Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett
XI
When Mr. Hobbs's young friend left him to go to Dorincourt Castle andbecome Lord Fauntleroy, and the grocery-man had time to realize that theAtlantic Ocean lay between himself and the small companion who had spentso many agreeable hours in his society, he really began to feel verylonely indeed. The fact was, Mr. Hobbs was not a clever man nor even abright one; he was, indeed, rather a slow and heavy person, and he hadnever made many acquaintances. He was not mentally energetic enoughto know how to amuse himself, and in truth he never did anything of anentertaining nature but read the newspapers and add up his accounts. Itwas not very easy for him to add up his accounts, and sometimes it tookhim a long time to bring them out right; and in the old days, littleLord Fauntleroy, who had learned how to add up quite nicely with hisfingers and a slate and pencil, had sometimes even gone to the lengthof trying to help him; and, then too, he had been so good a listener andhad taken such an interest in what the newspaper said, and he and Mr.Hobbs had held such long conversations about the Revolution and theBritish and the elections and the Republican party, that it was nowonder his going left a blank in the grocery store. At first it seemedto Mr. Hobbs that Cedric was not really far away, and would come backagain; that some day he would look up from his paper and see the littlelad standing in the door-way, in his white suit and red stockings, andwith his straw hat on the back of his head, and would hear him say inhis cheerful little voice: "Hello, Mr. Hobbs! This is a hot day--isn'tit?" But as the days passed on and this did not happen, Mr. Hobbs feltvery dull and uneasy. He did not even enjoy his newspaper as much as heused to. He would put the paper down on his knee after reading it, andsit and stare at the high stool for a long time. There were some markson the long legs which made him feel quite dejected and melancholy. Theywere marks made by the heels of the next Earl of Dorincourt, when hekicked and talked at the same time. It seems that even youthful earlskick the legs of things they sit on;--noble blood and lofty lineage donot prevent it. After looking at those marks, Mr. Hobbs would takeout his gold watch and open it and stare at the inscription: "Fromhis oldest friend, Lord Fauntleroy, to Mr. Hobbs. When this you see,remember me." And after staring at it awhile, he would shut it up with aloud snap, and sigh and get up and go and stand in the door-way--betweenthe box of potatoes and the barrel of apples--and look up the street.At night, when the store was closed, he would light his pipe and walkslowly along the pavement until he reached the house where Cedric hadlived, on which there was a sign that read, "This House to Let"; and hewould stop near it and look up and shake his head, and puff at his pipevery hard, and after a while walk mournfully back again.
This went on for two or three weeks before any new idea came to him.Being slow and ponderous, it always took him a long time to reach anew idea. As a rule, he did not like new ideas, but preferred old ones.After two or three weeks, however, during which, instead of gettingbetter, matters really grew worse, a novel plan slowly and deliberatelydawned upon him. He would go to see Dick. He smoked a great many pipesbefore he arrived at the conclusion, but finally he did arrive at it. Hewould go to see Dick. He knew all about Dick. Cedric had told him, andhis idea was that perhaps Dick might be some comfort to him in the wayof talking things over.
So one day when Dick was very hard at work blacking a customer's boots,a short, stout man with a heavy face and a bald head stopped on thepavement and stared for two or three minutes at the bootblack's sign,which read:
"PROFESSOR DICK TIPTON CAN'T BE BEAT."
He stared at it so long that Dick began to take a lively interest inhim, and when he had put the finishing touch to his customer's boots, hesaid:
"Want a shine, sir?"
The stout man came forward deliberately and put his foot on the rest.
"Yes," he said.
Then when Dick fell to work, the stout man looked from Dick to the signand from the sign to Dick.
"Where did you get that?" he asked.
"From a friend o' mine," said Dick,--"a little feller. He guv' me thewhole outfit. He was the best little feller ye ever saw. He's in Englandnow. Gone to be one o' them lords."
"Lord--Lord--" asked Mr. Hobbs, with ponderous slowness, "LordFauntleroy--Goin' to be Earl of Dorincourt?"
Dick almost dropped his brush.
"Why, boss!" he exclaimed, "d' ye know him yerself?"
"I've known him," answered Mr. Hobbs, wiping his warm forehead, "eversince he was born. We was lifetime acquaintances--that's what WE was."
It really made him feel quite agitated to speak of it. He pulled thesplendid gold watch out of his pocket and opened it, and showed theinside of the case to Dick.
"'When this you see, remember me,'" he read. "That was his partingkeepsake to me. 'I don't want you to forget me'--those was his words--I'dha' remembered him," he went on, shaking his head, "if he hadn't givenme a thing an' I hadn't seen hide nor hair on him again. He was acompanion as ANY man would remember."
"He was the nicest little feller I ever see," said Dick. "An' as tosand--I never seen so much sand to a little feller. I thought a heapo' him, I did,--an' we was friends, too--we was sort o' chums from thefust, that little young un an' me. I grabbed his ball from under a stagefur him, an' he never forgot it; an' he'd come down here, he would,with his mother or his nuss and he'd holler: 'Hello, Dick!' at me,as friendly as if he was six feet high, when he warn't knee high to agrasshopper, and was dressed in gal's clo'es. He was a gay little chap,and when you was down on your luck, it did you good to talk to him."
"That's so," said Mr. Hobbs. "It was a pity to make a earl out of HIM.He would have SHONE in the grocery business--or dry goods either; hewould have SHONE!" And he shook his head with deeper regret than ever.
It proved that they had so much to say to each other that it was notpossible to say it all at one time, and so it was agreed that the nextnight Dick should make a visit to the store and keep Mr. Hobbs company.The plan pleased Dick well enough. He had been a street waif nearlyall his life, but he had never been a bad boy, and he had always had aprivate yearning for a more respectable kind of existence. Since he hadbeen in business for himself, he had made enough money to enable him tosleep under a roof instead of out in the streets, and he had begun tohope he might reach even a higher plane, in time. So, to be invited tocall on a stout, respectable man who owned a corner store, and even hada horse and wagon, seemed to him quite an event.
"Do you know anything about earls and castles?" Mr. Hobbs inquired. "I'dlike to know more of the particklars."
"There's a story about some on 'em in the Penny Story Gazette," saidDick. "It's called the 'Crime of a Coronet; or, The Revenge of theCountess May.' It's a boss thing, too. Some of us boys 're takin' it toread."
"Bring it up when you come," said Mr. Hobbs, "an' I'll pay for it. Bringall you can find that have any earls in 'em. If there aren't earls,markises'll do, or dooks--though HE never made mention of any dooks ormarkises. We did go over coronets a little, but I never happened to seeany. I guess they don't keep 'em 'round here."
"Tiffany 'd have 'em if anybody did," said Dick, "but I don't know asI'd know one if I saw it."
Mr. Hobbs did not explain that he would not have known one if he saw it.He merely shook his head ponderously.
"I s'pose there is very little call for 'em," he said, and that endedthe matter.
This was the beginning of quite a substantial friendship. When Dick wentup to the store, Mr. Hobbs received him with great hospitality. He gavehim a chair tilted against the door, near a barrel of apples, and afterhis young visitor was seated, he made a jerk at them with the hand inwhich he held his pipe, saying:
"Help yerself."
Then he looked at the story papers, and after that they read anddiscussed the British aristocracy; and Mr. Hobbs smoked his pipe veryhard and shook his head a great deal. He shook it most when he pointedout the high stool with the marks on its legs.
"There's his very kicks," he said impressively; "his very kicks. I sitand look at 'em by the hour. This is a world of ups an' it
He seemed to derive a great deal of comfort from his reflections andDick's visit. Before Dick went home, they had a supper in the smallback-room; they had crackers and cheese and sardines, and other cannedthings out of the store, and Mr. Hobbs solemnly opened two bottles ofginger ale, and pouring out two glasses, proposed a toast.
"Here's to HIM!" he said, lifting his glass, "an' may he teach 'em alesson--earls an' markises an' dooks an' all!"
After that night, the two saw each other often, and Mr. Hobbs was muchmore comfortable and less desolate. They read the Penny Story Gazette,and many other interesting things, and gained a knowledge of the habitsof the nobility and gentry which would have surprised those despisedclasses if they had realized it. One day Mr. Hobbs made a pilgrimageto a book store down town, for the express purpose of adding to theirlibrary. He went to the clerk and leaned over the counter to speak tohim.
"I want," he said, "a book about earls."
"What!" exclaimed the clerk.
"A book," repeated the grocery-man, "about earls."
"I'm afraid," said the clerk, looking rather queer, "that we haven'twhat you want."
"Haven't?" said Mr. Hobbs, anxiously. "Well, say markises then--ordooks."
"I know of no such book," answered the clerk.
Mr. Hobbs was much disturbed. He looked down on the floor,--then helooked up.
"None about female earls?" he inquired.
"I'm afraid not," said the clerk with a smile.
"Well," exclaimed Mr. Hobbs, "I'll be jiggered!"
He was just going out of the store, when the clerk called him back andasked him if a story in which the nobility were chief characters woulddo. Mr. Hobbs said it would--if he could not get an entire volumedevoted to earls. So the clerk sold him a book called "The Tower ofLondon," written by Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and he carried it home.
When Dick came they began to read it. It was a very wonderful andexciting book, and the scene was laid in the reign of the famous Englishqueen who is called by some people Bloody Mary. And as Mr. Hobbs heardof Queen Mary's deeds and the habit she had of chopping people's headsoff, putting them to the torture, and burning them alive, he became verymuch excited. He took his pipe out of his mouth and stared at Dick, andat last he was obliged to mop the perspiration from his brow with hisred pocket handkerchief.
"Why, he ain't safe!" he said. "He ain't safe! If the women folks cansit up on their thrones an' give the word for things like that to bedone, who's to know what's happening to him this very minute? He's nomore safe than nothing! Just let a woman like that get mad, an' no one'ssafe!"
"Well," said Dick, though he looked rather anxious himself; "ye seethis 'ere un isn't the one that's bossin' things now. I know her name'sVictory, an' this un here in the book, her name's Mary."
"So it is," said Mr. Hobbs, still mopping his forehead; "so it is. An'the newspapers are not sayin' anything about any racks, thumb-screws,or stake-burnin's,--but still it doesn't seem as if 't was safe for himover there with those queer folks. Why, they tell me they don't keep theFourth o' July!"
He was privately uneasy for several days; and it was not until hereceived Fauntleroy's letter and had read it several times, both tohimself and to Dick, and had also read the letter Dick got about thesame time, that he became composed again.
But they both found great pleasure in their letters. They read andre-read them, and talked them over and enjoyed every word of them. Andthey spent days over the answers they sent and read them over almost asoften as the letters they had received.
It was rather a labor for Dick to write his. All his knowledge ofreading and writing he had gained during a few months, when he had livedwith his elder brother, and had gone to a night-school; but, being asharp boy, he had made the most of that brief education, and had spelledout things in newspapers since then, and practiced writing with bits ofchalk on pavements or walls or fences. He told Mr. Hobbs all about hislife and about his elder brother, who had been rather good to him aftertheir mother died, when Dick was quite a little fellow. Their father haddied some time before. The brother's name was Ben, and he had takencare of Dick as well as he could, until the boy was old enough to sellnewspapers and run errands. They had lived together, and as he grewolder Ben had managed to get along until he had quite a decent place ina store.
"And then," exclaimed Dick with disgust, "blest if he didn't go an'marry a gal! Just went and got spoony an' hadn't any more sense left!Married her, an' set up housekeepin' in two back rooms. An' a hefty unshe was,--a regular tiger-cat. She'd tear things to pieces when she gotmad,--and she was mad ALL the time. Had a baby just like her,--yell day'n' night! An' if I didn't have to 'tend it! an' when it screamed, she'dfire things at me. She fired a plate at me one day, an' hit the baby--cut its chin. Doctor said he'd carry the mark till he died. A nicemother she was! Crackey! but didn't we have a time--Ben 'n' mehself 'n'the young un. She was mad at Ben because he didn't make money faster;'n' at last he went out West with a man to set up a cattle ranch. An'hadn't been gone a week 'fore one night, I got home from sellin' mypapers, 'n' the rooms wus locked up 'n' empty, 'n' the woman o' thehouse, she told me Minna 'd gone--shown a clean pair o' heels. Some unelse said she'd gone across the water to be nuss to a lady as had alittle baby, too. Never heard a word of her since--nuther has Ben. IfI'd ha' bin him, I wouldn't ha' fretted a bit--'n' I guess he didn't.But he thought a heap o' her at the start. Tell you, he was spoons onher. She was a daisy-lookin' gal, too, when she was dressed up 'n' notmad. She'd big black eyes 'n' black hair down to her knees; she'd makeit into a rope as big as your arm, and twist it 'round 'n' 'round herhead; 'n' I tell you her eyes 'd snap! Folks used to say she was part_I_tali-un--said her mother or father 'd come from there, 'n' it madeher queer. I tell ye, she was one of 'em--she was!"
He often told Mr. Hobbs stories of her and of his brother Ben, who,since his going out West, had written once or twice to Dick.
Ben's luck had not been good, and he had wandered from place to place;but at last he had settled on a ranch in California, where he was atwork at the time when Dick became acquainted with Mr. Hobbs.
"That gal," said Dick one day, "she took all the grit out o' him. Icouldn't help feelin' sorry for him sometimes."
They were sitting in the store door-way together, and Mr. Hobbs wasfilling his pipe.
"He oughtn't to 've married," he said solemnly, as he rose to get amatch. "Women--I never could see any use in 'em myself."
As he took the match from its box, he stopped and looked down on thecounter.
"Why!" he said, "if here isn't a letter! I didn't see it before. Thepostman must have laid it down when I wasn't noticin', or the newspaperslipped over it."
He picked it up and looked at it carefully.
"It's from HIM!" he exclaimed. "That's the very one it's from!"
He forgot his pipe altogether. He went back to his chair quite excitedand took his pocket-knife and opened the envelope.
"I wonder what news there is this time," he said.
And then he unfolded the letter and read as follows:
"DORINCOURT CASTLE" My dear Mr. Hobbs
"I write this in a great hury becaus i have something curous to tell youi know you will be very mutch suprised my dear frend when i tel you. Itis all a mistake and i am not a lord and i shall not have to be an earlthere is a lady whitch was marid to my uncle bevis who is dead and shehas a little boy and he is lord fauntleroy becaus that is the way it isin England the earls eldest sons little boy is the earl if everybody else is dead i mean if his farther and grandfarther are dead mygrandfarther is not dead but my uncle bevis is and so his boy is lordFauntleroy and i am not becaus my papa was the youngest son and my nameis Cedric Errol like it was when i was in New York
"your old frend
"CEDRIC ERROL (Not lord Fauntleroy)."
Mr. Hobbs fell back in his chair, the letter dropped on his knee, hispen-knife slipped to the floor, and so did the envelope.
"Well!" he ejaculated, "I am jiggered!"
He was so dumfounded that he actually changed his exclamation. It hadalways been his habit to say, "I WILL be jiggered," but this time hesaid, "I AM jiggered." Perhaps he really WAS jiggered. There is noknowing.
"Well," said Dick, "the whole thing's bust up, hasn't it?"
"Bust!" said Mr. Hobbs. "It's my opinion it's a put-up job o' theBritish ristycrats to rob him of his rights because he's an American.They've had a spite agin us ever since the Revolution, an' they'retakin' it out on him. I told you he wasn't safe, an' see what'shappened! Like as not, the whole gover'ment's got together to rob him ofhis lawful ownin's."
He was very much agitated. He had not approved of the change in hisyoung friend's circumstances at first, but lately he had become morereconciled to it, and after the receipt of Cedric's letter he hadperhaps even felt some secret pride in his young friend's magnificence.He might not have a good opinion of earls, but he knew that even inAmerica money was considered rather an agreeable thing, and if all thewealth and grandeur were to go with the title, it must be rather hard tolose it.
"They're trying to rob him!" he said, "that's what they're doing, andfolks that have money ought to look after him."
And he kept Dick with him until quite a late hour to talk it over, andwhen that young man left, he went with him to the corner of the street;and on his way back he stopped opposite the empty house for some time,staring at the "To Let," and smoking his pipe, in much disturbance ofmind.