Love and Skates/Chapter IV

The pioneer sunbeam of next Christmas morning rattled over the Dunderbunk hills, flashed into Richard Wade’s eyes, waked him, and was off, ricochetting across the black ice of the river.
 * Chapter IV. A Christmas Gift.

Wade jumped up, electrified and jubilant. He had gone to bed feeling quite too despondent for so healthy a fellow. Christmas Eve, the time of family meetings, reminded him how lonely he was. He had not a relative in the world, except two little nieces, — one as tall as his knee, the other almost up to his waist; and them he had safely bestowed in a nook of New England, to gain wit and virtues as they gained inches.

“I have had a stern and lonely life,” thought Wade, as he blew out his candle last night, “and what has it profited me?”

Perhaps the pioneer sunbeam answered this question with a truism, not always as applicable as in this case, — “A brave, able, self-respecting manhood is fair profit for any man’s first thirty years of life.”

But, answered or not, the question troubled Wade no more. He shot out of bed in tip-top spirits; shouted “Merry Christmas!” at the rising disk of the sun; looked over the black ice; thrilled with the thought of a long holiday for skating; and proceeded to dress in a knowing suit of rough clothes, singing, “Ah, non giunge! as he slid into them.

Presently, glancing from his south window, he observed several matinal smokes rising from the chimneys of a country-house a mile away, on a slope fronting the river.

“Peter Skerrett must be back from Europe at last,” he thought. “I hope he is as fine a fellow as he was ten years ago. I hope marriage has not made him a muff, and wealth a weakling.”

Wade went down to breakfast with an heroic appetite. His “Merry Christmas” to Mrs. Purtett was followed up by a ravished kiss and the gift of a silver butter-knife. The good widow did not know which to be most charmed with. The butter-knife was genuine, shining, solid silver, with her initials, M. B. P., Martha Bilsby Purtett, given in luxuriant flourishes; but then the kiss had such a fine twang, such an exhilarating titillation! The late Perry’s kisses, from first to last, had wanted point. They were, as the Spanish proverb would put it, unsavory as unsalted eggs, for want of a moustache. The widow now perceived, with mild regret, how much she had missed when she married “a man all shaven and shorn.” Her cheek, still fair, though forty, flushed with novel delight, and she appreciated her lodger more than ever.

Wade’s salutation to Belle Purtett was more distant. There must be a little friendly reserve between a handsome young man and a pretty young woman several grades lower in the social scale, living in the same house. They were on the most cordial terms, however; and her gift — of course embroidered slippers — and his to her — of course “The Illustrated Poets,” in Turkey morocco — were exchanged with tender good-will on both sides.

“We shall meet on the ice, Miss Belle,” said Wade. “It is a day of a thousand for skating.”

“Mr. Ringdove says you are a famous skater,” Belle rejoined. “He saw you on the river yesterday evening.”

“Yes; Tarbox and I were practising to exhibit to-day; but I could not do much with my dull old skates.”

Wade breakfasted deliberately, as a holiday morning allowed, and then walked down to the Foundry. There would be no work done to-day, except by a small gang keeping up the fires. The Superintendent wished only to give his First Semi-Annual Report an hour’s polishing, before he joined all Dunderbunk on the ice.

It was a halcyon day, worthy of its motto, “Peace on earth, good-will to men.” The air was electric, the sun overflowing with jolly shine, the river smooth and sheeny from the hither bank to the snowy mountains opposite.

“I wish I were Rembrandt, to paint this grand shadowy interior,” thought Wade, as he entered the silent, deserted Foundry. “With the gleam of the snow in my eyes, it looks deliciously warm and chiaroscuro. When the men are here and ‘fervet opus,’ — the pot boils, — I cannot stop to see the picturesque.”

He opened his office, took his Report and began to complete it with ,s ;s, and .s in the right places.

All at once the bell of the Works rang out loud and clear. Presently the Superintendent became aware of a tramp and a bustle in the building. By and by came a tap at the office-door.

“Come in,” said Wade, and, enter young Perry Purtett.

Perry was a boy of fifteen, with hair the color of fresh sawdust, white eyebrows, and an uncommonly wide-awake look. Ringdove, his father’s successor, could never teach Perry the smirk, the grace, and the seductiveness of the counter, so the boy had found his place in the finishing-shop of the Foundry.

“Some of the hands would like to see you for half a jiff, Mr. Wade,” said he. “Will you come along, if you please?”

There was a good deal of easy swagger about Perry, as there is always in boys and men whose business is to watch the lunging of steam-engines. Wade followed him. Perry led the way with a jaunty air that said, —

“Room here! Out of the way, you lubberly bits of cast-iron! Be careful, now, you big derricks, or I’ll walk right over you! Room now for Me and My suite!”

This pompous usher conducted the Superintendent to the very spot in the main room of the Works where, six months before, the Inaugural had been pronounced and the first Veto spoken and enacted.

And there, as six months before, stood the Hands awaiting their Head. But the aprons, the red shirts, and the grime of working-days were off, and the whole were in holiday rig, — as black and smooth and shiny from top to toe as the members of a Congress of Undertakers.

Wade, following in the wake of Perry, took his stand facing the rank, and waited to see what he was summoned for. He had not long to wait.

To the front stepped Mr. William Tarbox, foreman of the finishing-shop, no longer a bhoy, but an erect, fine-looking fellow, with no nitrate in his moustache, and his hat permanently out of mourning for the late Mr. Poole.

“Gentlemen,” said Bill, “I move that this meeting organize by appointing Mr. Smith Wheelwright Chairman. As many as are in favor of this motion, please to say, ‘Ay.’”

“Ay!” said the crowd, very loud and big. And then every man looked at his neighbor, a little abashed, as if he himself had made all the noise.

“This is a free country,” continues Bill. “Every woter has a right to a fair shake. Contrary minds, ‘No.’”

No contrary minds. The crowd uttered a great silence. Every man looked at his neighbor, surprised to find how well they agreed.

“Unanimous!” Tarbox pronounced. “No fractious minorities here, to block the wheels of legislation!”

The crowd burst into a roar at this significant remark, and, again abashed, dropped portcullis on its laughter, cutting off the flanks and tail of the sound.

“Mr. Purtett, will you please conduct the Chairman to the Chair,” says Bill, very stately.

“Make way here!” cried Perry, with the manner of a man seven feet high. “Step out now, Mr. Chairman!”

He took a big, grizzled, docile-looking fellow patronizingly by the arm, led him forward, and chaired him on a large cylinder-head, in the rough, just hatched out of its mould.

“Bang away with that, and sing out ‘Silence!’” says the knowing boy, handing Wheelwright an iron bolt, and taking his place beside him, as prompter.

The docile Chairman obeyed. At his breaking silence by hooting “Silence!” the audience had another mighty bobtailed laugh.

“Say, ‘Will some honorable member state the object of this meeting?’” whispered the prompter.

“Will some honorable member state the subject of this ’ere meetin’?” says Chair, a little bashful and confused.

Bill Tarbox advanced, and, with a formal bow, began, —

“Mr. Chairman —”

“Say, ‘Mr. Tarbox has the floor’” piped Perry.

“Mr. Tarbox has the floor,” diapasoned the Chair.

“Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen —” Bill began, and stopped.

“Say, ‘Proceed, Sir!’” suggested Perry, which the senior did, magnifying the boy’s whisper a dozen times.

Again Bill began and stopped.

“Boys,” said he, dropping grandiloquence, “when I accepted the office of Orator of the Day at our primary, and promised to bring forward our Resolutions in honor of Mr. Wade with my best speech, I didn’t think I was going to have such a head of steam on that the walves would get stuck and the piston jammed and I couldn’t say a word.

“But,” he continued, warming up, “when I think of the Indian powwow we had in this very spot six months ago, — and what a mean bloat I was, going to the stub-tail dogs with my hat over my eyes, — and what a hard lot we were all round, livin’ on nothing but argee whiskey, and rampin’ off on benders, instead of makin’ good iron, — and how the Works was flat broke, — and how Dunderbunk was full of women crying over their husbands and mothers ashamed of their sons, — boys, when I think how things was, and see how they are, and look at Mr. Wade standing there like a —”

Bill hesitated for a comparison.

“Like a thousand of brick,” Perry Purtett suggested, sotto voce.

The Chairman took this as a hint to himself.

“Like a thousand of brick,” he said, with the voice of a Stentor.

Here the audience roared and cheered, and the Orator got a fresh start.

“When you came, Mr. Wade,” he resumed, “we was about sick of putty-beads and sneaks that didn’t know enough or didn’t dare to make us stand round and bone in. You walked in, b’ilin’ over with grit. You took hold as if you belonged here. You made things jump like a two-headed tarrier. All we wanted was a live man, to say, ‘Here, boys, all together now! You’ve got your stint, and I’ve got mine. I’m boss in this shop, — but I can’t do the first thing, unless every man pulls his pound. Now, then, my hand is on the throttle, grease the wheels, oil the walves, poke the fires, hook on, and let’s yank her through with a will!’”

At this figure the meeting. showed a tendency to cheer. “Silence!” Perry sternly suggested. “Silence!” repeated the Chair.

“Then,” continued the Orator, “you wasn’t one of the uneasy kind, always fussin’ and cussin’ round. You wasn’t always spyin’ to see we didn’t take home a cross-tail or a hundred-weight of cast-iron in our pants’ pockets, or go to swiggin’ hot metal out of the ladles on the sly.”

Here an enormous laugh requited Bill’s joke. Perry prompted, the Chair banged with his bolt and cried, “Order!”

“Well, now, boys,” Tarbox went on, “what has come of having one of the right sort to be boss? Why, this. The Works go ahead, stiddy as the North River. We work full time and full-handed. We turn out stuff that no shop needs to be ashamed of. Wages is on the nail. We have a good time generally. How is that, boys, — Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen?”

“That’s so!” from everybody.

“And there’s something better yet,” Bill resumed. “Dunderbunk used to be full of crying women. They’ve stopped crying now.”

Here the whole assemblage, Chairman and all, burst into an irrepressible cheer.

“But I’m making my speech as long as a lightning-rod,” said the speaker. “I’ll put on the brakes, short. I guess Mr. Wade understands pretty well, now, how we feel; and if he don’t, here it all is in shape, in this document, with ‘Whereas’ at the top and ‘Resolved’ entered along down in five places. Mr. Purtett, will you hand the Resolutions to the Superintendent?”

Perry advanced and did his office loftily, much to the amusement of Wade and the workmen.

“Now,” Bill resumed, “we wanted, besides, to make you a little gift, Mr. Wade, to remember the day by. So we got up a subscription, and every man put in his dime. Here’s the present, — hand ’em over, Perry!

“There, Sir, is to be had in York City, made for work, and no nonsense about ’em. We Dunderbunk boys give ’em to you, one for all, and hope you’ll like ’em and beat the world skating, as you do in all the things we’ve knowed you try.

“Now, boys,” Bill perorated, “before I retire to the shades of private life, I motion we give Three Cheers — regular Toplifters — for Richard Wade!”

“Hurrah! Wade and Good Government!” “Hurrah! Wade and Prosperity!” “Hurrah! Wade and the Women’s Tears Dry!”

Cheers like the shout of Achilles! Wielding sledges is good for the bellows, it appears. Toplifters! Why, the smoky black rafters overhead had to tug hard to hold the roof on. Hurrah! From every comer of the vast building came back rattling echoes. The Works, the machinery, the furnaces, the stuff, all had their voice to add to the verdict.

Magnificent music! and our Anglo-Saxon is the only race in the world civilized enough to join in singing it. We are the only hurrahing people, — the only brood hatched in a “Hurrah’s nest.”

Silence restored, the Chairman, prompted by Perry, said, “Gentlemen, Mr. Wade has the floor for a few remarks.”

Of course Wade had to speak, and did. He would not have been an American in America else. But his heart was too full to say more than a few hearty and earnest words of good feeling.

“Now, men,” he closed, “I want to get away on the river and see if my skates will go as they look; so I’ll end by proposing three cheers for Smith Wheelwright, our Chairman, three for our Orator, Tarbox, three for Old Dunderbunk, — Works, Men, Women, and Children; and one big cheer for Old Father Iron, as rousing a cheer as ever was roared.”

So they gave their three times three with enormous enthusiasm. The roof shook, the furnaces rattled, Perry Purtett banged with the Chairman’s hammer, the great echoes thundered through the Foundry.

And when they ended with one gigantic cheer for IRON, tough and true, the weapon, the tool, and the engine of all civilization, — it seemed as if the uproar would never cease until Father Iron himself heard the call in his smithy away under the magnetic pole, and came clanking up, to return thanks in person.