The Village Convict | Page 8

trust me in that," said Eph. "I can never rub out
that I 've been in State's-prison."
"You don't want to rub it out. You can't rub anything out that's ever
been; but you can do better than rub it out."
"What do you mean?"

"Take things just the way they are," said Susan, "and show what can be
done. Perhaps you 'll stake a new channel out for others to follow in,
that haven't half so much chance as you have. And that's what you will
do, too," she added.
"Susan!" he said, "if there 's anything I can ever do, in this world or the
next, for you or your folks, that's all I ask for,--the chance to do it. Your
folks and you shall never want for anything while I'm alive.
"There's one thing sure," he added, rising. "I'll live by myself and be
independent of everybody, and make my way all alone in the world;
and if I can make 'em all finally own up and admit that I'm honest with
'em, I'm satisfied. That's all I 'll ever ask of anybody. But there's one
thing that worries me sometimes,--that is, whether I ought to come here
so often. I 'm afraid, sometimes, that it 'll hinder your father from gettin'
work, or--something--for you folks to be friends with me."
"I think such things take care of themselves," said Susan, quietly. "If a
chip won't float, let it sink."
"Good-night," said Eph; and he walked off, and went home to his
echoing house.
After that, his visits to Joshua's became less frequent.
*****
It was a bright day in March,--one of those which almost redeem the
reputation of that desperado of a month. Eph was leaning on his fence,
looking now down the bay and now to where the sun was sinking in the
marshes. He knew that all the other men had gone to the town-meeting,
where he had had no heart to intrude himself,--that free democratic
parliament where he had often gone with his father in childhood; where
the boys, rejoicing in a general assembly of their own, had played ball
outside, while the men debated gravely within. He recalled the time
when he himself had so proudly given his first vote for President, and
how his father had introduced him then to friends from distant parts of
the town. He remembered how he had heard his father speak there, and

how respectfully everybody had listened to him. That was in the long
ago, when they had lived at the great farm. And then came the thought
of the mortgage, and of Eliphalet's foreclosure, and--
"Hullo, Eph!"
It was one of the men from whom he took fish,--a plain-spoken, sincere
little man.
"Why wa'n't you down to town-meet'n'?"
"I was busy," said Eph.
"How'd ye like the news?"
"What news?"
There was never any good news for him now.
"Hain't heard who 's elected town-clerk?"
"No."
Had they elected Eliphalet, and so expressed their settled distrust of
him, and sympathy for the man whom he had injured?
"Who is elected?" he asked harshly.
"You be!" said the man; "went in flyin',--all hands clappin' and
stompin' their feet!"
*****
An hour later the doctor drove up, stopped, and walked toward the
kitchen door. As he passed the window, he looked in.
Eph was lying on his face, upon the settle, as he had first seen him
there, his arms beneath his head.

"I will not disturb him now," said the doctor.
*****
One breezy afternoon, in the following summer, Captain Seth laid aside
his easy every-day clothes, and transformed himself into a stiff
broadcloth image, with a small silk hat and creaking boots. So attired,
he set out in a high open buggy, with his wife, also in black, but with
gold spectacles, to the funeral of an aunt. As they pursued their jog-trot
journey along the Salt Hay Road, and came to Ephraim Morse's cottage,
they saw Susan sitting in a shady little porch at the front door, shelling
peas and looking down the bay.
"How is everything, Susan?" called out Captain Seth; "'bout time for
Eph to be gitt'n' in?"
"Yes," she answered, nodding and smiling, and pointing with a pea-pod;
"that's our boat, just coming to the wharf, with her peak down."

End of Project Gutenberg's The Village Convict, by Heman White
Chaplin
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