Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1877 — WHAT AILED MR. YOUNG’S CLERK. [ARTICLE]

WHAT AILED MR. YOUNG’S CLERK.

Mr. Josiah Young kept a country store at Gazerville. He had followed tho business for thirty years in the same building he now occupied. Mr. Young was a vtry pleasant, dignified old gentleman, very polite to his customers —to all of his customers —and very accurate in his accounts. His rule was to “ square” all accounts every three months. Other merchants—and there were several in the place—had rules that suited them—different, perhaps, from his -but that was his rule, and he insisted upon it. So few mistakes had occurred in all the years of his rade that people spoke of it as though it was characteristic of his store. Mistakes sometimes, perhaps it might be said often, were made by his fellow-tradesmen, and their customers would speak of them in his store. But we dare say that those less fortunate fellow-tradesmen were never made happy by any one’s saying in their hearibg that' Mr. Young had made a wrong entry, or erres in reckoning up an account. When one reflects upon this trait—the leading One—of Mr. Young, one sees at once what sort of a man would be likely to suit him as clerk. Arthur Guild proved to be perfectly satisfactory to his employer. In the three years that he had been clerk for Mr. Young he had made not one mistake in the accounts —and he kept all of them—nor, so far as Mr. Young knew, anywhere.

else. He kept things in “ apple-pie order.” Was, in short, as polite, dignified and sure as his employer. 80 well was* Mr. Young pleased with him that he was half decided to take him into partnership. “ I’ll wait another year and see how he does, I guess,” saia he. Arthur Guild had never shown much desire to be in the company of young women. He went out very little, seldom to a party of any kind; and never while he had been there had he taken a girl out to ride, or accompanied one to any place. Once or twice he had been seen at a social gathering; and once it had fallen to him to take a young woman (designated by his hostess) to supper. Perhaps his partner was pleased; hut he did not appear to be over-delighted with the task that was assigned to him. He boarded at Mr. Young’s; and they liked him as a boarder; Mr 9. Young told her husband that she M never saw a nicer young man.” And he liked his boarding-place. Rosa Young, the daughter, had finished her education, at least at the seminary; and was expected home every day. Arthur heard her father and mother speak of her when he was at the table with them; but he took but a languid interest in the fact that she was soon to be a member of that household. Her coming was nothing to him. What could it be? Shewasproba. bly about like the other misses of Gazerville that were her associates before she went away to school. On the whole, though, it t cos something to him —this daughter’s coming home—what if she were like some young women he had known t If she were, she would be a bother. He would be obliged to take her somewhere evenr little while. His quiet evenings would he disturbed. Yes, on the whole, he was sorry that Mr. Young had a daughter, and that she was coming home. But she came, and Arthur was not at

all prepared to Me snch a handsome young woman as he was introduced to one evening when he came home from the store. “ Can It be possible," he asked himself, “ that this beautiful girl 1* Miss Rosa Young? I did not dream that their daughter was a beauty. She looks haughty, too. Justus well If she is so; for in that case she will be pretty sure to leave me to myself.” Rosa had been to a school which many faahionable young ladies attended, and she showed, in a measure, the effect of her association with them In a certain lofti* ness of manner. She did not carry this so far as to show herself lacking in sense, but she was not the simple Rosa Young that went away from Uazerville three years before. About a week after ahe came home she attended a party at one of the neighbors’ who lived near by on the same street. The ex-Governor was there; but, with the exception of him aad a few respectable elderly people, she declared that there was atsolutelv “ nobody" there. When Rosa returned home her mother was sit ting before the grate in the sitting-room, it being a chilly spring night. "Mamma,” sue began, as she took a seat beside her, "at its best, a Gazerville party is not a great affair." “Why, no, my dear, I don’t suppose it would be called a great affair; but did you not eDjoy yourself this evening ?” “ Well, you see, my living with Aunt Elinor, while I was away—who, now and then, had some quite distinguished people at her house—gave me a chance to see something of what in the city is called society; and by contrast some' of the people I met,to-night did seem rather stupid, mamma.”

“ My dear child, it is just possible that cities, as well as villages, have more or less of stupid people. Perhaps your father and I would be called very dull by some of those clever people you have spoken of.” Rosa was touched. The thought that anyone could speak lightly of her parents, whom she loved with all* her heart, was very painful. She threw her arras around her mother’s neck, and, exclaiming, “They could not! They should not! mamma,” covered her face and hair with kisses. The next morning, after Mr. Young and his clerk had gone to the store, Rosa asked how it was Mr. Guild did not attend the party the night before. “He had an invitation, did he not?” "Yes,” replied Mrs. Young, "he always gets one when there is to be a party; but he never goes.” “What does he do evenings, mamma? We never see him.” " I think he reads or studies; as I have noticed that he has quite a library in his room.” “I’ve been at home over a week, and I haven’t heard him speak a score of sentences, and have seen him only at mealtimes. I hope I haven’t frightened the poor man away from the sitting-room.” _ “He does just as he did before you came home, Rosa. He never spent his evenings with us. I presume he values the time he devotes to his books too highly to idle it away down-stairs.” “ Oh, certainly,” said Rosa, “ a very sensible idea; he could not afford to waste his precious time with US.” Arthur Guild had left abetter that he intended to mail on the tabid in his room, and, as soon as he had opened the store, he hurried back to the house after it. He was just ascending the stairs that led to that room, when the following question was put by Rosa to her mother; and he heard it: "Do you (flunk Mr. Guild is what he seems to be ?” The sound of Arthur’s feet upon the. stairs prevented Mrs. Young’s replying; and both mother and daughter were considerably disturbed by the thought the question might have been heard by the last one in the world who ought to have heard it. While Arthur was on his way back to the Btore, he repeated the question to himself:

“If I am what I seem to be? Wei., what do I seem to be ? That is, to her; a thief, or an idiot? . probably one or the other. I give it up, Miss Rosa. ‘ What I seem to be I’ Heavens! what can she mean ?” The days went on. The weeks followed the days. The warm, pleasant time of late spring came; and summer was near. Arthur Guild and Rosa Young had become better acquainted. Living under the same roof, it would have been strange if they had not. Rosa had found that Arthur's countenance and general appearance did not belie the man. They had not yet become at all intimate. On the eontraiy, every time they met it was almost like the meeting of strangers. They approached each other in a sort of hold-ing-back manner; as two opponents might, each one feeling a little nervous in regard to the other’s movements. They watched each other intently. There was no rushing into each other’s society—nothing of that kind; but it happened that they did frequently meet, in the sitting-room and elsewhere. Guild’s private interests did not seem to require him to hasten to his room immediately after tea, as he had done for three years back; and Rosa, although it was nothing to her whether he spent his evenings up or down stairs, and although she had made no effort to persuade him to stop in the sitting-room below, was often there at the same time that he was. This remarkable coincidence, perhaps, was owing—as Rev. Joseph Uook would say—“to the -nature of things.” Once in a while, on pleasant afternoons, Mr. and Mrs. Young went out to ride. And if, on any of those afternoons, Rosa thought of something she wanted at the store, and went for it, Arthur did not seem overburdened by the extra demand upon his time, although he was left alone to attend to customers. Clerks sometimes look upon every customer that comes into the store as an unwelcome disturber of their personal con-, venience. Rut, if Guild felt that way, he controlled his feelings in a masterly way, while performing the onerous task of waiting upon his employer’s daughter. He did not appear to be put out at all. One afternoon, when he was getting some article for her—there being no other people in the store —she said: “ How did it happen, Mr. Guild, that you became a clerk for papa? Excuse the question; but it seems a little singular that you chose to do this work, when, perhaps, you would have succeeded in a profession. ” “I may not be what I seem, Miss Young,” was th« reply. Rosa looked sharply at the clerk; could it be that he bad beard that questioh that day? No—his face reassured her. She concluded that he was not aware how significant the reply was. “ But it is a fact,” continued he. “ that I did not think of being a clerk when I left college some five years ago. After graduating, I taught school a year; and then I was ill a while; after my recovery, I should have continued the study I had begun—that of law—but my physician positively forbade it. I was told that over s’.udy had brought me where I had

been, and that I must for a few years, perhaps for life, cease to tax my brain. I was poor, I saw your father’s advertisement for a clerk; accepted the position, and have been here ever since. 1 expect to remain here the rest of the year, but no longer.” Hot long after it struck Mr. Young one day that his clerk was getting to be more than usually thoughtful. He attended as well as ever to hie duties; and, so far as he knew, was as correct as ever; but often when he had nothing particular to do he would sit at the desk for a long time without speaking or raising his eyes. If we could have obtained the diary that Arthur Guild was in the habit of keeping during these days, under date of June 0, 18—, we might nave read a half-incohe-rent entry like this: “We had a very pleasant chat last evening, after tea. I never was in love In my life, I don’t call it being in lovenothing of the sort. Of opurse it’s safe 1 I board there for convenience. At the end of my year, we shall be quite well acquainted with each other, that’s all. No harm, no danger of—of anything—of course not. Clerks like me are never expected to fall in love with their employer’s daughter; they never do, of course not.” Such was his “analysis” of the situation. If Arthur Guild had made these statements to the puclic, so that it could have known just where he was, they would have felt that he could not make it plainer—though, possibly, it would have been of advantage to have headed that entry, “ Signs of Capitulation.” If in June Mr. Young thought his clerk was uncommonly meditative, in September he could hardly have failed, to notice that he had become decidedly grave. He naw saw plainly his condition. “One of two things is sure to be mine,” said he. “ Great Happiness or Great Sorrow”—and he spelt these words with capitals, feeling that small letters were quite inadequate to the situation. But one thing could satisfy him; without that, there could be nothing but misery. One morning as he left the house he said to himself that he could stand it no longer; he must go away, for, unless he did, he should be sure to tell Rosa of his love, the first time he found himself alone with her. So, when Mr. Young came into the store, about an hour afterward, he said to him:

“ Mr. Young, although the settlement begins next Monday, and I ought to be here to balance our customers’ books, 1 feel that I must ask for a week or ten days’ vacation. 1 am not feeling very well, and if you can get over the settlement without me, I nope yon will let me go.” Somewhat surprised, Mr. Young replied: “Well, Arthur, I will get along some way. Don’t stay a moment, if you heed to go.” Arthur returned to the house, took what clothing he needed aqd departed. He did not see either Mrs. Young or Rosa before going; and they thought nis departure an abrupt one, when Mr. Young told them, at night, that he had gone. “Where has he gone?” asked Mrs. Young. “ I don’t knowhe replied, “he said he felt as though he was going to be sick, and must have a week or ten delays to pick up in. To-morrow,” continued Mr. Young, “is Saturday. I can get over that day without any* trouble; but Monday begins the settlement week; and people will be in to look over; and I snail have a busy week, I can tell you. But I saw that Arthur looked very badly, he was very white—looked like a ghost —and I told him to go. I must get some one to help me next week.” “ I shall be very glad to help you, papa if you think I will do,” said Ko9a. “Well, Rosa, I did not think when you went to the seminary that you would ever do any more work in tbe store; but, if you are willing to help me while Arthur is away, I shall be very glad of your services.”

“All right, papa; you may depend upon me for next week.” Saturday passed, and Saturday night came. All that day Rosa involuntarily had been thinking, more or less, of Arthur Guild. It seemed to her as if she missed Lihi as much as she would have missed a brother, if she had had a brother ; and he had gone away the day before. Did she miss him more than she would had he been a brother ? “ It’s just like one of the family’s being away,” said heir mother, at the teatable. Rosa was silent, but her father replied: “That’s so. Poor fellow! I hope he is not .going to be very sick. I cannot forget his white lace and sunken eyes.” -Did Rosa’s face, at her father’s remark, turn quite white ? or did her mother only imagine it did ? Ross found the Sabbath that followed a very different day to her from the last when Arthur Guild was there. What a pleasant time they had that day, when they had gone to church in the morning, and then had talked and sang together In the parlor afterward, and then in the evening to church again, and after the evening service they nad spent an hour together on the piazza! Ah! that pleasant hour! This Sunday would have been pleasanter if he had been there. Monday, the first day of settlement, came, and found Mr. Young and Ro6a in the store. Rosa attended to those customers who wanted the lighter and neater articles found in such a store; while her father measured out potatoes, apples, etc.; and weighed up pork, butter, cheese and whatever wae called for in that line. Rosa’s pretty hands got stained in handling black alpacas, and soiled in other ways, but she did not care; water was plenty, and Bhe knew they would wash and be as pretty as ever. Once, after selling a dress pattern, she went to the ledger to charge it; and in turning to her purchaser’s account, she was attracted bv an entry badly written—which might have been in her father's handwriting, or Mr. Guild’s, she could not tell which. She stopped to see what it was. It read to her like this: “ When two hearts beat.” “ Why,” she exclaimed; “I wonder if Ar—Mr. Guild wrote that? ” There was a charge for eggs just above it. and she said to herself: “ Evidently 1 have read that wrong; it must be something about heating two eggs into something—some receipt, probably.” While she was meditating about this singular entry, old Mr. Freeman came in with his pass-book, to settle up. Mr. Young saw him, and came forward to attend to him. Rosa went to a customer standing in front of the show-case. In a few moments she heard Mr. Freeman say: “Grine-stun! Mr. Young? I hain’t had no grii.e stun.” “Must have had one.” replied Mr. Young. “ One is charged here; and my clerk never made a mistake' in charging, any more than I ever did.” • “But, darn it! I tell ye I hain’t bad any sich thing for twenty r year->! My grine-stpn’g good yit. I didn’t know’s ye kept ’em.”

” We don’t, Mr. Freeman, but we often order goods that we do not keep, or are out of,* when a customer calls for them. You must have given Guild yoor order for this stone; he has certainly charged you one.” , “ Waal! waal 1 It’s mighty queer, that ’ere charge, for I sartudy hain’t had no new grine-stun.” “ Well. Mr. Freeman, let the account stand, as it la, until Arthur comes home. He’ll be here some time next week, and then we will have the matter straightened out.” “Waal, all right!” and.with that out went the old gentleman, wondering what on “ airth ” was the meaning of “ that ’ere charge.” Mr. Young was very much puzzled, but before he had time to thiuk much about the matter, in came the Widow Beamont, to settle. Strange! but when he Jiad added up the two books, they were found to vary fourteen dollars and eighty-five cents. After a moment Mr. Young discovered the trouble. “Oh, 1 see,” said he; “Guild has carried out the price for a dozen of eggs, fifteen dollars—should have been fifteen cents. Your book is right, as usual; mine is wrong, but it is the- first time, madam, that I have known it to be so since I have done business.” After the widow had gone, Mr. Young broke out with: “What under the sun ailed. Guild when he made that mistake?” There was quite a number in after that, to settle; and the store ledger %nd their books agreed in most coses, and, by night, the storekeeper had become comparatively easy in his mind. Though, when he thought of that “ grinestun,” he would say to himself: “Singular about that, but I think it will turn out that Arthur got that stone for some one that Mr. Freeman is responsible for, even if he did not have it himself.”

Tuesday it rained, and no one came in with a book to be balanced. Wednesday morning the merchant entered his store in very good spirits, and, until the middle of the forenoon, he got aloDg nicely. But at about ten o’clock in came Aunt Betsy Scofield—a maiden lady —to look over. Now, Aunt Betsy was very particular about her account. She accosted Mr. Young with: “Ready to settle up, Mr. Young?" “ All ready, ma’am,” he replied. After checking off the items, he said: I find everything all right excepting two omissions. I have you charged with two articles not in your book. They are a razor strop and a pair of cowhide boots.” “ What?” shrieked the maiden lady, in a tone of voice that could hardly have failed to reach Mr. Young’s ear if ne had been at his bouse, a quarter of a mile upstreet. “ Razor-strop! Cowhide boots t" The store-keeper meekly raised his eyes from his book, which he had—after the old lady’s exclamation—been re examining closely, and, with growing nervousness, whispered: “Yes’m—razor-strop and cowhide boots.” “ Wh—what do you imagine I could have done with those articles, Mr. Young?” “ I—1 —don’t know, ma’am, unless you got them for .ome man”— "Man! I nave nothing to do with men, sir.” “ Will you allow me one moment, ma'am, to finish what I began to say?” As Aunt Betsy did nothing now but stare at Mr. Young, he went on: “I was about to say that perhaps some man who has worked for you got these things on some store order you had given him. I —l have always looked upon my clerk as a veiy correct accountant, and it strikes me that this charge must be correct. Haven’tyou sent some one here with an order within the last three months?”

“ No, sir, I have not. There is but one explanation that is right of these remarkable charges, and that is, that somebody has made a blunder on my account.” Mr. Young was growing very red in the face; the perspiration was rolling off his forehead. Rosa had heard the controversy, and came forward with the suggestion that, “ possiblv Aunt Betsy had got something else, and, by some mistake, the things had been miscalled.” But the old lady affirmed, very strongly, that everything she had had was on her book. Mr. Young seized his quill, and suddenly drew it across the obnoxious charge, making some such a mark as the fowl, from which that writing utensil was taken, might have made, had it stepped into a tub of ink and then stamped one of its feet upon the leaf of the ledger; and the two books balanced.

“ We will endeavor to keep things straight hereafter,” said he. Now while Rosa’s father had been at the desk, in his flurry he had strewn a quantity of paper that belonged to the desk around on the top. Rosa, in picking it up for the purpose of putting it in its proper place, saw on one sheet, in Guild’s handwriting, this line: “ There’s one, and only one, I love.” She turned away, and, tossing her head disdainfully, mentally asked: “ Who is that one pray ?” Then, “ I don’t believe he loves anybody as—as he ought.” She wondered if Mr. Guild drank. If he did, that receipt she had read in the ledger was undoubtedly for egg-nog. At any rate he was not worth thinking about —and from the moment she came to that conclusion she proceeded to forget — pretty much everybody and evciything but him. We must not tax the reader’s patience by relating all that took place during that eventful settlement week. Saturday at last came. The accounts had all been balanced in some way or other. Mr. Young was in a very bad state of mind. Rosa, we are obliged to state, was disgusted. Just before she left the store Saturday afternoon her father said to her: “ Rosa, I was never so disappointed in a person in my life as I. am in Guild; the last letter of his name ought to be changed to e. Guile—that's the name for him! He’s a blunderer and,a cheat.” “ Don’t! papa, please,” said Rosa, and then she went out and went home.

In about an hour, Mr. Young would shut up his store. Before that time had Massed, in walked Arthur Guild. Mr. Young stared at him for a number of seconds, without speaking, and then, as he was on the point of telling the young man that he should want him until he had straightened out that miserably muddled ledger, but not an hour longer, Arthur spoke: “Mr. Young, lam back—no better than when I went away.” “What did you return for, then?” growled the latter. “ I am back to tell you why I went away; and whv I must again, not to return. I love your daughter, sir; I have loved her for months. I could nqt help it;.bow could anyone have helped it? But, realizing how matters stood between her family and me, 1 knew that I must not expect .your consent to my approaching her as a lover. I have made no advance in such a character toward her. I

i would not reveal my secret to her; I kept it in my heart. I aimed to act in a way that would lead you to respect me. I found, before I asked for the last leave of absence, that this love for your daughter was killing me, so long as it was hopeless. I was becoming unfit for business I did not sleep nights, and to prevent telling Miss Rom of my affection for her the first time that we were alone, I asked for a few days’ vacation—got them; and fled from the danger. I return in the same state of mind I went away in—l cannot remain here.” The stem look that was on Mr. Young’s face when Arthur Guild began, softened while he was speaking, and, when he closed, had given place to a look of pity; and in his eyes there were tears. “Arthur,” said he, “ compose yourself. Go up to the house with me, and this evening I will have a talk with you.” After the store was closed, employer and clerk went home. They did not engage in conversation on the way; each had too much to think abont. Mrs. Young and Rosa were glad to see Arthur back; so they told him; and Rosa hoped he had got over his trouble. Arthur could only say he trusted he should come out ail right. Mrs. Young thought that the young man had “ picked up” very little by his vacation; he looked to her as though he ought to be in bed, under the care of a physician. Tea passed without much conversation. After they were through, Mr. Young said that he would like to see them ail in the 6itting-room. Wondering what was coming, they followed him thither. Arthur had expected that his employer was to have, as the latter had expressed it, a talk with him; but he had not imagined the family were to be present when that talk took place. When they were all seated, Mr. Young began, with extraordinary formality : “ Ladies and gentle-man; I have a very important proposition to submit for your consideration; and much depends upon yonr adoption or rejection of the same. I trust that this assembly will excuse me for not standing while I am speaking, as lam physically very weak. The present exhausted condition of my system was caused by the severe labor of the week just closed, together with great mental excitement produced by the discovery that the reputation for accuracy which my store has had for nearly thirty years had vanished— * like the baseless fabric of a vision.’ ” Mrs. Young wondered what had come over Josiah; Rosa thought that papa was growing crazy—she didn’t know but she was—but everybody was; and Arthur listened in about the same disordered state of mind that he had been In for the last week. If anyone in that vast assembly—of three persons, beside the speaker^—had ventured to look into Mr. Young’s face, that one would have seen there something like a smile; but no one looked. “In wy long experience,” continued the oiator, “ I never before had so much trouble in settlement week as I have had this time. I hope I shall never have as much again. I feel quite broken down, when I think that the reputation which I have had for so long a time is gone. I don’t see but one way out of the difficulty; and that is, that the one who helped me lose what I have lost, help me regain it, if it can be done. And lam too old to go on alone much any way. My proposition is, that we form a great Joint Stock Company. What do you say? I have been thinking of offering Mr. Guild an interest in tne concern—provided he’ll straighten out that ledger—if he wishes to continue in tbe business. What do you say, Arthur? What do yoo say, Rosa? I am inclined to think that your decision, Rosa, on the matter will be the one that we shall have to abide by. Shall there be a * Joint Stock Company,’ or shall your father go on alone, Rosa; is it yes, or no?”

Mr. Young a ceremonious bow, offered his arm to his wife, they passed out, and the door closed between the old and young couple. . Rosa sat with her face in her hands. Arthur, in a moment, was by her. “Rosa, what is the answer? One word from your lips, and I am the happiest man in the world, or, another word, and I am—as I have been for weeks—the most miserable mortal. I love you, I have been crazy. I was dying for you, Rosa. I do not know what I may not have done —nothing that was not foolish, I presume. Speak the word, my darling, that will make me a man again!” One moment Rosa was silent; then, turning toward him, she said: “ Arthur, you have made a heart that was fast growing wretched very happy; and—and in regard to the ‘ Company,’ you know —I say. Yes!” —Tioremo Griswold , in Springfield (Mass.) Republican.