The Master of Silence

"They've all been boys," said Mrs. Chaffin, "since Hetty was born."

I thought it strange that the H in her daughter's name was the only one that the good woman had shown the ability to manage.

"Hetty is the only one of the lot that takes to books," she continued. "The head master told me she will make a good scholar, and dear a me! she does nothing but read books from mornin' till night." While Hetty and her mother removed the dishes we drew our chairs about the fire, and Mr. Chaffin, a blunt, simple-minded man, entertained me with sage observations regarding politics and the weather. He spoke rather loudly, and in a key which, as I learned afterward, he only employed on very special occasions. Presently the youngest lad in the family, who sat on his father's knee, demanded a song. The response was prompt and generous. The selection with which Mr. Chaffin favored us contained upward of forty stanzas, relating the unhappy story of a fair maid and a bold sailor, both of whom met a tragic death, in the last stanza, just before the day set for their marriage. The song being finished, Hetty and her mother drew their chairs up to the fire; Hetty sat next me, and after a severe inward struggle I summoned the courage to ask her a question. She answered me in the fewest words possible, but in a voice so sweet and low that I wondered then and often afterward at its contrast to the other voices I had heard in that house. She wore a home-spun frock and a neat white pinafore, set off with a dainty ribbon tied about her throat.

"She's uncommon still when strangers is here, sir," said Mrs. Chaffin; "but law me! she goes rompitin' about the house like as if she was crazy sometimes, ticklin' her father and tryin' t' snip off his beard with the scissors."

That night was the beginning of happier days for me. When at last I rose to go it was near midnight. I forgot my weariness as I walked to my lodgings, thinking of those simple, honest people and of their kindness to me.

I enjoyed high jinks at the house of the Chaffins at least once a week during the next year of my apprenticeship, near the close of which I began to get ready for a visit to my stepmother in fulfilment of a promise I had made by letter. It had been, on the whole, a happy year to me. I had known many lonely hours, to be sure, but those visits to the little old weather-stained house, in which I found my first friends after leaving home, cheered me from week to week. I knew, too, that Hetty enjoyed those long evenings as much as I did, which meant more to me than I would have dared confess to her. I thought of her a good deal, but it always resulted in the wretched feeling that we were both very young after all. It is not likely that I would have decided to go home for a fortnight, but that I thought it would be pleasant to observe the effect of saying good-by to Hetty. I had no doubt that she would be quite overcome with grief and loneliness after I had gone, and, reckless youth that I was, nothing could have made me more happy than to have known that she really felt grieved on my account. And yet when I called to bid them all good-by, the evening before I started, she betrayed no sign of regret. In fact, she seemed so much happier than usual that I worried about it for weeks, even after I had gone so far away that it seemed doubtful whether we would ever meet again. It did not occur to me that I had been less skilful than she in concealing my emotions, and that she might be merry only because she could perceive that I was sad.