Up and coming

Chapter I

His name might have been Tom Tuesday or Francis Finis had the circumstances of being sent to a London orphanage so fired the beadles’ imagi¬ nation. But their commonplace turn of mind to¬ gether with the time of his arrival caused the mite to be registered as Jones Bynight.

No one paid any attention to either name or owner until thirty years later. Having crossed the Atlantic to cast his lot with the new world, Jones became engaged to Sophia Heiser, hired girl at his boarding house in Cornwall.

Sophia regarded the name of Jones Bynight with the same awe that came to certain Americans in this year of i86i regarding British titles. Who would not change from Sophia Heiser, orphan drudge, to Mrs. Jones Bynight, wife of a carpenter employed in building the Dunlevy mansion?

“It’ll be best for both, old girl,” as Jones argued, “I needs a wife to ’elp me on, you need someone to look after you. I can read and write if it don’t go too deep. You can’t. Your folks died in crossing to America. I never ’ad none. Nobody gives tup¬ pence for us. You and me can start an American family. No telling where our kids will fetch up. In merry old England all I would ’ave would be the chance to slave for somebody else. What would you ’ave ’ere? Together, we sets up to ’ousekeep and our grand-uns may live in the Dunlevy mansion yet!”

Sophia whose apple cheeked beauty was some¬ what marred by smallpox marks, blushingly agreed. To her simple mind this wiry cockney was a super¬ person. ‘‘The chirper” he was called, a breezy sort with an “air of knowing how” even Mrs. Powder the landlady admitted.

Sophia’s parents would have rejoiced at her good fortune. True, he was not of her people but this was America. Was she worthy of him? Jones assured her that she was and shortly after, it was rumored “the Dutchy and the chirper were to be spliced.” Whereat Mrs. Powder felt called upon to prophesy.

“A hurrah’s nest, I call it,” she declared, “neither hay nor grass, this German and this Britisher pass¬ ing themselves off as Yankees. I’ve told Sophia to be sensible and wait until the war was over, but it isn’t any use when they’re in love. Took her as green as a windfall, taught her everything she knows and now, when I’ve advanced her to a dollar a week, she up and leaves. Owns nothing in the world but a wooden box of trash and her ma’s black plush dress. As for Jones—he’ll soon enough repent of his bargain.”

Mrs. Powder’s pessimism did not delay events. Fate, in the form of a travelling circus, hurried the affair. For the management generously offered to any couple willing to be married in the lion’s cage the parson’s services and a three piece parlor suite. Upon hearing of the offer, Jones consulted with Sophia. Since they planned to be ffiarried, why not in the lion’s cage? It required no more nerve to stand in a corner of the cage, the trainer covering the drugged animal with a gun, than to have crossed the ocean under conditions both weathered. Sophia had watched her parents buried at sea. Alone and wretched, she had survived to take her first situation at Mrs. Powder’s boarding house, wonder¬ ing in her patient way what fresh calamity would visit her. Having endured the orphanage and being apprenticed to a carpenter, Jones regarded the lion’s cage as a lark rather than a hardship. Every effort must be made to buy a house. His children must have an education.

With a dim yet worthy vision, a nobility of soul if not of caste, they accepted the circus manager’s offer. Wherewith the manager posted notices of the event, the bridal couple oblivious to public ridicule.

The evening before the wedding, Jones and Sophia inspected the three room cottage Jones had rented for —it seemed a vast sum—eight dollars a month. Jones had borrowed from his foreman and together with Sophia’s few dollars, they invaded a second hand shop to secure enough for housekeeping. (The parlor suite to be delivered the day after the wedding.)

Already Jones assumed an air of ownership as he unlocked the door. It was his first experience in self respect, becoming a householder as well as a husband. He planned to teach Sophia to read and write, he would even go with her to the Lutheran Church since she was strong in the faith and he cherished none of his own.

Sophia felt equally important. She would not cry if she should break a dish during the remaining hours at the boarding house. In haste she had trimmed her mother’s plush dress with beads, this was her bridal costume. Her heavy, honey colored hair would be braided fantastically, a white bow to serve as a veil. If the September day turned cold, there was her purple hug-me-tight as Mrs. Powder called it, which she had knitted in spare moments. Jones would wear his checked suit and a new derby hat. They would have some tin types made as soon as they were out of debt. For what more could one ask?

“A tidy spot,” commented Jones, “let’s look over the Dunlevy pile on the way back.”

She nodded. To Sophia’s mind the incompleted mansion of these rich Americans was of small con¬ cern. Her cottage was to be preferred. She visu¬ alized it with its parlor suite of black walnut and garnet plush, braided rugs, geraniums at the win¬ dows, she saw the kitchen clean and homelike because of her willing fingers, a pot of simmering soup giving out wholesome odors. She pictured children playing in the yard, Jones coming in to say he was made head carpenter! In due time there would be a parlor organ, a row of books for the children to study, a gold watch for Jones, a silk dress for her¬ self. Truly, she must prove worthy of her blessings.

Because Jones wished it, she walked aimlessly through the new mansion listening to the cost of mantelpieces, details as to the panelled rooms.

'‘The Dunlevys are as rich as kings,” Jones con¬ fided, “yet who can tell—our children may be their neighbors. At any rate, they’ll not be wed at a circus, will they, old girl?” kissing her to impress the fact that it mattered not a jot as far as he was concerned. “It’s up and on in this land. What’s good enough for a man’s father ain’t good enough for ’im. Not unless he chooses to ’ave it so. As we come up, down they goes,” indicating the Dunlevy house, “every fellow out for ’imself and no one too sure of anything for long. Come along, Sophia, we’ve got our own ’earth—leave the poor Dunlevys their palace.”

By dint of hard yet harmonious work and Sophia’s unquestioned thrift, Jones bought the cottage after the birth of his second child. By this time the Dun¬ levys were living in their mansion, entertaining lavishly and Jones was a head carpenter engaged on municipal buildings.

They called their first child Jones junior, the second Sophia. Meantime the reconstruction period following the civil war was at hand, business was uncertain. Yet geraniums bloomed in the cottage windows and a goat furnished milk for the Bynight family. The parlor organ, gold watch and silk dress had not yet become realities. Two children and a third son to be born demanded all of Jones’ wages.

Nor had Sophia learned to read. Their brief honeymoon had seen the beginning, with Jones the tender teacher, but after Sophia toiled over the alphabet, she wearied of such effort. She needed her strength for cooking, gardening, soon there were small clothes to make and dream over. She saw no need for “book ways.” So Jones read aloud to her, a quite satisfactory source of information. Sophia argued that printed words made the sunset no rosier or Jones’ love more true. Unconsciously, Jones enjoyed his superiority and was content to have it so.

Sophia was a satisfactory wife. He had no wish to spend his time or money elsewhere than at home. He was eager to have his son finish the grade school. Then he would have a diploma and could become a clerk, keep his hands clean at work. The plans for little Sophia and the baby, Hans, were short lived. Within a week both children died from a fever epidemic which ran its course through certain city sections.

Jones junior surviving, became his parents’ idol. He possessed his mother’s constitution and his father’s pleasant manner but none of their virtues. To this they were blind. In him they saw the child God spared them, every hope centered about his consequential little self. Nothing would be too great a sacrifice in order to give this son advantages.

No other children came to Sophia although she longed for a daughter.

‘‘Boys marry and leave you,” she told Jones, “he’ll never marry no working girl like me—I want somebody for company yet.”

“Jones’ wife will be our daughter,” was his reply, “besides, ain’t you got me?”

No further tragedy came to them during Jones’ childhood. They prospered modestly. When Jones was twelve years old, his father built an addition to the cottage, an extra room and a veranda. Sophia had two silk dresses and a locket and chain. She no longer scrubbed the paving stones before the cottage.

Jones senior boasted of a watch, belonging to a lodge and having several men friends whose wives called on Sophia because “she was a good, hard working German woman who can’t help being real ignorant.” Sophia never realized their patronage. She shared her recipes and sent them freshly baked bread, helped them make lace or knit stockings. Hers was a childish pleasure merely in being alive. She worshipped her husband and son. They owned their home and had three hundred dollars in the bank. Only once had Jones been out of work. They must be doing rightly or God would not be so kind. Sophia did not realize she had lost her fresh beauty, or notice her son’s impatience when she failed to comprehend what he said. Her husband talked with her son instead of with her, both ordered rather than consulted her. She was too happy in the secur¬ ity of their little home. Truly, America was the chosen land.

In the fall of 1876, Jones was killed while at work, timber falling across his chest. The company made a settlement of a thousand dollars and burial expenses, impressing upon Sophia she should be grateful they had done as much.

Too heartbroken to comprehend anything save her husband’s death, Sophia turned to her son for con¬ solation. His sympathy took the form of selfish advice. He felt his mother was useful only in a kitchen. Otherwise she disgraced him, she was illiterate, highly emotional and “pig-headed” as he graciously remarked. Years of hard work were developing a certain hysteria, common to Sophia’s kind. She was given to shrill scolding, brooding silence followed by a childish light-heartedness and foolish efforts to atone for her behavior.

Chapter II

Young Jones progressed in school unevenly. He refused to apply himself. To finish the grade school with as little effort as possible was his intention. His father’s primary class education furnished no incentive to go further. Bynight’s death gave his son the upper hand. Why remain in this working¬ man’s cottage? His schoolmates lived in far better neighborhoods, he was ashamed to have them at the house which angered his mother. She would persist in elaborate German cooking to make amends for her lack of culture.

“Do they eat any better than that—tell me!” she would demand, heaping his plate with some indigest¬ ible delicacy.

Jones did not choose to forge ahead in the same way his father had done, much less to serve anyone else. He prevailed upon Sophia, against everyone’s advice, to sell the cottage and buy a small grocery business, forerunner of the delicatessen store. She could bake goods for an added attraction and carry a line of tobacco and candies. Over the store were living rooms into which they moved and a garden patch lay behind the frame building.

“Buy it at the German’s woman’^” became a neighborhood slogan; even the Dunlevy’s sent their coachman for some of the Saturday apple cakes.

Grieving for her husband and puzzled as to her son, Sophia turned to work with fanatical energy. To employ help would be sinful. She must save to secure her son's carefree future. The store yielded a good living. There were small overhead expenses. Sophia did all her housework and baked at night. Jones went to parties.

He matured early, a handsome, worthless lad with a carefully cultivated mustache and an eye for trim ankles. He boasted of his top hat and flourishing handwriting as well as the ability to sing popular songs and accompany himself on the guitar.

At eighteen, his relationship with his mother was openly contemptuous. He considered himself a gentleman who must marry his equal, his children would be the “real thing." He saw nothing wrong in pilfering his mother’s money or telling her to “hush up" in no uncertain fashion.

His was a lazy routine. He waited on the store some of the time but the day was fast approaching when he would refuse to tie a white apron about his slender waist and ladle out prunes to the populace. Neighborhood girls were his constant patrons—to Sophia’s disapproval. She regarded them as “lazy flirts looking down on a poor hardworking woman.’’ Miserliness began to dominate her nature.

Jones dressed in the latest style, his mother refus¬ ing to buy herself new clothes. For what? She was a widow, her son never went out with her, nor could she leave her store. People did not care to visit with her—merely to buy her wares. Inwardly, she re¬ gretted the lack of education, she wished she had kept at the lessons her husband so romantically of¬ fered. She was bitter because she realized it was of no use to struggle, life was a finished, stale affair as far as her progress was concerned.

She had learned to sign her name and to count, no one fooled her in business matters except her son who purposely misrepresented and misquoted. Wholesale drummers insisted on dealing with So¬ phia, they had no use for her swaggering son who took charge of the profits and caused many of the losses.

To rent the smartest team in town and take girls driving while his mother toiled baking her coffee cakes or washing his clothes was what occupied Jones these days. His was the stage of despising what had gone before but not ambitious for what might come, a selfish outlook precluding responsi¬ bility or progress.

Shame entered into his thoughts but never inspira¬ tion. His father was a cockney carpenter, his mother an ignorant working girl—their marriage taking place at a circus all for a parson’s fee and some furniture! Such a background would not be his son’s—his son must marry a lady but he never planned how this would come to pass, what portion of the progress was his own concern.

A weak character, the rebound from his parents’ strength, he proved harsh and tyrannical in personal relationships and easy, even stupid in his dealings with the world.

By the time Jones was twenty, his mother lacked the vigor to shoulder the day’s task. This did not make for mutual harmony. When winter set in, with Sophia wretched from rheumatism and scolding like a shrew, Jones was obliged to bestir himself to the extent of making fires and carrying on the busi¬ ness in some sort of fashion.

But he could not dress foppishly and go forth to matinees or hang around pool rooms, playing for individual pies and weak sherry instead of money as was then the vogue. He must open the store, listen to his mother’s complaints. A few weeks of which brought him to the decision that he would look for employment elsewhere. He was foolish not to have done so sooner, anything away from “the damned store.”

After the holidays, Sophia staggered to her feet as regarded running the business, heartbroken from her son’s neglect. She had withered, it seemed, her bacon colored skin wrinkled and drawn and her bright eyes like a restless bird’s. In a wool dress her feet encased in carpet slippers and her thin hair strained into a knob, she presented anything but a pleasing appearance, yet her baked goods were in demand immediately.

Jones announced his plans. “I’m no cotbetty,” he said in part, “and since you are feeling barely tolerable, I’m going to Grimshaw and Grimshaw to see if they want a man for the road. I’ve got to get away. If you had been a different sort, Fd have gone through the academy—here I am, over twenty, wasting my time behind a counter.”

An abusive tirade answered him. Jones was an ingrate, he hated his mother—better she should know it, she who loved him so. How had he acted during her illness—excepting when strangers were about, then he was polite to an alarming degree! He de¬ spised her, but God would punish him! Wait until he raised a son and that son turned on him and reproached him for what he had not done. She was glad his father was not here to witness his infamy. Had she not given him everything she could—how was she to know he must go to the academy? Was not his diploma from the grade school framed, proof of an education? It was the girls and the pool parlors that prevented his advancing. Once she thought America the finest land—when she was a bride and her dear husband was with her. Now she doubted the high sounding talk about America. Did mothers raise children only to have the children ashamed of their mothers? If so, the system was wrong. Better the child respect his parents even if he remained at their level ... he could go get his white fingered job—she would not interfere. He would be glad enough to come home to have his clothes mended, be fed and rested. And she would not re¬ fuse. Because he failed in his duty she would not in hers. He was her darling son, her firstborn—the tirade accentuated by the terrible boredom of drudg¬ ery Sophia had endured ended in sentimental hysteria.

i6

Jones assured her this was all wrong, he paid careless tribute to pave the way for a loan and then set about to find a situation. He was a tall, handsome youth, better dressed than most. Grimshaw and Grimshaw were favorably impressed, they wanted someone to cover the rural districts of that state. The salary was small but the occupation pleasing. Jones signed a contract.

The more he thought of it, having explained it in exaggerated terms to everyone, the better pleased he was. He was stepping up; in line to become a salesmanager. This spurt of ambition caused him to devote a week to learn the stock and study the rural railway system. Most of the territory would have to be covered with a horse and wagon.

Gradually, Sophia reflected his pride. Her son was a travelling salesman, he had bought her a housedress, at wholesale, a stylish thing she thought. He insisted she wear a cap when waiting on the store. Too long had he endured the comments about her hair dressing. He bought himself a portmanteau, his mother gave him a set of brushes and, promising to write all the girls, Jones started on his new career.

The position suited, a limited occupation requiring just such an easy way as Jones had, an ability to flatter, delighting to travel from hamlet to hamlet, staying at local hotels and joining for the time being into the local life.

Sophia soon found she must hire help. She was unable to read her son’s letters, another drawback. She could not manage with a woman, no girl would work as hard as Sophia had done at the boarding house. Girls demanded three times as much wages and gave three times as little work. Sophia com¬ plained they had no personal interest in the business, were wasteful, dishonest. After several attempts at giving girls what she considered was a good home, she hired a man and paid him an amount beyond her wildest calculations.

All this time Jones was sauntering, so to speak, throughout the countryside, drinking more than was wise but on the whole making good for his firm. Competition was not keen. Jones was amiable, he would wait around until the storekeepers were in¬ clined to gossip—and buy. He liked being removed from the grocery store atmosphere, his mother’s scolding, and he greatly enjoyed having a girl in every town, his veneer of city polish helping to cap¬ ture the belles with small effort.

When he reported at headquarters in Cornwall, he was even polite to his mother, since he did not have to live with her. He knew his place was with her but justified his absence by arguing that he was advancing in the world, surely it was one’s duty to advance.

He gave his mother presents but never money and spoke of refurnishing their living rooms. He in¬ sisted she have the building painted and buy striped awnings.

“Wait until you bring your fine wife home,*' Sophia would say when he protested their meagre equipment.

i8

“As if a fine lady would come here/' was his retort.

“Good enough for your mother, good enough for her,” was the jealous answer.

Jones had never been in love with anyone save himself. He was popular with too many girls to think of one seriously. A wife was a difficult propo¬ sition to his reckoning. His mother would not be easy to live with unless the girl were of her own calibre. Most certainly Jones would never marry that kind of a girl. He had best remain single.

Chapter III

During a trip in the second year of his drummership, Jones was taken ill at the hamlet of Naples and forced to remain. Severe weather coupled with in¬ discreet drinking brought on old fashioned grippe. As he lay in the hideous room of the Hotel Crystal, dependent on indifferent attention and a country doc¬ tor who had scant patience with city fellows, Jones had an infantile longing for his mother’s nursing, her love which knew no rebuff.

He was up against the ‘‘cold, cold world” as the popular song then in vogue described and the result was childish homesickness. He reminded himself that a man his age—almost twenty-three—ought to be married. Who would care for him if he should be seriously ill? What was the sense of travelling about without a home to return to? As soon as he was out of this wretched room, he would find a suitable girl and make love to her!

She must be educated, according to his ideas, and capable, strong yet good to look upon, someone with an even temper, kindly disposed to his mother. That she would adore him, he took for granted. What he might have to offer such a person was quite beside the question.

These altruistic qualifications attracted him to Martha Dunning, the Naples school teacher. Martha boarded at the hotel, her home being inaccessible during the winter. She had often noticed Jones in the dining room or taking some of the girls to ride. But Martha was not the flirtatious sort. Her father was a prosperous farmer and her step-mother re¬ garded Martha as a dreamer “slow as the moun¬ tains^’ when it came to getting the work underway. Family tradition had it that Martha was so gullable when a child, she allowed a younger brother to cut a hole in an umbrella so as to look out and see when it stopped raining.

As much as possible, Martha lived in her tiny book-world. Pilgrim’s Progress, the Bible, Sunday school stories of sugary goodness. Her step-mother declared Martha was like her mother who had been a “clinging vine sort” as she said in the child’s pres¬ ence. Since a stepchild receives only the love it creates from step-parents, Martha had scant affection at her step-mother’s hands. Her half brothers and sister were given the preference and Martha was merely an “also ran.” When she was finally ap¬ pointed to teach the Naples school, her step-mother announced her satisfaction and her father dully accepted his wife’s opinions as final.

With a high heart and emotional vision, Martha at seventeen came to Naples, returning home only for vacations. She was good to look at, her far apart dark eyes suggesting the orient, her nut brown hair braided about her well shaped head. She had a strong, sure body, a contrast to her sensitive, un¬ even features. She made her own clothes, simple, colorful things and paid for her board and room by waiting on the hotel table mornings and evenings.

After six years of this, Martha longed to be loved. She was an ambitious optimist with a courageous¬ ness of soul not apparent upon first acquaintance. Idealistic yet handicapped by the present day senti¬ mental standards, Martha forced herself to be blind to others’ defects. She would not see things as they were because all too often, things were wrong. She preferred to be absurdly credulous and imbued with orthodox theology. She believed in a regulation heaven and hell and when she caught herself wondering, she prayed to be forgiven.

In brief, Martha knew what was right but she had no inkling of what was wrong. She had never been in a town larger than five thousand population. Naples was barely nine hundred. She had hopes of some day attending a city normal school and becom¬ ing an academy teacher, living in a real boarding house, free to go to theatres and concerts. But should she marry, her children must go to college, become cultured men and women no matter what effort was needed to bring this to pass.

To date she had had but one bonafide suitor, an impossible countryman who would sit for half an hour at a time in bashful silence and then scrape back his chair and drive home without having said any of the boorish compliments which snailed through his brain. Martha had been annoyed by his homage. Mr. and Mrs. Aziah Musty, proprietors of the hotel, joked about “Marthy’s beau—Phineas Bates—the cat’s got his tongue and Marthy’s stole his heart!”

“Marthy deserves a good man,” Mrs. Musty de¬ clared, “but she’s that easy she is likely to get a bad one. Anyhow, the school board knows it won’t find a finer little school marm in the township.”

It happened that Mr. Musty who carried up Jones’ meals was not home the Sunday evening Jones was pitying himself and planning to marry. Unexpected guests came in for supper and in the general flurry, Mrs. Musty asked Martha to “run up with the drum¬ mer’s vittles, I notice he eats, sick as he claims to be.”

Martha shouldered the tray. She considered Jones a dashing chap who would never glance at her twice. Besides, she was a little his senior if what he said of his age was true. She was sorry he was ill and away from home. She rearranged the tray before she took it in.

Jones was sitting in a topheavy rocker, unshaven and white faced, the smoky lamp showing an untidy, forlorn room.

“Dear me,” began Martha gently, “you need house¬ cleaning. Draw up to the table. I’ll set the tray there. If you want more of anything you can have it. Staying indoors usually dulls an appetite. I’ll light a candle and take this lamp down and clean it—I better rake up the coals, too, a fire is such a cheery thing.”

Jones agreed. With scant ceremony he set to work at his supper. Martha returned with the cleaned lamp and more coal. He watched her coax the fire into a blaze, sweep the hearth, dust about a little. She drew the shades evenly and re-made his bed. Everything she did was deft, it produced a miraculous change in the atmosphere. She hummed as she worked. When she came to take away his tray he saw how lovely her brown hair was, how dark and wise her eyes. Her personality stimulated him. He liked the red wool dress with its pale blue neckribbon. Her feet were small, well formed despite thick boots. Here was a girl with brains and yet she could work—a pleasing combination.

‘‘Don’t go,” he begged, “it’s awfully dull—I’d like to talk.”

“But I wait table,” she explained, smiling.

“You are Miss Dunning, the school teacher, never • let me have a second word with you, did you?” Jones fibbed, “had to be sick and half frozen before you’d bother. That’s a fine way to treat a chap”; he felt very much better. He wished he had shaved and put on a collar and tie.

Martha blushed. There was something pleasant in this bantering, she was glad she had put on the blue ribbon.

“I must go,” she said slowly, “Mrs. Musty has company.”

“Please bring me more coffee,” was his gallant order, “and if you have a spare moment—would you mend a fellow’s glove? I’ll buy you the finest blue ribbon you ever saw—is it a bargain?”

‘‘I’ll gladly mend the glove but you must not bother about a ribbon. I will either send or bring the coffee. You need kindling, too. It will be a cold night.”

Jones coughed.

“How does the doctor say you are?” she lingered at the door.

“Oh, so-so. He doesn’t think anyone is sick un¬ less they’ve been run through a thrashing machine. I expect to be out by Tuesday—but you have done more than the doctor. Just your smile would cure a chap.”