schoolroom ceiling and ornamenting the walls with bas-relief; as laughter was healthy, he produced untimely bursts of it by making astonishing grimaces, and for popularity’s sake even caricatured the dear teacher, his defects, misfortunes, and deformities, and never meant the least harm in the world. In fact, he protested with tears in his eyes that he had far rather pain himself than his pedagogue.

In such circumstances, it was well that Charlotte was Geoffrey’s seat-mate, to hide the paper intended for balls, to destroy secretly the caricatures, and to remind her brother that the lessons must at least be looked at.

Finding from, the very dawn of reason that Geoffrey always said “yes” and invariably yielded to the last speaker, Char-

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lotte constituted herself a' vigilance committee to be near her brother, and when inopportune propositions were made for doing things dangerous or forbidden, and ill-advisers said “Let’s do,” Charlotte promptly and firmly put in “Let’s don’t,” and so full often won the day. Charlotte was known in her family as a wise, reliable, energetic child, very good to have in the family, but nothing to compare with Geoffrey, the delightful, only son. Eva, the youngest child, was small and pretty, curly-haired and satin-skinned, “ cut out for lady,” said her mother, and who had a better right to know ?

The father was a quiet, kind, plodding farmer, who had made a very good fortune by his work, and still worked on. The mother, elderly before any of her children were born, was fat and smiling ; wrinkled in face, old-fashioned in notions and in dress ; wore two pair of spectacles, and did quantities of knitting-work. The mother clung to old-time ways ; she had a fashionable parlor to please friends and

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children ; and for her favorite sitting-room claimed a home-made carpet, a wide fireplace, and splint-bottomed chairs. Her children’s bedrooms gloried in sets of modern furniture in polished walnut ; she insisted on sleeping in a high four-posted cherrywood bedstead, dressed out with fringed curtains, feather ticks, and patchwork quilts.

A glad, good home was this, where there

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were love and health in abundance, where no one overworked, and none was idle.

In school studies and out-door sports the twins had kept together, until, when Geoffrey was fourteen, his father made arrangements to send him to boarding-school. The only son must be educated. Mr. Hunter said nothing about sending the girls away, for he had thought nothing of it. They could read, sew, knit, and keep house ; he had even distant visions of a piano ; but he had a notion that girls needed much less book-learning than boys. Geoffrey was to go to school, and his trunk was packed. Charlotte had watched proceedings, gloomy and brooding.

It was October, and the leaves were changing splendidly. Geoffrey was to go next day, and, in the afternoon previous to the prospective parting, these twins, w'ho had never been separated, wandered off arm-in-arm for a walk. They turned down a lane lined on either side with sumac and blackberry bushes dressed in flame color. On a gray boulder a redbird sat

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preening his bright feathers with his scarlet bill, and turning his tufted head from side to side.

Here, crossing the rude bridge, they came to a clear spring that welled for ever in a natural basin of living rock ; and now there was the barn that held the hay of remote fields, the barn where they had sported many an hour, and which had changed to fairy-land as they sat on fragrant piles of new-mown clover and told tales of elf and goblin. Now the road swept round in a grand curve, and they were between a fence draped in ivy and the green borders of the Happy River, which ran gaily over its bed of rock, where purple mussel-shells clung in the soft banks ; the trees, beech, elm, and maple, reached over the fostering waters on either side. Now, on the fallen moss-covered trunk of a butternut-tree, the pair sat down, and for the first time spoke of their parting. As they talked, the greatness of the coming evil grew before Charlotte’s mind.'

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“ O Charley ! what can I do without you !” cried Geoffrey, with indistinct memories of lavished praises, of mittens mended, of handkerchiefs kept from losing, of sums and compositions neatly copied at the last minute, when he had been too busy “ obliging somebody ” to attend to his own business.

“ You needn’t know what you can do,” broke forth Charlotte, “ for I’m going too. I shall go home and tell them so now.” She jumped from her mossy seat and started homewards, Geoffrey, as usual, admiring and agreeing.

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“ I’m going to school with Geof,” cried Charlotte, rushing into her parents’ presence. “ Mother, you can pack up my trunk !”

“ Why, who ever heard of such a thing !” said her father.

“ And why not ?” demanded Charlotte. “ I’m as old as Geof, and I know as much as he does, and keep even with him, why can’t I go to school ?”

“ Sure enough !” said her father, getting a new light on the subject.

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“ But your clothes are not ready,” remonstrated her mother.

“ Never mind the clothes. I’ve got plenty, and then you can send me some more, if you want to.”

“ But they won’t take you ; it’s a boys’ school,” interposed her father, looking greatly perplexed.

“ Send Geof to a school where they will take me. We have never been away from each other — and we cannot be. Geof would not know how to get on if I wasn’t there.”

“ I wish you would send Geoffrey to a school where they took both boys and girls, and send Charlotte with him,” said Mrs. Hunter to her husband. She laid down her knitting, and solemnly scanned her son through one pair of spectacles, while the other pair were set high on her forehead. Then she reversed the position of the spectacles, and bringing down the upper pair, she reviewed him through those ; then she set both pair of spectacles on the top of her head, and scrutinized i8

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Master Geoffrey with those mild, blue eyes that could never see harm in any one.

“Yes,” she said; “our Geoffrey is a good boy, the best boy in the world ; and yet, come to think of it, it seems as if it is our Charlotte that has brought him through straight so far, and as if without her he’d be — a little too good for anything. Bread can be overlight, and yeast overlively, and cake too rich, and coffee too sweet ; and I do think, father, you’d better keep those two together. Likely the Lord knew that they needed each other when he made ’em twins.” Charlotte saw that her cause was won, and over her grave, resolute child-face dawned a smile like the creeping up of crocus bloom in spring.

“The keeping together cannot always be,” said Mr. Hunter, touched with some new sorrow at the thought

“ Geoffrey is to study law, Charlotte, and what then ?”

“ I shall study law, too,” said Charlotte the bold.

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“ But he must go to college, and there they will not let girls go.”

“They ought to,” said Charlotte — “girls that have heads on them, and will study, and can pay. When Geoffrey goes to college, I will go to the same place, and get the same books, and see him, and learn the same lessons every day.”

“ Mother,” said Mr. Hunter, turning to his wife, “ mother, I believe she will.”

Very likely her father’s faith had much to do with fixing this girl in her resolves. A new school was selected where the brother and sister might be sent. The preparations were hurried, for Charlotte insisted that she did not need a large outfit. With some strange prescience the girl said to her mother: “Don’t do too much for me now, mother ; Geoffrey will cost more than you think. Save your money for him.”

When Mr. Hunter arrived at “ Walford Seminary ” with his two children, the faculty at once fell in love with the' handsome, gracious lad, who looked into their

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faces with such a genial smile, spoke such cheery, prompt replies, and seemed so thoroughly to know what to do with himself. The preceptress, a woman wise in experience, studied Charlotte’s face for a few moments, and announced that she should make her the room-mate of little Zell Ranleigh. Now, little Zell was an orphan with a small fortune, who was sent to school because no one knew what else to do with her, and had become in some sort the baby of the establishment. In concluding to put Charlotte with Zell, the preceptress showed that she placed unlimited confidence in the stranger. While Mr. Hunter went with his son and the principal to the large stone building, where, in charge of their tutors, the boys had their lodging and study rooms, the preceptress took Charlotte to her room and her new companion. Zell, a charming, vivacious seven-year-old, having learned her short tasks, was dressing a doll ; her heart went out at once to Charlotte, she gave her a kiss, and remarked that

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now there would be some one to see if her lessons were learned, and her hair combed straight, and they could tell stories every night after they went to bed. With a motherliness natural to her, Charlotte assumed much charge of the affectionate Zell, and felt quite at home, especially at the table, where Zell sat on one side of her, and Geoffrey on the other. The twins were in the same classes, and were permitted to see each other whenever they desired. The watch-care which Charlotte exercised over her brother at home was not relaxed in school.

There was a confectioner’s shop opposite Charlotte’s window, and she observed that whenever her brother went there, which was not seldom, he was accompanied by several friends — friends collected about Geoffrey as flies about honey — and they all came out eating. She divined that Geoffrey treated them all. It therefore behooved Charlotte to save her pocket-money.

She was looking from her window, one

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day, counting the group leaving the cakestore, when Zell asked : “ Are you going to buy your blue silk apron, like the other girls, to-night?” Blue silk aprons had been the rage at Walford.

“ No,” replied Charlotte crisply; “ I haven’t the money.”

“ Dear me ! I’ll lend you some. I’ve got twenty cents,” said Zell.

“ I never borrow,” said Charlotte curtly ; then, seeing the child’s bright face shadowing, she kissed her.

It was only the next day that Geoffrey came to his sister’s room^saying, “Charley” (he always called her Charley when he wanted something) — “ O Charley, my dear, can you lend me a couple of dollars ? I’m cleaned out.”

Charlotte quietly handed him the money he asked, counting it out, and at no pains to conceal that it took the last cent she had.

Geoffrey saw it. “ Cleans you out, too, don’t it, • Charley ? Well, never mind, I’ll pay you back, certain sure.” He pocketed the money securely.

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“ There, now !” cried Zell, who stood near, for she was always on hand when Geoffrey came in, “ I’m afraid you told an untrue , Charlotte ; you said you had not the money to get a blue silk apron — like all the girls here.”

“ There, Charley,” said Geoffrey, “ I hope you’ll never say ‘ can’t afford.’ I never do. It sounds close. Never be mean, my dear sis. And did you really go without that kind of aprons they are all sporting ?”

“ Yes, she did truly,” interpolated Zell, getting before her room-mate.

“ That will never do,” said Geoffrey ; “ they’ll think you a pauper. I’ll see that you have one.”

In the course of a week Geoffrey came in with a yard of blue silk, and gave it to his sister. Charlotte at first imagined that he had had the grace to spend some of the borrowed money on it, but Geoffrey had never thought of such a thing. “ I wrote to mother,” he said, “ to send me some money to buy you an apron, as I did not like to see you shabbier than the rest; so here it is, and make

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it stylish.” He also showed her the letter from his mother, praising his brotherly love that was so thoughtful of his sister ; and from the casual mention of the amount enclosed, Charlotte could not help seeing that Geoffrey had made twenty-five cents by the business.

There was a great noise about the buildings, one night ; the boys had suddenly broken loose, and were holding high carnival. Next morning, Geoffrey was not at breakfast ; he was ill of headache, and Charlotte got leave to go and see him. He was in bed, with his head tied up, but, seeing his sister alone, speedily pulled off the kerchief, and sat up, with no other evil evident than a black eye.

“ I am afraid, Geof, you were one of those boys, last night,” said Charlotte, referring to the rioters.

“Well, Charley dear,” said the amiable Geoffrey, “ the fellows wanted me so badly, and it doesn’t look well to set one’s self stiffly above these little games. And the fact was, Charley, the fellows did not know how to do anything exciting or original. The ghost

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was entirely my invention, and, if you’ll believe it, I am the only one not caught ! I may be suspected, possibly. The headache game will do very well. I can so cover up my eye, which I got by running into the gatepost when I was playing spectre. It was the neatest thing, Charley. I came tearing upstairs with Tute at my heels, and I had off the trappings, and was at the table cramming algebra (my hand over my eye) when he got in here, and, seeing me so busy, thought he must be mistaken. * You here, Master Hunter?’ says he. ‘Yes, sir, of course ; isn’t it rather noisy on the campus to-night, sir?’ says I, and off he went. All I want of you, Charley dear, is to write off that translation of the sixteenth fable ; I hadn’t a minute to learn it last night.”

Charlotte wrote the translation, feeling that she was doing wrong ; and, with tears in her eyes, pleaded, “ You won’t do so again, will you, Geof ? ”

“ What, going to cry, Charley ? Don’t — for my sake don’t. I’ll nevei do it again, as sure as you’re born, Charley. Got the

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translation all right? Thank you — you’re the best fellow in the world ; worth six of chum, who says I'm the best fellow. Queer idea; ain’t it, Charley?”

“You are the best fellow!” cried Charlotte, growing tender, and kissing her beautiful brother ; and before she was out of the room, Geoffrey was learning her translation, and deftly fitting it to the Latin.

This was not the only instance of such help. Charlotte grew suspicious of the phrase “ Charley dear,” for it usually prefaced such whispers as this, one evening at the table, “ To-morrow is composition-day, my blessing, and I’m short of my compo; yours all right?”

“Yes; why didn’t you write, last evening, Geof?”

“You see, Charley love, the boys beguiled me into acting charades for them. I can do the professors killingly, dear, good men that they are. I must let you see me do them some time. I say, Charley, you couldn’t let me have your compo, could you ? It’s Greek, this evening, and I couldn’t get

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one done. Your report went home perfect, the last two months, and I managed to get three demerits each time. Father blew me up for it each time, and I’ve tried so hard this month, and here will be another, you see — unless you come to the rescue. If you do get a demerit, it will be your first, and father won’t mind it. In fact, I’ll tell him the right of the matter some time. Nobody will know, Charley; you write a fist just like mine.”

Charlotte ate no more supper ; but, when the class met the tutor to be helped through the intricacies of the Greek lesson, Charlotte quietly handed Geoffrey a folded paper, and next morning he was able boldly to answer “ Prepared !” in composition.

The school-year passed rapidly. Charlotte helped her brother bravely, secured credit-marks which he could never have gained but for her, lent — or say, rather, gave — him all her pocket-money, and favored him also with advice.

“You must not spend so much money.”

“ Why, Charley, I spend it on other

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people. I can’t refuse to lend when a fellow comes to me.”

“ You should refuse when you cannot afford it.”

“ Nonsense, Charley dear. And when they ask me to stand treat in cakes, or pop, or lemonade, I cannot say no ; it would look so miserly.”

“ You ought to say no rather than run in debt to treat other folks.”

Charlotte said this as a “ feeler,” but Geoffrey did not repudiate the idea of debt ; he blushed a little, and said, “ How did you find that out, my dear ?”

Mr. Hunter, pleased with the praises received from her teachers, had sent his girl five dollars to buy fineries for examination. Charlotte went first to the confectioner’s, and paid Geoffrey’s bill of three dollars. She bought a sash with the remaining money, and the next day Geoffrey came to borrow five dollars ; the boys had urged him to give a little supper.

“ Indeed, Geoffrey, I have not a cent left. I’d give it to you if I had ; but you ought

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not to do these things for the boys. Father cannot afford it.”

Geoffrey looked so melancholy that, when Charlotte was called from the room, little Zell approached him with a five-dollar bill, saying, “ I’d as lief lend it as not. Do take it, Geoffrey. I don’t know what to do with it, and you can pay me back next term.” Geoffrey hesitated, but Zell pushed the money into his half-willing hand, saying positively, “ Take it.”

“You are the dearest and prettiest little girl in the world,” said Geoffrey, “ and when I come back to school I mean to bring you a necklace.”

“ And you are the Best Boy in the World,” said Zell, speaking in capitals, and blushing with delight, for she was entirely fascinated by Geoffrey.

It was some days before Charlotte found out about the five dollars. She had a locket given her by her uncle, Lawyer Ames. This locket was greatly desired by one of the elder girls. To her went Charlotte. “You offered me five

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dollars for my locket ; here it is, if you will buy it.”

The money went to Zell. “ It is what Geoffrey borrowed. He thanks you, and will never want to borrow any more.”

Children, like charity, believe all things.

“ How good Geoffrey is to pay so soon !” said Zell, who had already thought of a dozen uses for her money.

Charlotte told her brother of this restitution when they had gone home, and were wandering along the green bank of the “ Happy River ;” she told it wishing life were all a green slope by Happy River, where they two could walk safely hand in hand.

“ Good of you to pay my debts, Charley, upon my word ! And sold your locket ! Well, my darling, there’s one comfort — you don’t care for jewelry. But you do care for books and pictures, my dearest Charley ; and when I am a lawyer, you and I will live together, and we’ll have the finest library in the United States.”

That careful mother, Mrs. Hunter, duly

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unpacked her children’s trunks, and examined all their belongings. She came down-stairs after this business, and remarked to her daughter, “ Charlotte, I cannot imagine what you have done with your money. I see nothing new in your trunk but the apron Geoffrey gave you and a rose-colored sash.” The past and the future did not appear very roseate to Charlotte as her mother spoke. She looked up uneasily from Eva’s stockings, which she was darning, and said, “ Oh ! well, mother, the money was spent ; what else was it for ?”

It took two pair of spectacles and a pair of unaided eyes thoroughly to review the Best Fellow in the World, but the eyes alone had sufficed for the scrutiny of his twin sister. Having surveyed Charlotte with the eyes, Mrs. Hunter, with motherly intuitions, began to bring the glasses to bear on Geoffrey, when that youth hastily remarked : “ The fact is, mother, she lent it to me. I got out of funds, and borrowed of her.”

“ Boys always spend more money than girls; they need more,” said Charlotte.

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“ Soil Geoffrey,” remarked Mrs. Hunter, exchanging her spectacles, and regarding the delightful lad through pair No. 2, “if I remember rightly, you have always been borrowing of your sister since you twins could run alone ; and, as far as I recollect, you have never paid.”

“ I don’t want to be paid,” said Charlotte, jealous for Geoffrey’s reputation.

Geoffrey replied, with amiable sadness, “ My darling old mammy, I’m sorry if you think me a bad brother to my sisters.”

“ Oh ! I don’t, Geoffrey, I don’t,” said Mrs. Hunter, totally beguiled. “You have always been the best brother in the world ; so gentle and polite with them, truly, my dear.”

At home Geoffrey told rare tales of what help he meant to be about the farm-work. “Hay and harvest” came in vacation, and Geoffrey promised to perform prodigies of strength and industry ; but his father was forced to be content with promises. The doting parents asserted that it was natural for young people just escaped from school