From a Bench in Our Square by Samuel Hopkins Adams

Author:Samuel Hopkins Adams
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620137789
Publisher: Duke Classics

II

Summer was smiting Our Square with white-hot bolts of sun-fire, from which one could scarcely find refuge beneath the scraggly shelter of parched shrubbery, when one morning the Bonnie Lassie approached my bench with a fell and purposeful smile.

"Dominie, you're a dear old thing," she began in her most insinuating tones.

"I won't do it," I said determinedly, foreboding something serious.

The Bonnie Lassie raised her eyebrows at me, affecting aggrieved innocence. "Won't do what?" she inquired.

"Whatever it is that you're trying to wheedle me into."

The eyebrows resumed their normal arch, and a dimple flickered in the corner of the soft lips. By this I knew that the case was hopeless. "Oh, but you've already done it," she said.

"Help! Tell me the worst and get it over with."

"It must be lovely to be rich," said the Bonnie Lassie meditatively. "And so generous!"

"How much is it? What do you want it for? I haven't got that much," I hastily remarked.

"And to keep it an absolute secret from everybody. Even from Mayme herself."

"Go on. Don't mind me," I murmured.

"The Little Red Doctor has found the place. It's in New Mexico. And in the fall she's going on to the Coast. He's almost willing to guarantee that a year of it will make her as strong as ever. And the hundred dollars a month you allow her besides her traveling expenses will be plenty. You are a good old thing, Dominie!"

"What you mean is that I'm an old good-thing. How shall I look," I demanded bitterly, "when Mayme comes to thank me?"

"No foolisher than you do now, trying to raise unreasonable objections to our perfectly good plans," retorted the Bonnie Lassie. "Besides, she won't. She knows that your way is to do good by stealth and blush to find it fame, and she's under pledge to pretend to know nothing about it."

"Where did the Little Red Doctor raise it?" I queried.

"There are times, Dominie, when your mind has real penetrative power. Think it over."

"The Weeping Scion of Wealth and Position!" I cried. "Did our medical friend blackmail him?"

"Not necessarily. He only dropped a hint that Mayme's chance here was rather poorer than a soldier's going to war, unless something could be done and the Weeping Scion fairly begged to be allowed to do it. 'Do you think she'd take it from you?' said the Little Red Doctor, 'after what your mother called her?' 'Don't let her know,' says our ornamental young weeper. 'Tell her somebody else is doing it. Tell her it's from that white-whiskered old—from the elderly and handsome gentleman with the benevolent expres—'"

"Yes: I know," I broke in. "Very good. I'm the goat. Lying, hypocrisy, false pretense, fake charity; it's all one to a sin-seared old reprobate like me. After it's over I'll go around the corner and steal what pennies I can find in Blind Simon's cup, just to make me feel comparatively respectable and decent again."

It was no easier than I expected it to be, especially when little Mayme, having come

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