Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1877 — THE PECULIAR FATE OF THREE RINGS. [ARTICLE]

THE PECULIAR FATE OF THREE RINGS.

One night before a Christmas not many Ears ago, two young clerks in a wellown Insurance company stumbled -against one another in a muddy street of the metropolis. “Hallo, Jones!” said one, a stout, fair-haired, handsome way?” “Nowhere particularly, Smith,” said the other, slim, black-haired, and goodlooking. “ What was your direction ?” “ Hadn’t any.” said' Smith, scraping his heel industriously on the curb-stone—- “ though, by-the-way, I had a little commission for one of my people in the jewelry line.” “And that reminds me,” said Jones, “that I was to get an article for one of my folk of that description.” “ Hum!” said Jones. “ Christmas present. I suppose?” "Ahem!—yes,” said Smith, “very likely.” Then they both looked over each other’s shoulders, pulled up their separate coat collars, nodded, and Smith walked on up town, while Jones pursued his way in an opposite direction. He hadn’t gone a block, when he met another of his fellowclerks. But this time his face brightened; he held out his hand and hailed his comrade jocularly. “ Hallo, Robinson, old boy! glad to see you.” “ I was going to Smith’s,” said Robinson. who was neither light nor dark, neither stout nor slim, handsome nor ugly- . “Hum!” said Jones, scowling; "I’ve, just parted with him. Conceited puppy, Xhat Smith! I tell you what it is, itobin■son, if he don’t stop interfering with me, he’ll come to grief. He’s intruding his attentions where they’re not appreciated, . aad it won’t take much more of this sort -of Ching to make me tell him so. He told -me just now he was in search of an article of jewelry for a Christmas present. Now I’ve no sort of doubt, Jack, it’s for Miss :Bophy Matt and can you think of anything mucn more impertinent than that ? With the little encouragement he’s had, it’s simply monstrous.” “ I suppose every man is a fool at some time in his life,” said Jack. “But, heavens and earth! Robinson, there’s reason in everything. The fellow hasn’t had any show at all. Miss May has merely been courteous to him—you know whit a pleasant way she has.” “Yes,” sard Jack, “I know,” and whistled a melancholy little bar under his breath. "And I’ve no doubt he’ll go and spend •every cent he can raise on some gaudy trinket.” “I hope not,” interrupted Jack, “ for il want to get up a puree for Higgins this ■Christmas. I ought to have been about •it tarn ago. but I didn’t really know how bad Matters were in that quarter. Higgins slipped on the ice, you know, some months ago, and broke his arm and his -collar-bone, tod his son’s sick with rheumatism ; little : girt there, too—a hunchback. It seems wrong somehow to have so much misery in one place; and to accidem, you know, might happen to you, or me, or anybody.” “Confound it, Robinson I” said Janes, « gtouine air of regret upon his handsome uce: “nothing would give me greater pleasure than to do a good turn for Higgins. I wiU next month, upon my honor; tat just now it is impossible. The Ijttle money I have I must use in a certain Well, good-night, then,” said Jack; “I must try elsewhere," and he jumped into a car going down town. Presently in got Smith, and hailed Jack with enthusiasm. a town?” he said, taking M*. - ~> to your house,” said st met Jones ” lorted Smith, “an egreJonest I don’t know a a more offensive one. ig very certain, Robinson ie to the length of his rope, and he’ll be brought up short pretty MM. It’s simply melancholy the way that fellow flatten himself. There’s a -certain young lady, a mutual friend of ..touOack, the daughter of one of our “ I suppose you mean Miss May?” said Exactly,"said Jones fancies because she’s ordinarily polite to him—you know what a frank, Yes. I knew,” said Jack, and began fancies ail sorts o/impertinent foinra, apd makes a sickening spectacle Will do these things," said Jack ■

" Bat, Robinson, think of hia haring the audacity to purchase • Ohriotmao present for her! for of course it waa for her. I’ve no doubt bo'll throw away a lot of T;" I nope nobody will do that,” aoid Jack; “it might better go to Higgins." And then Jack went on to tell the wretched condition in which the poor man waa placed, and his own rather tardy effort to get up a purse for him. Smith’s handsome face kindled with sympathy. “ I wish to Heaven I had the money. Jack,” he said; "but hwt now every penny is needed in another way. I’ll drop down and see you, though, this week and make some permanent arrangemeat for Riggins’ benefit At this present momentl’m bound band and root; but of course it’s only temporary.” •• I’m afraid I’ll have to give up the purse,” said Jack. He bade Smith goodnight and left the car. The wind clew keen through the streets, and struck a chill to the marrow of Jack’s bones. He looked up at the sky, and saw, twinkling with great cheer and abundance, innumerable stars, and as he found the Big Bear and Little Bear and the luminous belt of the Milky Way, all glistening coldly through intervening mists, he thought of something else as bright and beautiful, and as stupendously, immeasurably, hopelessly distant, and a bitter little sigh escaped from the lungs of Jack, a sad little smile played about his good-humor-ed mouth, and he whistled still another bar from that doleful refrain. Presently the sadness and his smile relaxed into something positively humorous, and Jack burst into a hearty laugh. The laugh was not altogether at Smith’s or Jones’ expense. He confessed to himseif that he was, perhaps, the best subject for the joke of all the three. “To think,” he murmured, " that every mother’s son of us, that Smith and Jones and Heaven knows how many more, have each gone and bought a ring this Christmas, hoping to win over the dear little heart of the Secretary's daughter, and wheedle her into an open expression of preference! Why, at this rate, the little woman can set up a jewelry shop;" and Jack toox up his mournful whistle. “Heigho!” he sighed. "Well, I suppose she'll turn up her lovely little nose at each and all of them;” and he went

under a lamp-post, and taking from his vest-pocket a morocco case, drew from thence a plain little circle of gold, upon which a single pearl was modestly mounted. Jack looked at it and sighed again. "I wish I had the money it cost,” he said, "it would help Higgins considerably, and buy a little trinket of some sort for poor little Belle.” Then a sudden thought seemed to seize him, and he went on at'a rattling pace, plunging his hands deep in the pockets of his pea-jacket. All this while Smith had been in an establishment that always after reminded him of the Spanish Inquisition. He twisted and turned and wriggled upon the upholstered stool, and wiped awav the perspiration that started to his forehead. He held between his fingers a ring, and looked upon it with a moodiness that amounted to ferocity. He appealed desperately to the clerk, who sometimes bowed, perhaps shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, or smiled pityingly. The clerk’s manner was polite almost to reverence, but not at all colloquial, and his gaze seemed vaguely absorbed in something going on across the street. The whole place was as still as the grave, the people going about apparently on tip toe, and the voice of Smith, as he haggled over that miserable diamond, sounding like a trumpet in his ears. At last he bought the ring, knowing that it was off color—that when a certain ray of light touched it, it was decidedly yellow; out, as he said to himself, what could he dp? If he had had the money, he’d have* gone up to Tiffany’s and ransacked the whole establishment for a stone that would have befitted a Princess. But his salary was hypothecated—he liked this word so much better than a shortersyllabled one—his salary was hypothecated for months ahead, and the ring had to be bought with borrowed money as it was. In the meanwhile Jones had journeyed down town to a good friend of his in the jewelry line, and had told him frankly his desire, and what money he had to humor it. The ring was a present—to a lady—a friend—nothing more than a friend as yet—although he hoped—but that didn't matter. Jones had stammered out these bits of information, and suddenly his friend seemed seized with a fit of inspiration. “ What you want, Jones,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder, “is a regard ring. R-e-g-a-r-d. regard—don’t vou see, Jones ? R for ruby, e for emerald, g for garnet, a for agate, r for ruby again, and a for diamond—regard, don’t you see, boy? That leads pleasantly up to other And while Jones hesitated, the ring was inclosed in a showy little case and coaxed ?uietly into Jones’ pocket, bis business riend telling him a little business joke as they walked affectionately down the store, ana waving him a jocular business farewell as he went off the step.

At about this hour the young lady who was the unconscious cause of all this bitterness of spirit was about lighting the gas in the second-story back-room, preparatory to retiring for the night. Miss Sophy did not usually occupy this bed. chamber; it was kept as a state apartment for guests. Mrs. May had faintly objected to putting their only and precious daughter in the little third-floor frontroom, when this roomy and spacious apartment would be vacant half the time. But because Sophy their only and precious daughter, Mr. May overruled this objection "I’m not going to have the child locking out upon that row of tenements at the back of the house,” he said. "I never look there myself, and I don’t intend that she shall. What we can’t help, we’d better know nothing abouL” This policy of Mr. May’s was well known and respected. Even if Jaek had not been deterred because of the secretary’s beautiful daughter, he would never have thought of asking that gentleman to contribute to the puree for the unfortunate Higgins. Mr. May had repeatedly impressed upon the minds of hia friends and acquaintances that he would rather not know of miseries which It waa out of hia power to alleviate. When Mr. May leased this house up town, the back of it was really nicer than lhe front, for it looked out over pretty trellises and graperies and flower plots, and little Sophy spent many an hour watching the goata browsing upon the tender green pasturage of the vacant lots beyond. The second-story back-room was the moat cheerful in the house, for it held the rocking-chairs and bird-cages and flowers and sewing-machine and all the pretty accessories that betoken the familiar abiding-place of the gentler sax. Mr. May had his easy-chak by the table, and of a genial summer evening delighted in that outlook upon the western sky.

But all at once an army of men began to dig in the vacant lots that held the goats and the green herbage, outside the fences of Mr. May and his neighbors, and before one could scarcely take breath to realize it, a tall row of houses reared themselves under their indignant noses—indignant, because it was an outrage to put up these tenements upon property of that kind. Double-deckers, too! Four families upon a floor! "Monstrous!” said Mr. May, and immediately interdicted Sophy from that side of the house. It might as well have been a lazaretto, aa far as he was concerned himself. Upon this Chrlstmaaeve in question Sophy wss to sleep in the guest-chamber, because two young friends of here Were already snugly stowed away in her room. Mrs. May expected some friends of her own the next any, and exhorted Sophy to creep into the big bed without disturbing its draperies or disarranging the various knickknacks in worsted ana embroidery that adorned the room. There had been no callers that evening, as invitations were out for Christmas night, and the young girls had enjoyed the big parlors all to themselves. They swept the velvet carpets with their long silken trains, their plump white Angers toyed with the piano keys; they waltzed, they sang, they gossiped with their distractingly and carefully disordered locks close together, and exchanged confidences wherein the names of Smith and Jones and even Robinson could be heard, and whiled away the hours, until Mr. May proposed a new jollity—a little supper around the corner at a fashionable restaurant. Mrs. May, of course, poor woman, was too tired to go, but Mr. May was always ready for a delight of that kind, and presently our little party were seated in the luxurious case discussing the delicacies of the season. It was quite late when they got home again, and after seeing her friends to their room, Sophy tripped across the threshold of the guest-chamber with a match in her hand. But the gas jet was at the window-side, the shade was up, and Sophy saw through the lace curtain a confusion of lights and shadows in the myriads of windows opposite. Suddenly her eyes fell upon one big bare window, through which could be seen the whole of a big bare room, with a miserable cot in one corner, and a rickety bed in another, and an old table fronting the window, where a man sat and stared straightahead of him into the big bare desolate night. And it seemed to Sophy that his eyes were like coals of fire, that burned and burned into the black infinite nothingness of space, and hungrily asked for the solution to some terrible mystery that was driving him mad. Little by little Sophy's straining eyes discerned upon the cot in the corner an emaciated creature, either dead or asleep. The white lids were down upon the sunken eyes, and it was perfectly still. And upon the bed in the other corner was a little misshapen figure of a child or a woman. The face was pale and shrunken, and bore a fatal resemblance to the miserable one upon the cot All these figures were motionless, the one upon the bed, the one upon the cot, and the man by the table. It was a relief to Sophy when suddenly the man moved. He glanced furtively from one side to the other, from the cot to the bed, from one pale emaciated face to the other, and bis left hand began to Sin the old table drawer. Sophy see that his right hand was helpless, splintered up out of the way; but this left hand that groped in the drawer somehow made Sophy’s blood run cold. She couldn’t tell why, but it seemed to her that there was something sinisterabout it, and the temporary relief she had found in the first movement of the man was now absorbed in tne fear that he was going to do something dreadful. When that left hand lifted something out of the drawer that shone sharply through the grimy window-pane, Sophy felt, she hoped, that it was all a terrible nightmare brought on by that little supper around the corner, and it was-of no use to try to scream; but she gasped out, “ Papa! papa!” And Mr. May, who had crept about the secondstory front-room on tip-toe, that he might not arouse Mrs. May, and had put on his dressing-gown, and lighted a cigar, and adjusted the shade over the gas so that it shielded the closed eyer of his wife, but reflected brightly upon his evening paper —Mr. May had just put his slippered feet on the top of a chair, and commenced an article on the financial outlook, when he heard that shrill, terrified call of his precious only daughter. In two seconds he was there by her side, looking out of the second-story back-room window into that gloomy, terrible room beyond. "Why, good God!" said Mr. May, dropping his cigar, "it’s Higgins! I didn’t dream he had got to this; whywhy—” “Papa! papa!” cried Sophy, putting her hands over her eyes, “ he’s go’ jg to—n “To shave himself, Sophy,” broke in Mr. May. "Lots of people do at this time of the night; it’s quite a common thing. Here, help me get off this infernal sleeve, Sophy. I’ll go around there at once;’’ ana Mr. May began to tear off his dressing-gown. “Quick! quick, papa! you’ll be too late. Oh, thank God, somebody has come in over there! He’s saved, papa, thank God!” And Mr. May, with his dressing-gown hanging to his left arm, turned to the window again. "Why, bless my soul!” he cried, " that’s Robiuson —Jack Robinson! You know Robinson, Sophy F ’ “Yes, papa,” said Sophy; and a faint color crept into her pallid cheek, which deepened and glowed as she watched Jack walk over to the wretched man and fling his arm about hia shoulder, and take that wicked left hand of his in a genial Rand then walk over to the bed, and at poor little body in his strong arms, and bring it to the knees of Higgins, and then sit close down by them both, and take something out of his vest pocket. Mr. May thought it was money, of course. w “ Reckless young scalawag!” said Mr. May; but in the secretary’s face could be read bright things for Jack. Sophy thought it was money, too: but it wasn’t. They could plainly see him take something out of a little case and hold it up before the light, and, stretching across Higgins, eaten the little thin hand of his daughter, and put upon one of the long slim fingers a ring. Then Higgins bent his head, and sobbed over that little hand all his wrath and bitterness away. And Jack’s head also bent before that shower of penitential tears. Mr. May choked and blew his nose, notwithstanding his desire not to arouse Mrs. May; and as for Sophy, she neither wept nor bent her head, but as she looked over thereat Jack,& tender look of resolve deepened in her face, and as it was the only thing it wanted to make it entirely beautiful, it was a thousand pities it should be half hidden upon the dressing-gown that still clung to Mr. May’s left shoulder.

“ He’s given that poor little dear a " But, Booby, the absurdity of it—a ring, when they want bread! They want bread, and Jack gives them a stone. Think of it!” "No matter, papa. They’ll have bread, all they want. You’ll give them bread, papa, right away. But it’s only Jack that could ever have thought of such a sweet, beautiful thing as giving that poor little dear a ring.”„Xl . ' The next evening every blind at the back of Mr. May’s house was secured and closed In such a way that no possible view could be obtained of that row of back tenements. To do Mr. May justice, be had made a tour of the place on Christmas morning with Jack, and saw that none of the inmates were without the present necessities of life. As for any permanent relief, that was out of the question, of course, but Higgina was well provided for. . Mr. May and Jack rappea up some Israelites who had no especial aversion to selling goods on that day, and managed to get a carpet for Higgins’ floor, provisions for his closet, and blankets for his beds Jack didn’t get through tacking down the carpet and putting up the shades till late in the evening. Then he took a bite of cold turkey and a cup of tea with Higgins and little Belle, read the Christmas Carol to the rheumatic boy in his very best style, and went home to dress for Sophy’s Christmas party. As he put on his Piccadilly collar with his nose close to the looking-glass, Jack couldn’t but own that as far as manly beauty went, Smith and Jones distanced him "completely— also for style. The Piccadilly would add a new grace to Jones, or give a delicate finish to the toilet of Smith; but as for Jack, his neck was too short and his head too round to invest a collar with any conceivable charm. He sighed, and began to whistle a melancholy refrain, and, as he went out into the' wintry night, he thought to himself: “ Be she fairer than the day, Or the flowery meads in May, If she be not so to me, What care I how fair she be?” But he did care, nevertheless. And when he got to the house of the secretary, and found his beautiful daughter floating about, a bewildering angel in a cloud of tulle, with her hair more distractingly fluffy than he had ever seen it before, with her eyes glistening and beaming and brimming over with that kindly, • genial expression to which Jones and Smith had so feelingly alluded; and when she glided up to him and put her hand on his arm, and whispered that she wanted him to steal down with her to the front basement and see the tables; and when on the stairs she had lingered a step or two above him, and, resting her little kidgloved hands on his shoulders, putting her soft cheek to his, had whispered in his ear, “Where’s my Christmas ring that you promised me?” Jack felt his head spinning round. It was a mercy he didn’t tumble down on poor Mrs. May in the corridor below. And Jack says he don’t know how it waa—his heart "beat so that he thought it. would burst the buttons off his new vest, and the Piccadilly collar might as well have been a halter ab mt his neck—but that he turned to the dear little woman and told her that he worshiped the ground she trod upon, as she very well knew; that he loved her with his whole heart and soul; but as for bringing up the rear-guard of an army of fellows with rings, he couldn’t do it. Smith and Jones, ana heaven knows how many more, had gems in their rockets for her; but as for him—"As for you,” said Miss May, in her low, musical voice, “ you gave my ring to somebody else. I saw you. I was looking out the second-story back-room window, and saw yon come in and save the life of that poor man, and give such a delicate, sweet pleasure to the poor little girl, and make them all so happy; and oh, Jack, I —l want you to be happy, too. I love you, Jack.” And by that time Jack said they had got to the front-basement door. But he never saw such tables; they were tipping about all over the room—meats, confectioneries and all—and the floor went up to meet the cei' ing, and the ceiling went down to meet the floor, and his eyes were so blurred with happy tears that he couldn’t see straight tor half the night, and later on he thought it would help him to realize it all if he went out and told the cold, winery night that he had been mistaken when he sang that little song; and there he found Smith leaning moodily up against the window-shutter on the front balcony. The full, happy heart of Jack went out to Smith. "What’s up, Smith, old fellow?” he said. "Why, the fact is, Jack,” said Smith, "there’s bloodshed between me and Jones, you’ll know whose fault it is. Through some despicable chicanery of his, he’s got the better of me with Miss May. She refused a Christmas present from me, a little while ago—a ring, in sact —and told me that she had decided upon an individual preference which would preclude the possibility of accepting any presents this J ear. Of course it’s that scoundrel, Jones, low, I wouldn’t care, Robinson, if she had chosen an honest fellow that would make her happy; but to pick out a fellow so wretchedly inferior!” “ Women will do these things,” said Jack; “ the most perfect of God’s creatures will stooD to the most insignificant. But it isn’t Jones—it’s me!” “ What!” roared Smith. “ Yes,” pursued Jack. " I’m as much surprised as anybody. I’ve worshiped her this many a day, but I never hoped she would care for me. It was all brought aboutby Higgins.” And then Jack went on to tell of the whole circumstance of the night before, of his timely visit to Higgins, and Miss May’s presence at the back-room window. /“Her dear little heart waa melted,” said Jack. "Andso is mine,” said Smith. "I wish to Heaven this ring oould be melted, too. See here, Jack, take the cursed thing and raffle it off for Higgins, will you? You’re a good fellow, Jack, and deserve to be happy. Can’t I go and have a dance with Miss May, and tell her so?” " Certainly," said Jack, and as he lingered in the corridor to see Sophy through the quadrille, he found that Jones was also watching her moodily from under the stairway. "Isuppose you know,” said Jones, emerging from his lurking-place, and furiously bearing down upon Jack—“l suppose you know that Miss May has decided to trust her future to that villain she is dancing with f” "No?” said Jack. "Oh, yes,” said Jones; “it’s a settled thing- She told me so in as many words when I offered her a little Christmas token to night. I didn't mind her refusing the ring; but to tell me that it was because of a preference she had decided

upon that would hinder her from accept ingany presents, it WM.too much, Itohipaon; it savored of Smith too atrongfy. He’s got to answer to me for this trickery. To think of her choosing such a shallow, vain, miserable peacock! If It hal been an honest, straightforward fellow like yon, Robinson—” "Thank you, Jones,” said Jack, “ that** the very one she has chosen—ll’s me, Jones! It was all brought about by an impulse of generosity on her part/’ said Jack; and then he went on to tell Jones all about it. “ Good heavens, Robinson!” said Jones, "something must be settled upon for Higgins till he gets strong.” "That’s what Smith says,” said Jack; " he's just give me a ring to raffle for him.” "Here’s another,” said Jones, taking out the gaudy case; "take charge of it, Jack, will you?” " With pleasure,” said Jack. And when all of them met at Sophy’s wedding in the ensuing spring, Higgins, who had a position in the company, wanted to make some arrangements to pay back the money for the rings. “No, no,” said Smith; “ I was sick of my ring, anyhow.” "As for mine,” said Jones, “ I never was so glad to get rid of anything in my life.”— Harper'll Weekly.