"One, two three--yes, as good as four women and a child," he began, "to
say nothing of the negroes, and that is not the worst of it; the hardest
of all is the having people call me stingy, and the knowing that this
opinion of me is encouraged and kept alive by the remarks and
insinuations of my own sister," and in the red gleam of the firelight
the bearded chin quivered for a moment as Hugh thought how unjust 'Lina
was to him, and how hard was the lot imposed upon him.
Then shifting the position of his feet, which had hitherto rested upon
the hearth, to a more comfortable and suggestive one upon the mantel,
Hugh tried to find a spot in which he could economize.
"I needn't have a fire in my room nights," he said, as a coal fell into
the pan and thus reminded him of its existence, "and I won't, either.
It's nonsense for a great hot-blooded clown, like me to be babied with a
fire. I've no tags to braid, no false switches to comb out and hide, no
paint to wash off, only a few buttons to undo, a shake or so, and I'm
all right. So there's one thing, the fire--quite an item, too, at the
rate coal is selling. Then there's coffee. I can do without that, I
suppose, though it will be perfect torment to smell it, and Hannah makes
such splendid coffee, too; but will is everything. Fire, coffee--I'm
getting on famously. What else?"
"Tobacco," something whispered, but Hugh answered promptly: "No, sir, I
shan't! I'll sell my shirts, the new ones Aunt Eunice made, before I'll
give up my best friend. It's all the comfort I have when I get a fit of
the blues. Oh, you needn't try to come it!" and Hugh shook his head
defiantly at his unseen interlocutor, urging that 'twas a filthy
practice at best, and productive of no good.
Horses was suggested again. "You have other horses than Bet," and Hugh
was conscious of a pang which wrung from him a groan, for his horses
were his idols. The best-trained in the country, they occupied a large
share of his affections, making up to him for the friendship he rarely
sought in others, and parting with them would be like severing a right
hand. It was too terrible to think about, and Hugh dismissed it as an
alternative which might have to be considered another time. Then hope
made her voice heard above the little blue imps tormenting him so sadly.
He should get along somehow. Something would turn up. Ad might marry and
go away. What made her so different from his mother? He had loved her,
and he thought of her now as she used to look when in her dainty white
frocks, with the strings of coral he had bought with nuts picked on the
New England hills.