“Every one has his day, from which he dates.”

OLD PROVERB

You see, Surrey, the school is something extra, and the performances, and it will please Clara no end; so I thought I’d run over, and inveigled you into going along for fear it should be stupid, and I would need some recreation.”

“Which I am to afford?”

“Verily.”

“As clown or grindstone? to make laugh, or sharpen your wits upon?”

“Far be it from me to dictate. Whichever suits our character best. On the whole, I think the last would be the most appropriate; the first I can swear wouldn’t!”

“Pourquoi?”

“O, a woman’s reason, because!”

“Because why? Am I cross?”

“Not exactly.”

“Rough?”

“As usual, like a May breeze.”

“Cynical?”

“As Epicurus.”

“Irritable?”

“‘A countenance [and manner] more in sorrow than in anger.’ Something’s wrong with you; who is she?”

“She!”

“Ay, she. That was a wise Eastern king who put at the bottom of every trouble and mischief a woman.”

“Fine estimate.”

“Correct one. Evidently he had studied the genus thoroughly, and had a poor opinion of it.”

“No wonder.”

“Amazing! you say ‘no wonder’! Astounding words! speak them again.”

“No wonder, seeing that he had a mother, and that she had such a son. He must needs have been a bad fellow or a fool to have originated so base a philosophy, and how then could he respect the source of such a stream as himself?”

“Sir Launcelot, squire of dames!”

“Not Sir Launcelot, but squire of dames, I hope.”

“There you go again! Now I shall query once more, who is she?”

“No woman.”

“No?”

“No, though by your smiling you would seem to say so!”

“Nay, I believe you, and am vastly relieved in the believing. Take advice from ten years of superior age, and fifty of experience, and have naught to do with them. Dost hear?”

“I do.”

“And will heed?”

“Which? the words or the acts of my counsellor? who, of a surety, preaches wisely and does foolishly, or who does wisely and preaches foolishly; for preaching and practice do not agree.”

“Nay, man, thou art unreasonable; to perform either well is beyond the capacity of most humans, and I desire not to be blessed above my betters. Then let my rash deeds and my prudent words both be teachers unto thee. But if it be true that no woman is responsible for your grave countenance this morning, then am I wasting words, and will return to our muttons. What ails you?”

“I am belligerent.”

“I see, that means quarrelsome.”

“And hopeless.”

“Bad, very! belligerent and hopeless! When you go into a fight always expect to win; the thought is half the victory.”

“Suppose you are an atom against the universe?” “Don’t fight, succumb. There’s a proverb, a wise one, Napoleon’s, ’God is on the side of the strongest battalions.’”

“A lie, exploded at Waterloo. There’s another proverb, ’One on the side of God is a majority.’ How about that?”

“Transcendental humbug.”

“A truth demonstrated at Wittenberg.”

“Are you aching for the martyr’s palm?”

“I am afraid not. On the whole, I think I’d rather enjoy life than quarrel with it. But” with a sudden blaze “I feel to-day like fighting the world.”

“Hey, presto! what now, young’un?”

“I don’t wonder you stare” a little laugh. “I’m talking like a fool, and, for aught I know, feeling like one, aching to fight, and knowing that I might as well quarrel with the winds, or stab that water as it flows by.”

“As with what?”

“The fellow I’ve just been getting a good look at.”

“What manner of fellow?”

“Ignorant, selfish, brutal, devilish.”

“Tremendous! why don’t you bind him over to keep the peace?”

“Because he is like the judge of old time, neither fears God nor respects his image, when his image is carved in ebony, and not ivory.”

“What do you call this fellow?”

“Public Opinion.”

“This big fellow is abusing and devouring a poor little chap, eh? and the chap’s black?”

“True.”

“And sometimes the giant is a gentleman in purple and fine linen, otherwise broadcloth; and sometimes in hodden gray, otherwise homespun or slop-shop; and sometimes he cuts the poor little chap with a silver knife, which is rhetoric, and sometimes with a wooden spoon, which is raw-hide. Am I stating it all correctly?”

“All correctly.”

“And you’ve been watching this operation when you had better have been minding your own business, and getting excited when you had better have kept cool, and now want to rush into the fight, drums beating and colors flying, to the rescue of the small one. Don’t deny it, it’s all written out in your eyes.”

“I sha’n’t deny it, except about the business and the keeping cool. It’s any gentleman’s business to interfere between a bully and a weakling that he’s abusing; and his blood must be water that does not boil while he ‘watches the operation’ as you say, and goes in.”

“To get well pommelled for his pains, and do no good to any one, himself included. Let the weakling alone. A fellow that can’t save himself is not worth saving. If he can’t swim nor walk, let him drop under or go to the wall; that’s my theory.”

“Anglo-Saxon theory and practice.”

“Good theory, excellent practice, in the main. What special phase of it has been disturbing your equanimity?”

“You know the Franklins?”

“Of course: Aunt Mina’s son what’s his name? is a sort of protege of yours, I believe: what of him?”

“He is cleanly?”

“A nice question. Doubtless.”

“Respectable?”

“What are you driving at?”

“Intelligent?”

“Most true.”

“Ambitious?”

“Or his looks belie him.”

“Faithful, trusty, active, helpful, in every way devoted to my father’s service and his work.”

“With Sancho, I believe it all because your worship says so.”

“Well, this man has just been discharged from my father’s employ because seven hundred and forty-two other men gave notice to quit if he remained.”

“The reason?”

“His skin.”

“The reason is not ’so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door, but it is enough.’ Of course they wouldn’t work with him, and my uncle Surrey, begging your pardon, should not have attempted anything so Quixotic.”

“His skin covering so many excellent qualities, and these qualities gaining recognition, that was the cause. They worked with him so long as he was a servant of servants: so soon as he demonstrated that he could strike out strongly and swim, they knocked him under; and, proving that he could walk alone, they ran hastily to shove him to the wall.”

“What! quoting my own words against me?”

“Anglo-Saxon says we are the masters: we monopolize the strength and courage, the beauty, intelligence, power. These creatures, what are they? poor, worthless, lazy, ignorant, good for nothing but to be used as machines, to obey. When lo! one of these dumb machines suddenly starts forth with a man’s face; this creature no longer obeys, but evinces a right to command; and Anglo-Saxon speedily breaks him in pieces.”

“Come, Willie, I hope you’re not going to assert these people our equals, that would be too much.”

“They have no intelligence, Anglo-Saxon declares, then refuses them schools, while he takes of their money to help educate his own sons. They have no ambition, then closes upon them every door of honorable advancement, and cries through the key-hole, Serve, or starve. They cannot stand alone, they have no faculty for rising, then, if one of them finds foothold, the ground is undermined beneath him. If a head is seen above the crowd, the ladder is jerked away, and he is trampled into the dust where he is fallen. If he stays in the position to which Anglo-Saxon assigns him, he is a worthless nigger; if he protests against it, he is an insolent nigger; if he rises above it, he is a nigger not to be tolerated at all, to be crushed and buried speedily.”

“Now, Willie, ‘no more of this, an thou lovest me.’ I came not out to-day to listen to an abolition harangue, nor a moral homily, but to have a good time, to be civil and merry withal, if you will allow it. Of course you don’t like Franklin’s discharge, and of course you have done something to compensate him. I know you have found him another place. No, you couldn’t do that?

“No, I couldn’t.”

“Well, you’ve settled him somewhere, confess.”

“He has some work for the present; some copying for me, and translating, for this unfortunate is a scholar, you know.”

“Very good; then let it rest. Granted the poor devils have a bad time of it, you’re not bound to sacrifice yourself for them. If you go on at this pace, you’ll bring up with the long-haired, bloomer reformers, and then God help you. No, you needn’t say another word, I sha’n’t listen, not one; so. Here we are! school yonder, well situated?”

“Capitally.”

“Fine day.”

“Very.”

“Clara will be charmed to see you.”

“You flatter me. I hope so.”

“There, now you talk rationally. Don’t relapse. We will go up and hear the pretty creatures read their little pieces, and sing their little songs, and see them take their nice blue-ribboned diplomas, and fall in love with their dear little faces, and flirt a bit this evening, and to-morrow I shall take Ma’m’selle Clara home to Mamma Russell, and you may go your ways.”

“The programme is satisfactory.”

“Good. Come on then.”

All Commencement days, at college or young ladies school, if not twin brothers and sisters, are at least first cousins, with a strong family likeness. Who that has passed through one, or witnessed one, needs any description thereof to furbish up its memories. This of Professor Hales belonged to the great tribe, and its form and features were of the old established type. The young ladies were charming; plenty of white gowns, plenty of flowers, plenty of smiles, blushes, tremors, hopes, and fears; little songs, little pieces, little addresses, to be sung, to be played, to be read, just as Tom Russell had foreshadowed, and proving to be

“Just the least of a bore!” as he added after listening awhile; “don’t you think so, Surrey?”

“Hush! don’t talk.”

Tom stared; then followed his cousin’s eye, fixed immovably upon one little spot on the platform. “By Jove!” he cried, “what a beauty! As Father Dryden would say, ‘this is the porcelain clay of humankind.’ No wonder you look. Who is she, do you know?”

“No.”

“No! short, clear, and decisive. Don’t devour her, Will. Remember the sermon I preached you an hour ago. Come, look at this,” thrusting a programme into his face, “and stop staring. Why, boy, she has bewitched you, or inspired you,” surveying him sharply.

And indeed it would seem so. Eyes, mouth, face, instinct with some subtle and thrilling emotion. As gay Tom Russell looked, he involuntarily stretched out his hand, as one would put it between another and some danger of which that other is unaware, and remembered what he had once said in talking of him, “If Will Surrey’s time does come, I hope the girl will be all right in every way, for he’ll plunge headlong, and love like distraction itself, no half-way; it will be a life-and-death affair for him.” “Come, I must break in on this.”

“Surrey!”

“Yes.”

“There’s a pretty girl.”

No answer.

“There! over yonder. Third seat, second row. See her? Pretty?”

“Very pretty.”

“Miss Miss what’s her name? O, Miss Perry played that last thing very well for a school-girl, eh?”

“Very well.”

“Admirable room this, for hearing; rare quality with chapels and halls; architects in planning generally tax ingenuity how to confuse sound. Now these girls don’t make a great noise, yet you can distinguish every word, can’t you?”

No response.

“I say, can’t you?”

“Every word.”

Tom drew a long breath.

“Professor Hale’s a sensible old fellow; I like the way he conducts this school.” (Mem. Tom didn’t know a thing about it.) “Carries it on excellently.” A pause.

Silence.

“Fine-looking, too. A man’s physique has a deal to do with his success in the world. If he carries a letter of recommendation in his face, people take him on trust to begin with; and if he’s a big fellow, like the Professor yonder, he imposes on folks awfully; they pop down on their knees to him, and clear the track for him, as if he had a right to it all. Bless me! I never thought of that before, it’s the reason you and I have got on so swimmingly, is it not, now? Certainly. You think so? Of course.”

“Of course,” sedately and gravely spoken.

Tom groaned, for, with a face kind and bright, he was yet no beauty; while if Surrey had one crowning gift in this day of fast youths and self-satisfied Young America, it was that of modesty with regard to himself and any gifts and graces nature had blessed him withal.

“Clara has a nice voice.”

“Very nice.”

“She is to sing, do you know?”

“I know.”

“Do you know when?”

No reply.

“She sings the next piece. Are you ready to listen?”

“Ready.”

“Good Lord!” cried Tom, in despair, “the fellow has lost his wits. He has turned parrot; he has done nothing but repeat my words for me since he sat here. He’s an echo.”

“Echo of nothingness?” queried the parrot, smilingly.

“Ah, you’ve come to yourself, have you? Capital! now stay awake. There’s Clara to sing directly, and you are to cheer her, and look as if you enjoyed it, and throw her that bouquet when I tell you, and let her think it’s a fine thing she has been doing; for this is a tremendous affair to her, poor child, of course.”

“How bright and happy she is! You will laugh at me, Tom, and indeed I don’t know what has come over me, but somehow I feel quite sad, looking at those girls, and wondering what fate and time have in store for them.”

“Sunshine and bright hours.”

“The day cometh, and also the night,” broke in the clear voice that was reading a selection from the Scriptures.

Tom started, and Willie took from his button-hole just such a little nosegay as that he had bought on Broadway a fortnight before, a geranium leaf, a bit of mignonette, and a delicate tea-rosebud, and, seeing it was drooping, laid it carefully upon the programme on his knee. “I don’t want that to fade,” he thought as he put it down, while he looked across the platform at the same face which he had so eagerly pursued through a labyrinth of carriages, stages, and people, and lost at last.

“There! Clara is talking to your beauty. I wonder if she is to sing, or do anything. If she does, it will be something dainty and fine, I’ll wager. Helloa! there’s Clara up, now for it.”

Clara’s bright little voice suited her bright little face, like her brother’s, only a great deal prettier, and the young men enjoyed both, aside from brotherly and cousinly feeling, cheered her “to the echo” as Willie said, threw their bouquets, great, gorgeous things they had brought from the city to please her, and wished there was more of it all when it was through.

“What next?” said Willie.

“Heaven preserve us! your favorite subject. Who would expect to tumble on such a theme here? ’Slavery; by Francesca Ercildoune.’ Odd name, and, by Jove! it’s the beauty herself.”

They both leaned forward eagerly as she came from her seat; slender, shapely, every fibre fine and exquisite, no coarse graining from the dainty head to the dainty foot; the face, clear olive, delicate and beautiful,

“The mouth with steady sweetness set,
And eyes conveying unaware
The distant hint of some regret
That harbored there,

eyes deep, tender, and pathetic.

“What’s this?” said Tom. “Queer. It gives me a heartache to look at her.”

“A woman for whom to fight the world, or lose the world, and be compensated a million-fold if you died at her feet,” thought Surrey, and said nothing.

“What a strange subject for her to select!” broke in Tom.

It was a strange one for the time and place, and she had been besought to drop it, and take another; but it should be that or nothing, she asserted, so she was left to her own device.

Oddly treated, too. Tom thought it would be a pretty lady-like essay, and said so; then sat astounded at what he saw and heard. Her face this schoolgirl’s face grew pallid, her eyes mournful, her voice and manner sublime, as she summoned this Monster to the bar of God’s justice and the humanity of the world; as she arraigned it; as she brought witness after witness to testify against it; as she proved its horrible atrocities and monstrous barbarities; as she went on to the close, and, lifting hand and face and voice together, thrilled out, “I look backward into the dim, distant past, but it is one night of oppression and despair; I turn to the present, but I hear naught save the mother’s broken-hearted shriek, the infant’s wail, the groan wrung from the strong man in agony; I look forward into the future, but the night grows darker, the shadows deeper and longer, the tempest wilder, and involuntarily I cry out, ‘How long, O God, how long?’”

“Heavens! what an actress she would make!” said somebody before them.

“That’s genius,” said somebody behind them; “but what a subject to waste it upon!”

“Very bad taste, I must say, to talk about such a thing here,” said somebody beside them. “However, one can excuse a great deal to beauty like that.”

Surrey sat still, and felt as though he were on fire, filled with an insane desire to seize her in one arm like a knight of old, and hew his way through these beings, and out of this place, into some solitary spot where he could seat her and kneel at her feet, and die there if she refused to take him up; filled with all the sweet, extravagant, delicious pain that thrills the heart, full of passion and purity, of a young man who begins to love the first, overwhelming, only love of a lifetime.