Rube Jones

HE was a fine, large man, with wavy white hair and blue eyes. I thought I had never seen a better specimen of genuine white oak. It was a winter evening in January, 1864, and we were at widow Morgan’s, in Chapel Street, Albany. Jones and I were the only boarders. We were sitting with Mrs. Morgan in the cosy front parlor, before an open-grate fire.

“ Fact is,” said Jones, continuing the conversation, “ this is not my first visit to Albany. I was here when I was eighteen years old; I came then from my home in New Hampshire to find work. They were building the Capitol (which you now call the old Capitol, because you talk of having a new one), and I worked on the building. I do not mind telling you that some things happened to me that year in this city which I have never felt quite right about, and I came here three weeks ago to look at the old landmarks and review my youth, as you may say. Of course you two have wondered what I have been looking about Albany for, and perhaps it will be as well for me to tell you all about it.”

“ We do not urge it,” said Mrs. Morgan.

“ Well, have it that I am anxious to tell, if you want to,” said the narrator sharply. “ Fact is, it was my first experience away from home, when I came here, so long ago. Albany was just a neat, queer Dutch place then. The houses were for all the world like those sharp old wooden hen-coops we had in New Hampshire. When I got my first sight of the place, that comparison occurred to me. And all around, on the sandy hills and in the hollows, were pine-trees and wild-briars and evergreens. And this beautiful verdure was profusely bespangled with the wild rose.” Please don’t get flowery, Mr. Jones,” said Mrs. Morgan softly, with a slow, delicious utterance.

“ I will try to avoid it, by special request,” replied Mr. Jones; “but I wish both of you to understand how fine it was. All along the river were stately elms and lines of willows, and there was the greenest grass in the world. There were no railroads, or excavations, or dumping grounds, or decayed cabbages on the island, or dead cats in the river. Everything was just as neat and smooth and pretty as a picture on an old-fashioned piece of china ware.

“ Well, the way all this comes in,” continued Jones, “ is this, it was a wonderfully good place for a young fellow to go wandering around with his girl. And days when I was off work I used to wander ; and evenings too, for that matter. It is just impossible to tell you of the delightful hours I enjoyed with, little Blandie, the girl I cared so much for, and the dear little creature who I am sure cared for me.”

“ Mr. Jones,” said Mrs. Morgan, with a mischievous smile, " if you are going to be sentimental, I cannot give my time to it; really, I cannot.” And Mrs. Morgan took her work from her lap and resumed her needle.

“ Go on with your sewing, madam,” said Mr. Jones tartly. “ I will try not to disturb you. As I was saying, sir, when the lady interrupted,” he went on, turning to me, “ my enjoyment of that spring and summer was beyond what I can explain. I doubt not that at your age you will comprehend something of it ” (with a deprecating glance toward Mrs. Morgan, as if she were too old to understand). “ It was the golden summer, the culmination of my life. But there came a cloud. In those days it required about a week to travel from New York to Albany. The man who had seen New York had something to boast of, and any New Yorker was a person of distinction, when he came to this city. In July, two men came here from New York. One of them won, or seemed to win, little Blandie away from me. It was not the older one, whose name was Dudley, but it was the young fellow, Harry. I was just a poor working-lad, but Harry was a gentleman from New York ; what could I do ? It may be that you, my dear young friend, have never passed through what I suffered, and I hope you never have and never will. It just hurt me deep down in my heart. One thing about it was, I could not blame Blandie much. She was always so good, and so kind, and so yielding ! Very likely it was her mother, more than it was Blandie, who encouraged him. We had not been engaged, although I knew I would have died for her,” said Jones huskily, with tears in his eyes and his handsome face flushed.

Mrs. Morgan stopped sewing, and looked at the narrator.

“ Well,” continued the story-teller, “ the short of it was, I could do nothing. If I do say it, the honest heart of a poor country boy had been cruelly wounded. It was hard getting through the days, when I felt the life going out of me, as if the blood were oozing, drip, drip, drip, from the wound in my heart. I resolved to leave Albany. My old home among the Granite Hills had been broken up, and I had only the wide world before me. I determined to go to New York. Two days before I started, I sent a boy with a polite little letter to Blandie’s house, saying I was going away, and bidding her good-by. She knew where I boarded, and I hoped she might send me a good-by, too, but she never did. I have always thought her mother kept my letter from Blandie. However it was, on a day in August I got on board a sloop leaving Albany, and started to work my passage to New York, feeling more dreadfully sad and lonely than can be told.”

“And didn’t you hear from Blandie ? ” inquired Mrs. Morgan, with eager interest.

“ Not a word, madam,” replied Mr. Jones, — “not a single word. And the three or four days following my departure from this city were the most miserable I ever experienced. I tried to blame the dear girl, but could n’t, not to amount to anything; and then I tried to blame myself. The wonders of the Hudson River and the great world into which I was going, and about which I felt dreadfully frightened whenever I thought of it, helped to lift her off my heart a little, as we sailed down the stream.

“ Let me see,” continued Mr. Jones, reflecting. “ We started from Albany on Thursday, and it was on the Monday night following that we got the great scare. We were just about entering the Highlands, and it was near eleven o’clock at night. There was a little breeze directly down the river. Suddenly there came around the bend in the stream, just below us, something so terrible that we were all nearly scared to death, as you may say. You may have read, Mrs. Morgan, of the strange spectres in the form of ships, that sailors tell of, which haunt the seas. This was one of those spectre ships. It was, however, much more terrible and substantial than you can imagine. It came right on, against the wind, as no vessel could sail, and its glare was unearthly. I shall never forget how our captain looked in that strange light, as he stood, ghastly and trembling, facing it. We fell upon our knees in supplication, as it passed us ; and with a terrible roaring sound it moved away up the river. It was, in fact, madam,” said Mr. Jones, with great emphasis, turning toward the lady as he spoke, — “ it was, in fact, Fulton’s steamboat on that first trip up the river, in August, 1807.” “ Oh, Mr. Jones, why did n’t you tell it that way first, and not try to make me nervous ? ” said Mrs. Morgan.

“I only told it just as it was,” replied Jones curtly. “ Fact is, we knew nothing about such a thing as a steamboat ; had n’t even imagined there could be such a thing. I venture to say there were not ten people along the Hudson River who had ever even heard of a steam-engine. I know, when we got to New York, the commonest inquiry was how the vapor could possibly make the wheels go round. We had never known of anything of the sort, and thought the steam was turned on loose some way, like the water on a water-wheel.”

“ We don’t care so much about the steamboat,” interrupted Mrs. Morgan, “ but tell us more about Blandie.”

“Oh yes, certainly,” responded Mr. Jones politely. “Fact is, I have always thought, to look at it from a critical point of view, that the big scare helped me about Blandie. It shook me up so that I could think of something besides the dear girl, and so it gave a chance for the hurt I had suffered to heal. The short of it was, I went to Bermuda soon after arriving in New York, and I remained on the island. It is a curious old place, as you know, where the people are more than half blacks, and the rest of them more dead than alive. But I stayed there, working hard, raising onions and potatoes. There was nothing to rouse me. It was just a quiet, dreamy climate. We do not have frost or snow there. The Gulf Stream keeps us warm all the year round. One day is just like another, and so it makes no difference whether you stay there a week or fifty years ; it is one long dreamy blur, as you remember it. Now and then a shipwreck on the reefs or some political disturbance helps a little to mark off the time. But for the most part you have only the boom of the ocean, the buzz of the mosquito, the prospect of the potato crop, and the smell of the onion. Fact is,” said Jones putting his hands in his pockets and tilting back his chair, “ I have got to be pretty well off.”

“ And did you not hear from Blandie ? ” asked Mrs. Morgan.

“ There is a circumstance about that which I have not related. I received a newspaper, saying that Blandie was married. It was an Albany paper, a very small, dingy sheet in those days, but quite large enough to settle my business. Somebody had marked the place in it for me to see. My little Blandie was married; and whom do you guess it was to ? ”

“ Was it not to Harry ?” I inquired.

“ No,” was the reply; “ it was to the older man of the two New Yorkers, — Mr. Charles E. Dudley. It was not to Harry. Now you know who Blandie was. Of course I can’t tell you Albany folks anything new about Mrs. Blandina Dudley. You know that she founded your Dudley Observatory, and that she did an amazing amount of good, before she died, with her large property. But the fact that Blandie married well did n’t help me a great deal, in that long ago time when I got the newspaper from the post-office in Bermuda. My view of the world was simply to the effect that I was done for, flattened out and finished.

“ However,” resumed Mr. Jones, after a long pause, taking his hands to lift one leg over the other, “ I gradually picked up, found I was still available for some minor purposes, and traveled on. That is, I stayed at Bermuda.”

“ And did you ever see Blandie again ? ” asked Mrs. Morgan.

“Well, no,” said Jones, “I didn’t; but I studied her up, as you may say. Fact is, I got over my conniption, and was able to look at an Albany newspaper again, after a few years. As the potato crop came in good, I began to take the New York and Albany newspapers. That was a matter of a dozen years or so after Blandie was married. You would be really pleased, Mrs. Morgan, I dare say, to see what a kind of museum I managed to work up out of the things I found in the newspapers about the husband, Mr. Dudley, and, after his death, about the Observatory and Blandie. When the Observatory was inaugurated, or dedicated, I had the proceedings in the papers. I saved Edward Everett’s great speech, and what the others said. And I followed up the goings-on afterward, about getting the instruments and making the observations. That performance Professor Gould, the astronomer in charge, went through, in fighting your Albany trustees, who wanted to boss him, was better than any play. Then when Professor Peters, who was the astronomer under Gould, found a comet which was flirting around among the stars, it gave the Observatory a start, — set them up in business, as it were. Perhaps you were as much interested as I was in the fun they had trying to name that comet, just for all the world as if a child had been born. They talked at first of naming it after one of the trustees, a real good, solid man, who had been liberal in giving money to buy the instruments. But then the scientific fellows took fire, and wanted it named after one of them. They said that such a thing as naming a comet after a business man was never heard of, and that it would not do at all. Well, there was pulling and hauling and jealousy among the relatives, so to speak. If that comet had really been a child, I think the father and mother would have hitched on to it a string of names that would have made it necessary to keep a catalogue of them, or to get out a second volume to the directory. The parents would have had to do it, to keep the uncles from becoming enemies and killing each other or murdering the child.

“And now, there was just one point those selfish creatures never thought of. Why on earth did n't they do the right thing, and name that comet Blandie ? She had given more money to the Observatory than all the rest put together. Her husband was dead; she was a lone woman ; she never had any children, and here was a chance for a kind of heavenly offspring, as it were, which she would have appreciated. I was so riled up on the subject at the time that I sent a letter to the editor of a newspaper here about it. But he did n’t print it, and I don’t know whether he got it or not. Blandie would be too timid to speak for herself; I knew that. She was always so good, and so kind, and so yielding ! ” And Mr. Jones’s eyes filled with tears.

“ Let me see, what did they call it ? ” said Mrs. Morgan. “ I don't seem to remember.”

“ Did n’t call it anything,” said Jones testily. “ Parcel of big fools ! They just fought over it till they were ashamed of themselves, and then put it down as comet number so and so of that year. Think of it ! ” said he, with a sniff of contempt. “ How would you like it, Mrs. Morgan, to have your children just named number so and so of that year ? ”

“ I would n’t have it,” said Mrs. Morgan decidedly.

“ Nobody would n’t,” said Mr. Jones. “ Well, as you know, early in March last Mrs. Dudley died. I saw by the papers that there was going to be some contest over her will, and I said to myself, ‘Now, Jones, you may just as well see this thing through. You are well off, and can afford it.’ And so I came up here to Albany to review my youth, as I told you before, and to see the fun, if there was any,” said Jones, a little hoarsely, “in fighting over the bones.

“ In the course of these last three weeks I have wandered all around the city. I have been to the Observatory, and seen the boss telescope, and the calculating machine, and the picture of the Inauguration, and the clocks, and all the wonders. And I have seen that block of great houses in Hawk Street which Mrs. Dudley built, when she did n’t know what to do with her money. I have worn out a good pair of taps stubbing along over these rough sidewalks. I have seen about all there is to see, and I am going home.”

“ You have taken a good deal of interest in the contest over the will,” I remarked.

“ Yes, I have. It has not been my way to hang around the surrogate’s office when the fight was going on. A stranger among the mourners might excite remark. But I do not mind telling you that I took board at this house because I found out that you were an attorney in the case, and were stopping here. You see now why I have cultivated you so extensively. I really felt that I ought to tell you about myself before I went away. I have a good mind to show you ray museum.”

I expressed an ardent wish, in which Mrs. Morgan joined, that he would do so. He went to his room, and returned to the parlor with a huge scrap-book, and a box of photographs and stereoscopic views illustrating Albany, the Observatory, and the island of Bermuda. The scrap-book contained the newspaper extracts of which he had spoken relating to the Dudley Observatory and the Dudley family and estate, besides many little gems of poetry and pictures.

“Just thought I would bring them along in my trunk,” said Jones. “ Did n’t know but I might find somebody in Albany that would like to see them.”

We were beginning (Mrs. Morgan and I) to admire Jones’s curious collection, when he hesitatingly took from the inside breast pocket of his coat a little case, and said, with a slight tremor in his voice, “ I brought this down, too, thinking may be you would like to see Blandie, that is Mrs. Dudley, as she looked when she was a girl.”

He opened the antique case, and showed us one of those old-fashioned miniatures painted on ivory, which were in vogue before the daguerreotype and photograph were known. The face was that of a brunette, apparently about sixteen. Aside from a little piquancy of expression, and a few gay ribbons which the painting had preserved in their original vividness, I failed to see anything especially noticeable in the picture.

“ That is just the way she looked,” said Jones, his voice trembling, “ so many, many years ago, when she was so good, and so kind, and so yielding.”

It was quite still in the room for half a minute.

“ Fact is,” he added, clearing his throat, “ I have been just on the edge of stepping off into matrimony three times since, down there in Bermuda; but it was kicked over every time, and I just knew each time that it was the hurt I got with Blandie that did it. I could never really care for any other girl as I ought to, after losing Blandie Becker.”

I glanced at Mrs. Morgan, as we all stood grouped by the centre table, looking at the pictures. There was an odd, puzzled expression on her face. She had straightened up, and was gazing intently at Jones. It was evident that some recognition, or some remarkable thought or idea, had suddenly occurred to her. At length out it came from her lips, in a hard, quick, excited utterance: “ Why ! Be you Rube Jones ? ”

Mr. Jones was not looking towards her at the moment. He was startled by the exclamation and the tone of voice. He turned to the questioner with an air almost of alarm, and replied, “ Well, yes, madam; that is what they call me at home.”

“ Well,” resumed Mrs. Morgan, speaking very quickly and excitedly, “ that is n’t Mrs. Dudley’s picture you have got there. She never looked like that.”

“ It’s likely I might know,” broke in Jones testily. “ I had two of them painted, and gave Blandie one and kept the other.”

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Morgan, swallowing hard, and snapping her eyes in a way peculiar to herself; “but Mrs. Dudley was n’t Blandie Becker.”

“ What’s that, — what’s that ? ” exclaimed Mr. Jones. “ Mrs. Dudley was n’t Blandie Becker?”

“ No, she was n’t,” replied Mrs. Morgan.

“ Well, I say she was ! ” roared Jones.

“ Oh ! ” said Mrs. Morgan, and she paused, and looked hard at Jones, and frowned. “ Well, may be she was.”

“Of course she was,” said Jones triumphantly.

It was clear to me that our hostess had changed her mind, and had decided not to tell what she knew ; and I happened to know that Mrs. Dudley had been Miss Blandina Bleecker, and not Miss Blandina Becker. Was here some important mistake, or had they merely pronounced a name wrongly ?

Jones talked on for a while, but it soon became evident that Mrs. Morgan’s excitement and subsequent reticence had not escaped his attention.

“ How did you know my name was Rube Jones ? ” he suddenly asked her.

“ I did n’t,” she replied evasively.

“ Well, why did you ask?” he persisted.

She did not explain this very fully, but merely said that she thought there was a young man in the city, long ago, of that name.

“ Very likely it was I,” said Jones.

Mrs. Morgan did not seem inclined to discuss this.

“ What was your maiden name ? ” he asked.

“You might call it Smith, or some such name,” said Mrs. Morgan, with an embarrassed laugh.

This was a rebuff, but Jones did not withdraw. He went to the verge of politeness in trying to get further information, but his efforts only resulted in a little snubbing to himself. Mrs. Morgan declined to gratify Yankee curiosity, as she termed it.

The harmony which had prevailed was somehow gone. Mr. Jones had now little to say, and seemed to feel that he had been too free and talkative. Was Mrs. Morgan inclined to be disagreeable ? Or was there some mystery casting its shadow upon that social intercourse which had been so delightful in the early part of the evening? The time dragged. Jones gathered up his museum, and went to his room.

“What an awfully obstinate man ! ” was Mrs. Morgan’s comment the moment he had gone. “ I was just on the point,” she added, “ of letting some facts out, but I am glad I did n’t. Very likely he will find them out.”

“ Is he mistaken about something ? ” I asked persuasively.

“ I should rather think he was,” said my landlady, with a sly, secretive smile, seeming to imply a great deal more than the words expressed.

I waited silently.

“ I will tell you some other time, — after he has gone home,” she said.

I knew from previous experience of Mrs. Morgan’s temper that urging would be useless, and, bidding her good-night, I withdrew.

During the next three days I saw Jones only at the table. That he and Mrs. Morgan were watching each other intently was clear to me. Another thing was unpleasantly apparent: Mr. Jones was suffering in some way to such a degree that his face, handsome, rosy, and well preserved as it was ordinarily, had become pale, and almost haggard. It could readily be seen that he took his meals only for form’s sake, and without appetite. I could not help observing also, as time went on, that he was shunning me, and that his glances toward Mrs. Morgan were furtive, and indicated a shrinking feeling on his part. It was not easy for me to make advances, under the circumstances; but I tried to show him by my manner, and by little attentions at table, that I would like to be sociable, and that I desired to befriend him. Mrs. Morgan was very attentive, also, and was evidently sympathizing with him in his trouble, whatever it might be.

On the fourth day, in the morning, the landlady beckoned me mysteriously into the parlor. This was her customary way of intimating that something momentous was impending. She began the interview by crying a little, and then said she desired to counsel with me about Mr. Jones.

I expressed the warmest sympathy, and told her that I should be only too glad to do anything in his behalf.

“ Well, the fact is,” said Mrs. Morgan (it occurred to me that she had caught the phrase from Jones),— “ the fact is, he has found it out; I am satisfied of it; and he is so awfully proud that he is afraid to own it.”

“ Perhaps we could find some way to make it easier for him,” I suggested vaguely, well knowing that direct questions were not the best way to fathom Mrs. Morgan.

“That is just it,” she declared, with enthusiasm. “If you could persuade him — gently, you know — into the parlor, this evening, by telling him that we know all about it, and urging him not to care for us, and not to feel so.”

“ Certainly,” I replied. “ And what had I better tell him ? ”

“ Tell him it is not so very wonderful that he did n’t know, and that we sympathize with him, and want to talk it over,” she suggested.

I perceived that I would have to ask the direct question.

“ He has found out that Blandie was not Mrs. Dudley, I suppose?” I queried.

“ I am sure he has; but I don’t know whether he has found out who I am or not. You see, when my sister Blandie and I knew Mr. Jones, he took a great notion to Blandie, and it is her that he means ; and now to come back here, and tell all that stuff about Mrs. Dudley, and make such an awful fool of himself ! ” said Mrs. Morgan, laughing through her recent tears.

“ Oh, yes, I see,” said I. “ It was your sister, Blandie Becker, and not Blandie Bleecker, that is Mrs. Dudley, that Mr. Jones took a fancy to.”

“ That is just it,” said Mrs. Morgan. And she added, with a laugh that had a touch of derision and merriment in it, “ The idea that he should get Mrs. Dudley into his head, and get up that museum! She never even heard there was such a man as Rube Jones. She did n’t get her money from Mr. Dudley. She was n’t a poor girl ; she was the youngest daughter of Rutger Bleecker, one of the richest men that ever lived in Albany.”

I assured Mrs. Morgan that these matters interested me very much, and that I would do everything in my power to aid her in getting Mr. Jones safely through his difficult situation ; and that I would, if the circumstances favored, try to induce him to come into the parlor that evening. Having made this arrangement, I went away to my office.

All that day, as I was at work at my desk, thoughts of Rube Jones were in my mind. I no longer wondered at his suffering and his changed appearance. A delicate and beautiful structure, built up by the noblest passion of his nature, and by years of dreaming and belief, had been shattered as if by a blow. The more I thought of it, the more wonderful the incident seemed, and the more sympathy I felt for the man. I became a good deal interested in the matter, and a little nervous in regard to the part I had in prospect in the affair, as I reflected upon it. But when evening came, the pleasant supper-table and the encouraging glances of Mrs. Morgan gave me back to myself, and I felt that success would be achieved.

After supper, as Mr. Jones went into the hall and took his hat to go out, I stepped to his side. There was no one near. I said quietly, “ Mr. Jones, we really hope you will favor us with your company in the parlor some of the time. Mrs. Morgan and I have talked it over, and of course we know of those little things you got mixed about. I hope you will excuse me, but really we would like to chat with you if you are willing”

The color came in a quick flush to his face. I thought he would refuse me. I hastened to say, “ I beg your pardon.”

But Mr. Jones did not go out. He stood quiet, and I saw that his face quivered. With an effort he said, “ Thank you.” He seemed to hesitate ; a moment more, and he laid aside his hat, and went with me into the parlor. We took chairs, and sat down near Mrs. Morgan, who was sewing by the table. She said, with some feeling, “ I am very glad you have come in this evening.”

There was an embarrassing silence. I was about to launch into a premeditated discourse, when Jones spoke.

“ Well,” he said, huskily, with a glance at our landlady, “ so you are Polly Becker, Blandie’s little sister, that I used to buy presents for.”

“ Yes,” answered Mrs. Morgan, looking at him, at first surprisedly, and then Very kindly ; and she added, “ I have got some of your presents yet, Rube Jones.”

There seemed to be something pathetic about this, for I noticed that soon both of the old people were in a melting mood.

“And I suppose it is Blandie,” said Jones, hitching nervously in his seat, and clearing his throat, “ who is living just round the corner in Lodge Street.”

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Morgan, feeling for her handkerchief, and beginning to sob.

“ And she always taught school, and never was married,” said Jones, breaking down, and the tears pouring over his handsome face. “ Oh, Rube Jones! ” exclaimed Mrs. Morgan, in an outburst.

This was the climax. The air was cleared, and a very pleasant and emotional conversation about the affairs of long ago followed between the parties. There were explanations and statements of little matters, frivolous in themselves, but which these good people laughed and cried over as if they were more to them, as doubtless they were, than anything else in the world. Jones dwelt quite largely upon the evening walks and the doorstep conversations and the roses of the old times, and the pleasant little surprises, in the way of presents, which he prepared for Polly. Did she remember ? Yes, she had not forgotten ; and she remembered how Rube carried her on his shoulder, and the tricks she played, and how she pulled his ears and his hair. In laughing and crying over these reminiscences, Jones was as simple-hearted as a child.

Wishing to take some part in the conversation of the evening, I interposed a remark upon my premeditated topic. I spoke of the important part which the mistaken identity of persons has played in the courts. But I regretted my venture immediately, for I saw a look of pain cross the face of Mr. Jones. He said, “ I have seen earthquakes and I have seen hurricanes, but I never knew what it was really to tear up things until the last few days.”

Mrs. Morgan perceived my mistake, and skillfully turned the conversation into its former channel. I saw that the subject of Mrs. Dudley, and the error in regard to her, was not a matter to be profitably alluded to in the presence of Mr. Jones. It dawned upon me that my mission in the parlor that evening was ended. I excused myself, notwithstanding entreaties to remain, and left the friends to their own devices. They made a late evening of it, and, as I subsequently learned, arranged their plans for the morrow.

By the arrangement, it fell to my lot, the next day, to show Mr. Jones the house where his old sweetheart resided. Mrs. Morgan had told her sister about matters, and she went that morning and gave her notice, so that Jones was expected. It was thought by Polly that it would be easier for Blandie to see Rube first without other company. So I piloted him to the little wooden house where Miss Blandie Becker had her home, and where she had a schoolroom, and had taught very young children for many years. She had, however, ceased to teach her infant-school, and was now living in the house with only a servant-girl.

As we walked toward the place, Rube told me that the discovery that Blandie was still living had overwhelmed him at first, and that he was still nervous. I encouraged him all I could, but it was easy to see that he Avas agitated. When Ave reached Blandie’s house, I stepped to the lowly door-way and rapped, for there was no bell. A woman’s voice said, “ Come in; ” and I entered, Mr. Jones following close behind.

Seated in the middle of the room was the old lady, dark, bent, and thin. She had a book in her lap.

I said, “ Miss Becker, this is Mr. Jones,” and presented him.

She glanced up timidly, and rose somewhat totteringly from her chair. She stopped to the other side of the room, to put her book away, before welcoming us, but she did not return. She stood with her face to the wall and her back toward us, and we knew that she was crying. She seemed like a poor frightened child. She told us afterward that she thought just then how poor an apology she was for that rich woman, Mrs. Dudley.

“ Oh, it’s little Blandie ! ” said Mr. Jones, softly crying in sympathy. “ I know by the way she acts.”

“ I will be back in half an hour, Mr. Jones,” I said ; and I went out and closed the door after me. At the expiration of the half hour, when I returned, I fouud that Mrs. Morgan had come, just as I knew she would. What woman would have stayed away ? There was Jones happy as a Turk, with the two women, one on each side of him, evidently admiring him, and regarding him as the handsomest old boy in the world. But little more of the details of this affair came to my knowledge. I noticed, however, for the next six weeks, that every evening Jones and the two sisters were together, either in the parlor at Mrs. Morgan’s, or at Blandie’s house. Their talk was in regard to events remote in time, of which I understood but little. But I saw that the little presents Rube had gven them long ago had been preserved by the two sisters. The duplicate of the picture Rube had cherished was still in Blandie’s possession. This and all the little trifles were examined, and their preciousness dwelt upon as if they had some sacred quality, as indeed they had in the eyes of these people, who saw in them their own vanished youth. The season, as it went by, was evidently a lovely Indian summer to these friends, though the outward weather was, in fact, like the period in life at which they had arrived, of a wintry character. There seemed no end to their explanations and conjectures as to how it was and how it must have been, in that time so many years ago, when they were young, and when Rube and Blandie ought to have married. Each time they discussed the subject it yielded a fresh crop of recollections and surmises, all of which invariably led to the delightful conclusion that nobody was to blame except Providence and the post-office. As the trio became more and more familiar and happy in discussing these themes, the Dudley subject would sometimes be touched upon inadvertently. It was so intermingled with the affair that this could not be avoided. It was a long time, however, before Rube ceased to wince when that matter was referred to, and it was as far as possible, in kindness to him, allowed to rest in silence.

There was a theory, which Jones advanced in the latter part of the winter, founded upon a discovery of his at the State Library, which made some stir among us, and helped him very much upon this subject. He brought to light, in a bound volume of old Albany newspapers, the very notice of the marriage of Mrs. Dudley which had misled him so many years before. The Bleecker was spelled with a single e. By erasing the l with a knife, the name could be made Becker, with only a slight misspacing, very common in newspaper print. Jones claimed that his rival, Harry Day, had played this trick upon him. Polly remembered, young as she was at the time, that there was some conspiracy on the part of her mother and Harry against poor Blandie and her rustic lover. Polly also thought she remembered hearing Harry laugh, some year or two afterward, on one occasion when he came up from New York, about some newspaper joke he had played upon somebody.

Whatever the facts may really have been, this theory of a newspaper trick helped Jones wonderfully. It restored his confidence, so that he became much less sensitive upon the subject of Mrs. Dudley. He said that any man might be the victim of a practical joke, or, if we would allow the expression, of practical villainy.

As Harry was “ dead and gone,” and as Polly said that, with all his fine airs and handsome clothes, he never amounted to anything, and as it was known that Blandie never favored his suit, Jones found it possible to forgive him. The trio, indeed, as they became more and more interested in recalling the past, forgave everybody, and spoke of “ poor Harry ” and all the others who were deceased with feelings of kindness and admiration. The satisfaction with which their lives were reviewed by these friends was a very pleasant thing to contemplate. As the overflow of kindly sympathy was increased by their companionship from day to day, the discovery was somehow made that all must have been for the best, and that Providence, grim as it seemed to them, had really no hostile intentions.

As the winter drew to a close, Rube lingered, protracting his visit far beyond his original purpose. He confessed to me that he had never really known what home was before, since he had left his father’s house, and said that he had not supposed he could ever be so contented and happy as he now found himself. The only time he recalled that he could compare with it was that golden summer which he had spent in Albany, in his early youth.

In April Mr. Jones announced that he must return to his home in Bermuda. His parting with his old sweetheart was witnessed by no vulgar eyes, but Mrs. Morgan confided to me the fact that Blandie, old as she was, put her arms around Rube’s neck, and that he cried as if he had been one of those infants whom Blandie had been accustomed to instruct in her younger days. Rube promised that he would come back the next winter, and if possible arrange to live permanently in Albany ; and doubtless he would have done so if Blandie had lived. He remarked to me, as I walked with him to the train to see him off, and give him the last hand-shake for the household, that he would certainly come again the next season. But he added, in a general way, and with that air of independence which single gentlemen seem to affect, that, as there was not much going on in business, he did n't know but he might as well be “ fooling around among the women ” as doing anything else. I did not mean to remember this against him, for, after all, it was probably only his way.” He perhaps desired to impress me with the idea that he was an independent bachelor. I could not help seeing, however, from various indications, that he emerged from the scenes he had passed through unsubdued and elastic.

As already intimated, Blandie did not last long. She died the next summer, — just faded away, as yielding people so often do, with a submission that seems to divest the skeleton king of his terrors. Jones was duly informed of her decease by a communication directed to his home in Bermuda. He sent in return a letter of condolence to Mrs. Morgan. It was a model of its kind. I had not given him credit for so much good judgment as it evinced.

But Jones’s real response came to me, in a private letter, which I was not to exhibit to Mrs. Morgan. He gave me an urgent invitation to visit him at his island home. He intimated that he should never visit Albany again. “ The fact is, my dear boy,” he wrote, “ if I were to come to your city, now that Blandie is gone, just one thing would be inevitable : old as I am, I would certainly have to marry Polly, and that would never do. No woman shall ever come between me and the little girl I chose so many years ago, who is now waiting for me in the better country.”

Jones informed me that, after getting back to his old home, he found that many of his old thoughts came back to him, and he could not get rid of the idea that the Blandie of whom he had dreamed so many years was in some way connected with the Observatory.

Subsequently, I received letters from him upon various subjects, and they gave me great pleasure. He was a good correspondent. The sound of the sea and the charm of Bermuda, the roses and the coral and the warmth of the Gulf Stream, seemed to be conveyed in his letters. I saw in them, also, memories of that early love which had haunted him so long, and the shifting dreams which he still cherished. He referred often to the problem which his history presented. It was not easy to understand why an item in a newspaper should have been allowed by Providence to mislead him, and so change the color and fortunes of his whole life. Why was it, he asked me, that he and Blandie had lived apart, when they seemed so clearly to have been intended for each other ? And why was it that when he had so unexpectedly and wonderfully found her again she so soon faded away ? But my old friend never complained of these strange dealings of Providence with him ; he only sought reverently to understand them, I cannot recall a word of murmuring, although to me he revealed unconsciously the loneliness of his life. Truth to tell, there was something pathetic in the figure of Rube Jones as I saw him in his letters, carrying about in his thoughts, as the long years went round, in the narrow bounds of his island home, the constant memory of his thwarted affection.

Mr. Jones confessed that he still made clippings from the newspapers, and continued to increase his museum. He claimed that the history of Mrs. Dudley was a part of the history of his own mind, and that it was well to follow it up for that reason, if for no other.

As the years passed, our correspondence ceased, and Rube Jones was forgotten. Mrs. Morgan had died, and it would have been natural to suppose that Mr. Junes had gone the way of all the earth, also. But a recent event recalled him. My clerk, a handsome, impulsive young fellow, bounded into my office one morning last March, bursting with the intelligence that his young friend Charlie Wells, who had recently entered the Dudley Observatory as an assistant, had immortalized his name by finding a comet. He said it was the second comet ever found at the Observatory.

Some ten days later, there appeared in my morning’s mail a letter with the Bermuda postmark. It contained about a dozen words of congratulation from Jones on the fact that “ Blandie’s Observatory ” had found another comet. I answered the letter wonderingly. Could it be that my old acquaintance was still living ? My curiosity was excited. I remembered a correspondent who had business which took him often to Bermuda. I was at some pains to find out through him about my old acquaintance. The report was a eulogistic one in regard to Jones. His excellent constitution and careful living had carried him into the nineties, and he was still able to get about. I learned, however, of his death shortly afterward. The new comet (the Wells comet of 1882) was his last enthusiasm.

P. Deming.