Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1878 — BROUGHT TO TERMS. [ARTICLE]

BROUGHT TO TERMS.

“You are surely not iu earnest, father?” . “ I assure you I am. I will not give my consent to your marriage with that girl,” said Mr. Cameron, ungrily but firmly. “You are unjust to her; von admit that you know nothing of her—” “ Except that she is the daughter of a farmer, a poor illiterate farmer who has half a dozen other children.” “Mr. Littlefield is poor, I grant, but neither he nor his children are. illiterate; Sophie has as good an education as any girl I know.” “ Bah !” exclaimed the old man contemptuously. “Of course she is perfection ! Why couldn’t you have had sense enough to fancy Lottie Felton or that pretty little Hilliard girl ? I’d welcome either of them willingly enough, but this girl I will not receive.” “Simoly because she is a farmer’s daughter?” “Simply because I choose not to!” answered Basil Cameron, all the obstinacy inherited from his Scotch grandfather rising up against his son’s cool inflexibility. “1 nay you shall not marry her—and you shall not.” “And I say I will,” replied Maurice, 'angry in return. “I defy any one to hinder me without showing better cause than her poverty.” “Yon seem to forget, young man, that you have not a penny of your own ! Pray how do you propose to support a wife that I' disapprove of ?” “By my own exertions, sir, as thousands es better men than I am are doing; I am neither an invalid nor an imbecile.” “Ha, ha, ha!” roared the father. “Yon work! That is rich! Go and tell your sweetheart that your father will not give you another dollar during his life or after it, and see how quick she’ll repent of saying ‘yeß ’ to you.” “On the contrary, sir, her father’s only objection to me is that I am an idle young man.” “Don’t talk about the matter, Maurice. Come, give me your word to break off this engagement, and ” “ Never, sir 1” “Then the sooner you get out of my sight the better. I wash my hands of you, you thankless boy ! Go to work, and come to me in a year begging bread for your wife. I’d see you starve before I’d give it to you then.” Maurice Cameron was the only son of Basil Cameron, one of the richest and most influential men in the busy town of Nelson. He had received a liberal education, and his father, who accumulated wealth only for him, looked to see him lake his place among the leading men of tiro State. Cautious, persevering, obstinate, he had marked out a certain course lor his handsome, talented boy, and determined that he must carry it out, forgetting that the son usually inherits most if not all of his stronger parent’s characteristics. Mr. Cameron too, was proud; proud of his good Scotch descent, of his abilities and position in society; and the idea of Maurice taking as a wife this daughter of a small, unknown farmer was bitterness indeed. It is true he knew nothing whatever of the girl, but that made no difference; he had made up his mind that Maurice must marry into either the Felton, Hilliard, or Stuy vesant families; therefore this unheard-of Sophie Litchfield was an interloper. Mrs. Cameron worshiped both husband and son, consequently this disagreement—ripening, as it did, into an open rupture between the two—cost her many a tear, but against two such stubborn natures she was powerless. The Litchflelds were, as Mr. Cameron had said, poor, but they were honest, cultivated, sensible people. Sophie was the second daughter, and was as pretty, well-read, graceful a girl as any Cameron ever wooed, snd would do hohpr to any I

position in life. Mr. Litchfield talked ! seriously with Maurice when he heard I of the quarrel between him and his father, and, finding that he was determined to pursue his own course, told him that a little adversity, a little genuine work, would probably make a man of him, and that he would give him Sophie more willingly now than ever. So Basil Cameron was a false prophet. Maurice left home, bag and baggage, the day of the conversation above recorded. His father felt very much curiosity to know what he would do, but would not condescend to make any inquiries or show any interest. A fortnight passed away. Mr. and Mrs. Cameron were dining with the Feltons (a very quiet family dinner) one day, when there was a very fine leg of mutton on the table. “Yes, tliank yon, Felton, I will take another slice,” said Mr. Cameron; “ that is the best mutton I’ve tasted this long time, far better than Brooks gives us—you trade with Brooks—don’t you?” “Y-es, usually,” answered Felton, hesitatingly, while Lottie and her mother exchanged amused glances, and 12-year-old Susie giggled outright. “ I shall go to Brooks to-morrow and tell him to send me just such a leg as this,” continued Mr. Cameron. “ We—we didn’t get this of Brooks.” “No? Who then?” “Of a young man who has reopened Evans’ old place,” said Mr. relton, smilingly. “ Then I’ll patronize him.” “Yon could do no better; he is a very worthy young man,” said Mrs. Felton; her husband was too busy carving to reply. * ‘ What is his name ? Is he a townsman V”

“ I—l didn’t ask him. Is it true that Latimere has failed ?” said Mr. Felton. “These good friends evidently don’t want me to deal with their butcher, but I will,” soliloquized Basil Cameron. Ou his way down town the next morning he took pains to pass the new butcher shop; glancing over the doorway (fancy his horror !) he saw a spick-and-span new sign with “Maurice Basil Cameron, Jr., Butcher, Poulterer and Fishmonger,” plainly painted thereon. Young Cameron had indeed gone to work; this was the first, indeed the only, opening that presented itself, for Nelson was a steady-going town where business rarely failed or started up very vigorously, and chances to establish one’s self did not occur twice in a lifetime. Maurice was standing near the door when his father approached ; with his immaculate apron and snowy shirtsleeves, glossy collar and narrow black necktie, he was a handsome picture in spite of his very unromantic surroundings. ‘ ‘ Good morning, father, ” said he cheerfully. “ You see I have gone to work : took that money I’ve been saving for a trip to Europe, and opened this little place. I’ve got Evans’ son with me, ani he knows all about meats and things; I’ll learn after a while. You'll give me your—” “ Great Heavens! It is—is it you ?” “ Yes, sir, I, Maurice Basil Cameron, Jr.”

I think that “ junior” was the bitterest drop in the whole cup for the old man; I really believe that, for a moment, he repeuied naming liis son after himself. Too angry, too much astonished to know what to say, he turned on his heel and walked away, but he could not escape the memory of that awful signboard; three times that week delicate straw-colored handbills were thrust under his eyes by boys who were distributing them through the town, and all bore the same legend; every time he picked up a newspaper ho saw Maurice’s advertisement; all of his acquaintances were laughing over Maurice’s freak, as they called it, and not a few men applauded the young man and blamed his father. It was genuine agony. Then, too, he loved the boy and missed his bright face from the house that was so quiet without him; he knew his wife mourned deeply over the separation, and strongly suspected that she visited the obnoxious shop every day; lie did not want to hurt her feelings, so he never asked her where she bought their meat and poultry; and as the new butcher was duiug a thriving trade there was no hope of his suing for mercy or for help. Three mouths passed and a day came that for twenty-eight years Mr. and Mrs. Cameron had held a home festival—their wedding anniversary. Tne night before it dawned Basil Cameron knew that his wife had cried nearly all night. How could she keep a festival without her boy ? “ Oh, dear!” he groaned as he left the houso after breakfast. “1 must do it. The boy is as stubborn—as I am; and I can’t see his mother fret. He shall have his country girl—confound her—just as he had the hammer and the lookingglass when he was a baby.” Richard,’the coachman, alio fancied himself crazed when his master told him to drive out on the Barton road to Farmer Litchfield’s instead of down to the bank as usual early in the morning. “ Does Miss Sophie Litchfield live here ?” he asked of a pretty girl who was just coming out the front door of the house pointed out to him as Litchfield’s. “ Yes, sir; please walk in; she’s here in the parlor.” Instead of a slipshod blowsy girl, Mr. Cameron found Sophie to be a very attractive young lady; quite as well-man-nered and pleasant as Lottie Felton. His visit was far longer than he intended, for he ended by going all over the larm with the falher while the daughter was making 1 a few changes in her dress preparatory to . spending the day with her future mother-in-law. Mrs. Cameron had smiles instead of tears that day, for sho not only bad her boy at home again, but discovered that Sopbie was just exactly the sort of a girl she had always pictured as Maurice’s wife. “I could not have cliosm better myself,” was her verdict. Maurice stuck to his determination to go into business instead cf playing the fine gentleman all his life, but readily agreed to his father’s proposition to buyhim au interest in the only wholesale dry-goods house in the town, saying that he certainly preferred that to his former occupation, “but then I was poor, and beggars must not be choosers,you know. ” —Practical Farmer.