Butterfield & Co.: In Two Parts. Part Two

BUTTERFIELD’S was formally reopened on a Monday, in spite of the fact that there was nothing — or almost nothing — in it. The proprietor settled into the adjoining shed with his personal possessions, for which he had no difficulty to find room.

“ When I shut my eyes I can just believe I 'm back in the same old sto’, Mother Nicodemus, and ain’t never been burnt out nor lost nothing at all,” he said to his friend, who, in spite of her years and her lameness, insisted on scrubbing the shelves and counter. “ And when I open ’em I says to myself, ' Well, anyway, it’s Butterfield’s.' ”

The pair almost had a quarrel that first day over the arrangement of “ the goods,” as they called an absurd collection of things that for a long while constituted the stock in trade. It consisted chiefly of a barrel of lime, a basket of apples, two glass jars of peppermint candy, a few bundles of “ kindling,” a string of onions festooned about the door, another string across the window fastened with clothes-pins, a mustard tin (empty), two loaves of bread, and some elegant additions in the way of watercresses or radishes, not to be depended upon at all seasons.

Such as it was, though, nothing could have exceeded the delight of Uncle Jo in disposing and arranging it to the best advantage, except the satisfaction Mrs. Nicodemus got from altering all of his arrangements as soon as they were made, to suit her own ideas of what was convenient and attractive. Perhaps Uncle Jo did not enjoy getting up that first night (when Mrs. Nicodemus had been obliged perforce to quit the field), and lighting his candles, and putting everything back into the exact places and positions originally chosen by himself ! This done, he surveyed the whole effect, decided that he “ must have a box of blacking,” thought of a dozen other things that must be “ added,” as he sat on the reversed limebucket, and almost hugged himself when he reflected that he was now “ in business again.” Poor soul ! he had not the remotest idea of “ business,” as that term had come to be understood in the years since the destruction of his shop. In every month, week, day, and moment, though, of the next ten years it became clearer and clearer even to him, as it did to the class he represented ; for they were all affected by the great changes made by new men, new methods. A complete alteration had taken place in the spirit and purpose and policy of the commercial element in Slumborough. Cash, hard cash (and very hard cash it was to get sometimes) was demanded of everybody. It was not now “ Live, and let live,” but “ Every man for himself,” and a certain person might take the hindmost. And “ Put money in thy purse, honestly if thou canst, — but get rich ” was the new gospel.

Simple-minded Uncle Jo had very naturally supposed that the public would be as much interested in the revival of his business as he himself was. He rose at daylight every morning, shaved scrupulously, dressed himself as neatly as he could, and stood in his door rubbing his hands and bowing low to those of the passers-by whom he knew, according to his ancient custom. He shifted his lime-barrel, and apples, and blacking, and clothes-pins here, there, and everywhere, and waited with an eager heart, and a smile that froze stiffer and stiffer on his poor old lips, for the customers who he had thought would come crowding back. He rubbed off his counter so often that the wood, though coarse in grain, took on a high polish; he dusted his empty shelves and arranged his empty boxes, and busied himself elaborately about anything and nothing, that he might not have " the look of being idle ; ” splitting and resplitting his “kindling ” and doing it up into ever smaller and smaller fagots; wiping off his apples, and eating one occasionally to give himself an air of bogus festivity and prosperity ; denying himself everything that he might “ keep up supplies and keep down expenses ; ” affecting to keep “ books,” with a rusty pen, a copy-book, and an empty inkstand, at the back of the store ; making his own paper bags at night, and putting withered cabbages or a few pounds of bran in them that they might lie around ornamentally and effectively on the counter, and look as if purchased and on the point of being sent home in hot haste.

Butterfield’s was his ideal, and he clung desperately to it. After hours he would lock his door and hunt about, without seeming to do so, for other work and ways of earning money; and if he got a dollar, he would be sure to spend it in the one way, and bring home something “ inviting.” If caught helping to move a piano, or varnishing furniture, or whitewashing, he was always deeply annoyed, and either said in a confidential whisper that he was “ adding to his income,” or affected to refuse payment, at first; accepting it later, however, under protest, “ seeing business was slack.”

He could not make out what had become of his customers, either. But “ some were dead, and some had fled,” and some had transferred their allegiance and custom ; and some came a few times, and languidly looked at the lime-barrel and bought a quarter’s worth of something, or nothing, and went away again. A few of his old patrons, in direst distress, sent to him when they could get nothing elsewhere, and were welcomed delightedly, and served as bountifully as if they had been the most valuable of paying customers ; were shown very plainly that they were at liberty to take all he had, little though it was. As long as Mr. Butterfield was tying up packages he was happy, whether they were paid for or not. He bad never been a man to worry about payments in his palmiest days, and old habits stuck by him after his eclipse. Miss Bradley elaborately bought back most of the things that she sent him, too, but that could not go on forever.

Mother Nicodemus got her groceries of him, and so did a few of her friends, but that amounted to very little. There was never a day in which children were not to be found in the store, but they only represented a terrible conflict forever going on in Mr. Butterfield’s soul between his pride in keeping his glass jars filled and his love of children. “ I can’t, I ain’t never, I won’t do sich a low-down thing as to let no child pay me for peppermint candy, — no, nor buns ! When that time comes I reckon I ’d better give up Butterfield’s and shoot myself,” he would say. The judge’s daughter would come in sometimes, and look about, trying to find something to buy, and put a few dollars in his purse, and warm his poor old heart by her kind speeches. But Butterfield’s was a ghost, and Uncle Jo was a ghost; Butterfield’s was dearer to him than ever, only he loved it as a father does the son who breaks his heart.

For five years Mother Nicodemus lived with him. Her son never came home, nor did she ever hear what had become of him. Her health failed, and when she could no longer work she had a visit from Uncle Jo one day, in which he said, “ Now, Mother Nicodemus, you’ve got to quit this and come keep house for me and help me manage the business. It’s just booming now like the Mississippi, business is ! Why, I sold a quart of vinegar, yesterday, and three pounds of candles, and two pumpkins, to one customer ! And I ’ve got that recipe of Mary’s for them buns of hers, and if you can make them, they 'll go off as fast as you can turn them out of the oven.”

That afternoon he moved down her chest of drawers, rocking - chair, bed, table, and other small possessions, and installing them and her in his shed, fell back himself with great cheerfulness on the counter, on which he professed that he slept “’most too sound.” He got much comfort from her presence, though she was anything but thankful or grateful, took up an idea that “ Jo, who was always a bad, troublesome boy, " had turned her out of the stone cottage, and would have been thought a trying companion enough by most people. His only grief was, not that he had to eat a crust (or go without) that she might dine or sup; not that he had to rise early, and late take rest, that she might have leisure to roundly abuse him, safely sheltered under his roof; but that he could not always have fresh fish and good butter for her, or get some other coveted luxury such as “a silk quilt, and lace mittens, and a Paisley shawl, like my mother’s,” for which the poor old soul longed.

Never a bun did Mother Nicodemus bake, from first to last. She was but an added care, as he had known she would be, but she did him good all the same. To have lost faith in his ideal Butterfield’s would have been to lose all heart and hope, and she was a valuable counter - irritant when things went persistently wrong. He knew that she was fond of him, too ; he never forgot what she had done for him, and she gave meaning and motive to a self - denial that might otherwise have narrowed into mere miserliness.

One day when he was sadly thinking that it was his fault that the business did not succeed better, when his soul was additionally discouraged by Mother Nicodemus wailing out fretfully all the morning, “I want my mother. Call my mother. Don’t you hear me say I want my mother ? ” and the conviction that she was in her second childhood had forced itself upon him, he suddenly heard the fire alarm and a sound of hurrying feet outside. With the soldier’s instinct of prompt action, he ran out into the street and joined the tide of people setting in a certain direction. The town jail was on fire, and great was the excitement. When he reached the place he found that half the population had turned out ; scores of men, women, and children were standing around the building gaping and exclaiming and trampling over the hose, under the impression that they were helping the firemen to put out the flames.

Mr. Butterfield’s usual modesty and nervousness and deprecation of responsibility quite vanished when he heard that there was a woman in the second story ; and presently he saw her, as the smoke blew aside, holding up a child, and heard her shriek out, “ Save my child ! Save my child ! " in the tones that we hear and never forget. Bravely responding to this agonized appeal, he rushed into the building, and soon reappeared, white and resolute, bearing a little boy in his arms. Other men tried to rescue the mother, and two negroes, the only prisoners, but they failed as far as she was concerned. It was long one of the sickening horrors of the kindly little community that the poor creature perished before their very eyes.

When the sun had sunk, and the commotion was over, and the fire engines had rattled home, and the crowd was dispersing, Uncle Jo looked down at the child he had saved, who was holding his hand, and said, “ Well, sonny, what’s to become of you ? ”

“ I’m going home with you,” replied the boy promptly.

The only thing to be done, just then, seemed to be to accept this solution of the problem, and home together they started accordingly. Uncle Jo’s thoughts were not the most cheerful in the world as he looked at him. The child represented another burden for Butterfield’s and might “ swamp the business,” which he knew — nobody better — to be in its death-throes. He almost regretted having gone to the fire ; he did not dream that the very element which had laid Butterfield’s low was now, by a curious caprice of Fate, to build it up again. He took a good look at his trouvaille. The child’s walk was manly almost to the point of swagger. His little head was covered with short black curls, and his large dark eyes were as irresistible in their appeal as his mother’s voice had been, when he looked up at his protector and smiled brightly, not realizing at all what had happened, apparently quite content to be going off with a stranger to regions unknown.

“ What’s your name, anyway ? ” asked his new friend.

“ Jake, — Jake Lazarus. And I live at 127 Green Street,” replied the child, parrot-fashion, and smiled again.

“ Lazarus ! That’s a Jew name. He favors my boy. He ’s about the size of my little Jo ; just about what he was when I left to go to the war,” thought Uncle Jo, and aloud he said, “ It is, is it ? Well, Jake, how long had you been there ? ” nodding backward in the direction of the jail.

“ I don’t know,” said Jake. “ I’m hungry. Ain’t we most there?”

“ I ’ll see the jailer to-morrow and give him up to the town,” thought Uncle Jo, and turning to Jake he said, " Yes, honey, we are. I reckon you are beat out. I ’ll just carry you.”

By the time he got home the boy was sound asleep in his arms, and he had concluded not to give him up to the authorities until " the day after to-morrow. That ’ll be a plenty of time,” he argued, as he took the child through the dark, unlit shop and into the shed, where he laid him down gently ou Mother Nicodemus’s bed (she being asleep too), and proceeded to get supper for the party.

This daily duty took on a new aspect at once and became a sort of festival, in consequence of the unexpected addition to the family being not only unexpected, but a child. The soft feel of the little body had cast a spell over Uncle Jo’s softer heart; Jake’s regular breathing from the bed was so full of interest that he several times went over on tiptoe to hear how he was doing it. Then there was a chair to be found, and then an empty soap box proved just the thing to make it the right height. And when the table was laid, and the tea drawn, and the bread cut, and a herring apiece set sumptuously out, it was with keen pleasure that Uncle Joseph took his own cup and filled it with hot milk and bread for " the boy.” Already the claims of the town to the child seemed impertinent and odious.

Presently the sleepers awoke ; at least Mother Nicodemus did; the child had to be aroused by Uncle Jo, who half expected that he would cry and make a scene, and fully expected that Mother Nicpdemus would be displeased to find him there, and would make another scene.

But little Jacob was not the least bit sad or fretful; he was in a state of radiant good humor, on the contrary. He allowed Uncle Jo to “ h’ist ” him up on the soap box without making the slightest objection except to yawn as if rather bored by a regular preliminary. He took no notice when Mr. Butterfield’s best handkerchief (a superb yellow affair — part of his stock in trade — stamped patriotically with the American flag and pictures of Lincoln and Grant) was whisked under his chin and pinned behind, bib-fashion, as deftly as any woman could have done it. As for Mother Nicodemus, when she saw that laughing pair of most mischievous black eyes, all tangled up about the lashes, and those cheeks rosier than any apple ever sold over Butterfield’s counter; when she caught the gleam of a small and incomplete row of teeth, and heard the spoilt youngster banging on the table with his spoon, and frankly, boldly, demanding the sugar in the bowl, the herrings, the bread, — everything that was and much that was not there, — it was a sight to see all the dead woman in her rise out of its grave at a bound. Her dim eye burned, fairly, in its socket, and dilated as she looked; her withered old face flushed with delight ; and her hands trembled as she pointed to him, saying, “ Why don’t you give Al a fish if he wants it ? Help the child first, of course, Joseph. Yes, honey, you shall have it right this minute.” She had given him the name of one of her little brothers who had died when she was a child.

Uncle Joseph cleared out a place under the counter, and whistling, with a heart lighter than the feathers he shook up, he made a snug little resting-place for the child, very like the beds one sees in Scotch cottages, brought him in tenderly, and deposited him in it. He made up a bed tor himself close by on the floor, with an old rug under him and some bagging over him. His last look that night at the child was a long one ; his thought was, “ I hope they won’t find out I’ve got him for the longest! ” His glance rested on, or rather, roamed about the store before he fell asleep, and the bareness and desolation of the spot, the transparent delusion of his life, the mockery of “ the business,” the hopelessness of his task, pressed more sorely than ever upon him for a few minutes as he lay there. He had turned down the lamp and put it behind the lime-barrel, from which place it threw gruesome shadows on the empty shelves, the one stick of candy in the biggest jar, the half flitch of country bacon on its nail near the window, the box from which he had abstracted the herrings for tea, the showcase with its bunch of shoe-strings and matches and yeast-cakes.

“ If I was let to keep him, I don’t see how Butterfield’s can carry him,” he thought dismally. And then, “ If he ain’t claimed, though, I ’ll try to keep him. I’ve been living too high, anyway, here lately, and it won’t take much to feed him, — that little fellow! Maybe I can get some extry work, and I don’t need no milk in my coffee. Some say it ain’t a good thing to take at all, and gives the dyspepsy. And that handkerchief would ’most make him a coat; ’t won’t take nothing at all to clothe that mite of a child, — nothing at all.” And thus deprived of most of his few comforts, and busily planning to get rid of the remainder, Uncle Joseph too fell asleep, nor dreamed that it was the child who was to “ carry ” Butterfield’s on and up to a glorious consummation, such as his wildest dreams had never contemplated ; that the firm had taken in a sleeping partner in curly-locks under the counter, whose genius was in due time to be recognized far beyond the limits of Slumborough ; that in obeying a humane instinct he had saved and gained the desire of his heart.

From the very first the child brought him good fortune, as often in after life he used to relate. The neighbors crowded in curiously to see him, and pitied him, and asked him a great many questions about himself, to which he cheerfully made answer in his childish fashion. The women all fell in love with him, and so did most of the men ; and having come to gaze and talk, they ended by buying. That curly head brought in five dollars the first week. It was agreed, too, that Mr. Butterfield had behaved well at the fire; and if there were those who were as angry with him for keeping little Jake as if it had been his set purpose to do so at their expense, there were others who thought it natural and commendable.

The town authorities never once troubled themselves about the child, although for months Mr. Butterfield lived in a chronic fear and fever of anxiety lest they should. Jake’s mother had been sentenced for shoplifting; she was a stranger in the place ; there was no one to claim the hoy or care for him. Sad to say, tile poor mother was not even missed by the one creature that might, should, would have grieved for her if he had not been too young to know what sorrow meant. For a few days he asked for her often, and prattled about her in a merry, careless way that touched Uncle Joseph’s heart, and led him to silence Jake or divert his attention.

“ It’s the first Jew ever I heard of on the wrong side of a jail door, and I reckon she warn’t much of a woman to boast of, but she was a mother for all that; she loved the little chap, and I ’ll be dog-goned if I can stand hearing him talk like that. I would n’t have chose him a Jew ; no, indeed ! I’ve always been set against the whole tribe, ma’am. But a prettier, or a brighter, or a smarter, or a sweeter child I never see nor hope to see belonging to nobody,” he said to Miss Bradley. “ You’ve only to look at him yourself to see it. Maybe it won’t come out on him,” he added rather anxiously, as if it were a question of measles rather than of race. “ He’s mighty young, and he won’t see nor hear nothing of ’em, and he ’ll be brought up as good a deep-water Baptist as there is. You must see him. I ’ll call him. Here, Jake ! Come here ! ”

Out struted the child from the shed with his hands in his pockets. His comical, swaggering air of independence did not please Miss Bradley, who believed in a style of child as dead as Julius Cæsar; and if that had been all, she would have rebuked him promptly in a stately way; but his laughing eyes and that irresistible curly head so mitigated his “boldness ” that she took him up instead and put him on the counter before her. The back view of Jake’s trousers and small person generally would have amused the great “ unamusable ” Napoleon — after Waterloo, say — and softened the Iron Duke. The pair eyed each other amiably. Jacob’s attention being attracted by Miss Bradley’s brooch, he made a dash at it, saying, “What did you pay for it ? Where did you get it ? What’s it worth? Brass, ain’t it? It’s pretty. Why don’t you sell it to Uncle Jo ? Hainh ? I ’ll give you my apple for it. I like breastpins. My mother,—she’s burnt up, — she had two. Both of ’em was n’t gold, though. She got one from a Christian, and he cheated her. She did n’t know the difference. I know the difference. You smell ’em before you buy ’em, always.”

“ Dear me ! how you do talk, child ! You must not be so forward. It is highly improper to be giving your opinions in the presence of your elders and betters. I do hope Mr. Butterfield is not committing the folly of being over-indulgent, and that he remembers your station in life. No, it is not brass. No Virginian gentlewoman ever wears anything that is not absolutely genuine, Jacob.”

“ Are you a Christian ? ” asked Jacob.

“ A Christian ? I am a Virginian, Jacob,” replied Miss Bradley, with dignity, inclusively, as covering the whole ground.

“ I ain’t. I am a Jew. But I’m going to be a Baptist, ’cause Uncle Jo, he’s one. And I 'm going to tie up the parcels and run arrants and sell goods all the time.”

“Yes, yes, of course; but you must have the rudiments of an education as well, Jacob.” (“I’ll speak to Cynthia about it,” she thought. She had once owned Cynthia, but the tables were turned now, and Cynthia emphatically owned her.)

“ I don’t want to. I’m going to keep store. I’m going to buy a whole lot of oranges and boil ’em. Two for fifteen cents,” replied Jake. “ I get it every time. They swell so.” He inflated his cheeks to show how much.

“ Mr. Butterfield, do you hear that ? Who — who has poisoned this youthful mind and instilled such perversions of principle into this guileless bosom ? I am unspeakably shocked, Jacob, to hear you talk in this way.” (“ No matter what Cynthia says, it is now my duty to instruct him,” she thought.) “ You can get down now.”

“ All right,” assented Jacob, and got down and trotted back again into the shed.

“ An attractive child, I grant you, Mr. Butterfield, but one requiring to be judiciously reared. I trust Mrs. Nicodemus has been the better for the seasonable weather? Cynthia will bring her down a tray this afternoon, and I shall be disappointed if she does not find something on it that she can relish. We all like a change in pasture, you know. Goodmorning,” said the dear little lady, taking her leave, and Mr. Butterfield executed his grand bow as she stood on the doorsill, and another when she got outside. Less than these he never failed to bestow on a customer.

“ Why don’t you eat your bun, honey?” asked Mr. Butterfield of Jacob that evening.

“ I don’t want to,” was the reply. “ I ’m going to swap it for a cocoanut with Bill Jenkins, and sell the cocoanut. But you ’ll see, Uncle Jo ! ”

And if you will believe me, that mite of a manikin put that bun into a cocoanut, and that cocoanut into candy, which he sold to all the boys in the neighborhood, clearing seventy-five cents by the transaction, and managing to get his share of the sweets beside. This was a straw, but it showed what the little Jacob was.

Mr. Butterfield lost no time in taking him to the chapel he attended and beginning the process that was to end in his becoming a deep-water Baptist. He taught him a verse from the New Testament every morning. As the years went on he gradually inoculated the child with all his own unjust prejudice against the race from which he sprang. But all the same, the trading instinct, the shrewdness, the intelligence, the self-reliance of a thousand generations of Israelites dwelt under the cap that covered that curly head, and became more and more apparent every day. If you had taken Jacob and shut him up in the Bastille for life, he would have traded successfully with the keepers. If you had sent him to Siberia, he would have made money out of handcuffs and knouts. If you had put him in a lighthouse, he would have made a neat thing of it with the government. With him, to breathe was to gain, and get, and keep, and invest, and reinvest, and so on over and over again. Naturally, he attracted other children, and it was wonderful to see how instinctively he spread his chaff to suit his birds, and, what is more, caught them. It was a constant surprise, a continual amazement, to Uncle Joseph to see him do it; the ease, the skill, with which he made money often struck him dumb.

“ I never see the like ; he beats ’em all. I ain’t got no anxiety now about Jake, little as he is. He 'll get along. You should just see him, hear him talk to me ’bout what he’s going to do. Why, after the first three years he’s made his own keep, pretty much. Think of it! I can’t see how he does it,” said Mr. Butterfield admiringly to a friend. “ He’s got a wonderful head, that boy, — jest wonderful.” And it was wonderful, just as it is wonderful to see an oriole build its nest, deftly weaving in twigs, wool, cloth, hair, whatever materials come to hand. The play of instinct was the same with the boy as with the bird.

Mr. Butterfield went in, one evening in March, when the boy was about eight years old, and found him seated before a big table, very earnest and flushed, and busily at work. “ What in the land are you doing now, Jake, my son ? ” Mr. Butterfield asked, and, with his roguish eyes dancing in his head, Jake replied, “ I “m making fifty-cent kites for ten. Uncle Jo, and can’t do ’em fast enough. Miss Bradley brought me one from Washington, and there ain’t none here like it, and I’ve took it for a pattern. I spoiled two at first, but now I can do 'em, I tell you ! Look here, — ain’t it pretty ? Ain’t this one of Bill’s a beauty? I’ve made two dollars by ’em already, and I ’m not near done. I make ’em pay extry for the red-tailed ones; they 're made to look like birds, you see. Lend me your knife, won’t you ? ”

When ice was “ holding” on Melton’s Pond, the following winter, what did Jake do, but get up a particular kind of strap for buckling on skates, and make a tidy little sum out of that too. On the 4th of July he was up at daylight, and, having provided himself plentifully with firecrackers on the 3d, did a flourishing little business before Uncle Jo was up; and when Mr. Butterfield did come into the shed-room Jake and his friends were letting off a couple of bunches on the kitchen stove. “I ’ve had all the fun I wanted. And I’ve made a dollar besides,” said Jake, running to embrace him, and whispering this last item. He let off the last bunch on the back of Mother Nicodemus’s cap that afternoon, and when the sun went down had put three dollars in the till and brought the key to Mr. Butterfield with another embrace and a radiant face. The child was as affectionate as he was enterprising and industrious, and he had caught the Butterfield fever.

In Jake’s ninth year Mother Nicodemus died, and one day soon after her funeral Jake, seeing that Uncle Joseph looked very downcast and sad, slipped into his lap and said, “Look here, Uncle Jo. Don’t you worrit; me and you ’ll build up Butterfield’s together. See if I don’t! You can have my dog, too, if you want it. I was going to trade. But it don’t matter.” By the time Jake was ten he had a decided influence upon the business. Parents had begun to follow the lead of the children. And there never was anything like Jake’s talent for meeting their demands, his shifts, devices, ways, means, general readiness for emergencies. With Cynthia’s qualified assent, Miss Bradley had kept her word, and for several years taught Jake so carefully and well that in manner and speech he became much superior to most boys of his class. But the kernel of the whole matter lay in this : he had a genius for shopkeeping. At twelve he was noted as one of the “ smartest,” neatest, most civil youngsters in all Slumborough. People said of him that “he might easily be taken for a gentleman’s son,” and that “that boy of Butterfield’s was a credit to him and would get on, certain.” His bright face, his politeness, and his invincible amiability made him a general favorite.

As for Uncle Joseph, he doted on the boy. What he would have done after Mother Nicodemus’s death hut for this busy, cheery-wise little companion, Heaven only knows. At first he would say, “What’s that?” or “Go 'long, Jake ; you must be crazy,” when “ the small chap ” made suggestions about the business and its management; but before long it was, “Well, I reckon that would be a good plan,” or “ I ’ll try that, my boy. How did you ever come to think of it ? ” It was Jake who rubbed up the red apples until they shone, and sorted them, and asked enough for the biggest to pay for all, and got it, too. It was Jake who wrapped the oranges in tissuepaper to make them “ look fine " and would not let them touch one another “ for fear that they would rot,” and sold only one bunch of bananas, but those of the finest, and so got up the name of the store for good fruit.

He had a talent for asking questions, among bis other talents. He knew what everything in his line sold for in other stores, and what those stores had. The tricks of the trade he did not altogether disdain, as when, hearing that eggs were scarce, he bought twelve dozen from a farmer’s wagon one morning, scared Uncle Joseph dreadfully, and sold the lot to the hotel before noon. Uncle Joseph taught the lad how to shoot and fish. Presently fresh fish were to be seen for sale at Butterfield’s all during Lent. And Jake having chanced to come upon a stranger who was out shooting blackbirds for the wings, which he sent off to a New York house, took the address, and sold his slaughtered hundreds in all; the money he put into paint and fixtures, fancy bags, and gas-pipes for Butterfield’s. He shot partridges, too, and trapped rabbits, which he dressed and sold at an advance on the undressed ones of his neighbors. He made Uncle Joseph buy pink onions because they “ looked pretty.” He cut open a watermelon every day and let it stand in the doorway, its own invitation to the thirsty passer-by. “ It ain’t waste, Uncle Jo. It ’s advertising. You let me be. You ’ll see ! I watch ’em. They go by the other stores; but when they see that melon they walk right in.”

From his fifteenth to his twentieth year, Jake did nothing but add to the attractions of Butterfield’s. He got a parrot by trading, and kept it in the store because people stopped to listen, and it put them in a good humor. Uncle Joseph had struggled for years to keep his two jars half supplied with peppermint candy. “The public school is being built on the square above. I ’ll get in some dates, and figs, and marbles, and candies,” said Jake breezily. “ I ’ll order down a big supply from Washington.”

It was a small order as some shops count, but to Mr. Butterfield it seemed fraught with peril and destruction. “Jake! Jake! Where will you stop! Three barrels of sugar, and now all these sweets !" he cried in real distress. “You 'll never be able to pay for them in the world.”

“ Only one barrel of sugar; the others are blinds, nailed up to keep people from finding it out, Uncle Jo. And I bet you in two weeks there won’t be a box of goodies left in the store. The children have got to pass this way, and I give a carnelian marble or a thimble with every box. I know what I 'm about, Uncle Jo. Don’t you get scared.”

“ You 'd better stick to groceries, Jake. Stick to groceries, I say.”

“ Stick to groceries ! I say, sell whatever people want to buy. I ’m not going to have anything stick to me except customers. You’ve got to take risks in business, Uncle Jo, if you want to make money. Just you wait! You’ll see,” replied Jacob. He always ended their discussions with this confident speech.

By degrees he revolutionized everything about the business except Mr. Butterfield himself. Mr. Butterfield could not be born again, and nothing less radical would have made him what Jake considered a business man. On another, ante - bellum planet and under another, extinct system he had once done business successfully ; and he had age on his side, — presumably, experience. Yet here was Jake knocking the store and all that appertained to it about his ears, as if business were a game of ninepins. It often tried the old man dreadfully, dearly as he loved the lad. What he did not suspect was that he was equally trying to Jacob, dearly as the lad loved the old man.

“ If he would just turn it all over to me, and let me manage, and not interfere at all,” Jake said once to his great friend, Bill Jenkins. “ I can’t bear to hurt his feelings, or for him to think himself useless. But he comes into the store and tells the truth about everything, when there is no need. And he gives away the fresh eggs and nicest butter to the dead-beats, and leaves our best customers without any, and he won’t send a bill to any of the old families ; he says they’ve always dealt honorable with him, and always will, and it ain’t proper to pester ’em like a fly with bills every month. If anybody wants a receipt, he asks them what they take him for, and says he’s been a poor man for a good many years, but ain’t never been dishonest enough to send a bill again that’s been settled. He’s just the dearest old uncle that ever lived, but you can’t do a thing with him, and he would swamp the Treasury at Washington. If I don’t get hold of the books, Butterfield’s will never hold up its head again, and I am just bent and determined on seeing it the biggest and best store in the State.”

Jake was about fifteen at this time. Things were not going very well at the store, and in a fit of impatience Jake went off and “ peddled stuff ” on the train for three months, after some sharp words with the head of the firm. He came back with a nice little sum, embraced Mr. Butterfield and kissed him as he had always done, sat on his lap, and talked so largely, hopefully, affectionately, that Mr. Butterfield could not hold out. “ You can take the books, my boy. It will all be yours, anyway, some day,” he said, “ and I reckon you might as well come into the firm now as later.” This practically was Mr. Butterfield’s abdication, and Charles V. of Spain did not feel the event to be a whit more solemn when he retired from his business because it was not a paying one.

“ Well, I reckon I’d better, pappy,” said Jake. “ But you ’ll be here to keep me straight, and it '11 all go right. You ’ll see ! I 've got an idea ! Lots of ’em ! Just you wait! ”

“ Yes, I ’ll keep the supervision and see that it is all managed right,” said Mr. Butterfield in perfect good faith, and if Jake smiled it was very sweetly.

Next day Jake had a place railed off at the back of the store, put a desk and a high chair there, got a huge book, an inkstand, post-cards, pens, stamps, and blotting-paper.

“ You don’t need all them ! What a waste of money, my son ! ” remonstrated Mr. Butterfield.

“No, it ain’t, Uncle Jo ; got ’em on purpose, — and got ’em big on purpose. I ain’t going to stand at the door bowing, I can tell you. I like it in you, pappy. But I’m going to be always sitting in that pen yonder, so busy I can’t hear ’em call for five minutes, and keep ’em waiting.”

“ It ain’t polite. It don’t become you, Jake, in your position. You are here to serve ’em well and quick.”

“Yes, yes, I know that, Uncle Jo. But politeness don’t pay its dividends always. I know what I 'm about. There’s a time to hear, and a time to be as deaf as a post.”

Jake was behind the railing one day, shortly after this, when Miss Bradley came in. She looked about her at the shelves, freshly painted, and well filled, and smiled, well pleased. “ Why, Jacob, this is very nice to see, — Butterfield’s arising like another Phœnix from its ashes. This is really delightful ! ” she said.

“ What’s a Phœnix, ma’am ? ” asked Jacob, and was told the history of that classic fowl in words of six syllables. Miss Bradley then made known her errand. “ If you could, without inconvenience, Jacob, oblige me by sending around a dozen cakes of fresh yeast, during the day, I shall be obliged, and Cynthia grateful. Nowhere else can one get as good. It has always been a secret of Butterfield’s. I have heard my grandmother remark that she was very desirous at one time to get the recipe, and make it.”

“Yes’m. Thank you, ma’am. That will be all right. The yeast will be at the house in ten minutes sharp. Goodmorning,” said Jacob, and the dear old lady gathered up her skirts and parcels, and was bowed out respectfully by Mr. Butterfield.

“ That’s the very thing ! ” cried Jake, when she had gone. “ We ’ll call it the ‘ Phœnix Yeast,’ and advertise it. Hurrah ! f know how to do it! ”

“ Butterfield’s yeast don’t need no advertising. It’s never been known not to rise, and everybody in Slumborough, pretty much, knows it, and what more do you want ? Don’t talk to me of advertising, Jacob. We ain’t never spent a cent that way. We’ve always been a respectable firm,” replied Mr. Butterfield.

Jacob was silent, but his lower jaw looked as if it had made up its mind to advertise, and so it had. In a week, flaming red bills were in the window and on the street, with a Phœnix rising from a sort of dust - heap, labeled “ Butterfield’s,” and everybody was adjured by every selfish consideration to buy the great, original, peerless, perfect, celebrated " Butterfield’s Bijou Phœnix Yeast.”

In a month all the country roads leading to the town were ablaze with bills, and Jacob’s soul was satisfied. “ We 've got a specialty,” he said. " You can’t do anything without a specialty.” Fresh ways of making the yeast known to the general public fermented continually in his mind. The Phœnix legend was soon emblazoned on everything, and became his Excelsior, inscribed on all his banners, hung on his outer walls, and planted on the tower of the citadel.

Mr. Butterfield, returning from a day’s fishing not long after this, was struck by the appearance of a very extraordinary dog that came running down the street to meet him, as if they were old acquaintances. It was a poodle of the shaggiest description, and had been snow-white. It had been dyed red. A broad band had been shaved around its body, and on its back appeared in large letters, “ Buy Butterfield’s Bijou Phœnix Yeast.” It was Jacob’s legend, Jacob’s dog. For once mild Uncle Joseph lost his temper completely. His grandmother’s — Butterfield’s — respectable Virginia yeast, used by the leading families for half a century and more, openly, shamelessly heralded forth on the main street of Slumborough on the back of a red poodle! It drove him wild to think of it! He caught up the animal (which was never again seen in that guise in public) and went home and had a scene with Jacob, who was perfectly amazed to have stirred up such a tempest by a device upon which he had prided himself not a little.

“ What is a Byjoo, anyway, I ’d like to know?” demanded Uncle Joseph furiously. “I ain’t no Jew! It’s Butterfield’s Family Yeast, and always has been, and always will be ; and this is your doings, Jacob. If you ever turn that dog out again to insult me, and the family, and the firm in the town where we’ve always lived and been respected by high and low, I 'll shoot him dead and give up Butterfield’s and go away somewhere and die among strangers.

In vain had Uncle Joseph bred his bird up a barnyard fowl — a Baptist — a Butterfield ! Blood had been too strong for him. And a blessed thing it was too, a blessed day, when this offshoot from one of the oldest yet still one of the most vigorous races among the children of men was driven into his tent for shelter, and under his wing for love and protection. In a few months the demand for Phœnix Yeast was so great that it was as much as they could do (simple as the recipe really was) to supply it. Every night Uncle Joseph and Jake sat around the big table in the little shedroom, and made it, having first locked the door and pulled down the blind so that the great secret might not get out. Uncle Joseph was so nervously afraid of this that in summer he always looked up the wide-mouthed chimney before settling to his work, to make sure that there was not “ a chiel among them takin’ notes.” Jake would laugh mischievously at this, and Uncle Joseph would say, “ It’s better to be on the safe side, Jacob. It’s a good deal easier to keep a bird in its cage than to catch it again once it gets out.” Just for fun, what should Jake do one night but get up that chimney on purpose that he might be caught. Uncle Joseph, stooping down, with his hands on his knees, and peering up, received a galvanic shock, and thought he had “ got him at last.” He hunted up his old ramrod, and was about to give some vigorous lunges in that quarter when Jake slipped down almost into his arms, to his intense astonishment and Jake’s intense delight.

When the poodle episode was over, Uncle Joseph felt that he had been hasty with the lad, and then for the first time solemnly admitted him to the firm as a “ full partner " by way of making amends. Jake was extremely pleased. He squared himself at the table that evening, and gave his whole mind to a new sign, which he designed entirely himself, with ink and cardboard and fancy papers, deciding at last on a gilt Phœnix with “ Butterfield & Co.” in red letters below, on a green scroll.

“ l’m Co., pappy,” he said when it was mounted, “and you are Butterfield. Ain’t it grand ? Ain’t it elegant ? I mean to have that bird on every cake of soap that leaves the store, before I’m done, and on every barrel of flour, and on every pot of butter, and on every single blessed thing we sell, as sure as my name is Co ! See if I don’t. That bird ’s going to make Lecky and all of ’em screech yet! He looked like a buzzard until it struck me to have him gilt. I ’m going to put him on the buttons of my coat! Now we ’ll just swoop over them all, won’t we ? ” he said, addressing the fowl in question.

“ Remember, Jake, you are a full partner,” repeated Mr. Butterfield, when he bade him good-night, and with solemnity he laid his hand on Jacob’s head, still curly, though Jake had tried and tried to make his locks straight. “ There is n’t many men as ’d give such a big responsibility to a boy, nor many boys fit to have it laid on them. My father was fifty before he became that in Butterfield’s. But I reckon I ’ve done well, and you ’ll be under ray eye all the time, where you can get advice and be showed what to do. And do you always remember what it is to be in such a firm and such a business, and never do you disgrace Butterfield’s, the longest day you live, sir.”

“I will — I won’t Uncle Joseph, I promise,” declared Jake, quite affected by his new dignity. And then he began laughing. With all Jake’s schemes and talents, his laugh was a better advertisement than anything he could have invented for the new firm.

The two partners were not always agreed after this, happily as their quarrel had ended. There was one very black day when Jake sold a customer (from a leading family whose name had always been on the Butterfield books in palmy days) a tea-caddy, asked three prices for it with his most delightful smile, and so sweetly declined to charge it that it was quite a pleasure to hear him, — it sounded almost like a compliment.

Mr. Butterfield was horrified and indignant. This was worse than advertising: revolutionary, atrocious, dishonest.

“ But she said she wouldn’t have anything that was cheap. I did n’t want to sell to her at all, for she can’t afford to buy much. She can’t afford it. So I set a fancy price, hoping to scare her off. And I don’t mean to charge anything to anybody. I sell only for cash.”

“ You ain’t fit to be a partner in Butterfield’s nor no other house,” cried Mr. Butterfield. “ I am ashamed of you, insulting a Mordaunt, that has had hundreds from us charged before now. And trying to cheat her beside. And calling it ‘ business.’ It’s rascality ! It’s that there Jew blood in you, Jacob. Leave the sto’.” He was in a white heat.

As for Jake, he went off and cried his eyes out, for he had a most affectionate heart, and was not only much hurt, but very rebellious.

So keen was Mr. Butterfield’s chagrin at this incident that he paid a trembling visit to Miss Augusta Mordaunt to explain away the insult. “ That boy of mine is a good boy,” be said, “ and he’s got some good ideas about business. But, Miss Augusta,” — he approached her as he spoke, — “ he warn’t born a Butterfield. He warn’t born in Slumborough at all. I don’t know that he was born in Virginia even.”

“ Ah,” said Miss Mordaunt, with a sigh, as if she had been given the clue to a great mystery, “ that accounts for everything.” After further apologies the offense was forgiven, and Mr. Butterfield went away, feeling that his honor was vindicated, even if he could not yet acquit Jacob of an unspeakable crime.

“Jacob,” he said when he reached home, “ you ain’t got no call nor claim to be impudent to the lowest in this town, for you don’t rightly belong here, only through me. And you are a foreigner, though it ain’t throwed up to you through being my son by adoption; you ain’t even asked where you came from. All that is overlooked ; but if you go to making war on your betters, you ’ll come out the small end of the horn. You can’t have no business without them. Oh yes, I reckon you can make money, but money ain’t Butterfield’s ! ”

“ You know I love you better than anything in this world, Uncle Jo,” sobbed Jacob. “ I ’d do anything in the world for you. But I can’t do business your way. I can’t, daddy. It’s no use talking ; I. don’t know how, and when you get mad with me (boo-hoo !) and talk to me like you’ve done (boo-hoo!) it ’most breaks my heart! I ain’t a Jew at all, either. I ’m a Butterfield, and your boy.”

“ I know, I know my son,” Uncle Joseph replied, affected by his embraces and tears and passionate protestations. “We won’t say no mo’. But do you remember that you warn’t born here, but have come in, a foreigner, and have got to live it down, and not go stirring up all Slumborough against you.”

The town, which knew Jacob only as a most resolute, self-reliant youth, bubbling over with cheerfulness, and small jokes, and enterprise, and audacity, would have been surprised to see him with his head down on Uncle Joseph’s shoulder, sobbing like a child. But if Jacob had the Jewish vice of making money coûte que coûte, he had every Jewish virtue, too: the strong affections and generous qualities, the industry and cleverness and ability of many kinds that make the race conspicuous in far other and higher fields than even Butterfield’s.

By no means all the talks between the old man and the young one were of this distressing nature. No indeed ! There was one day, when the business, under Jake’s Midas touch, first gave a vigorous bound in the right direction, that neither of them ever quite forgot. Mr. Butterfield had been off in the next county visiting one of his respeeted and respectable Baptist brothers, though it was the busiest season of the year, in accordance with his ancient and admirable theory as to the proper way of conducting any and every business. Jake had taken advantage of his absence to carry out a certain plan, and had got in boxes and boxes and boxes from Baltimore and Philadelphia and New York. For three days he had been whistling their contents into place, and in the joy of his heart even his hair seemed to share, for it curled in the most luxuriant and splendid fashion all about his shapely head, and he was much too busy to “ take the Jew ” out of it, as he thanklessly called its natural and beautiful wave. He was casting his eye down the bill of lading, with a thoughtful frown, and debating with quick eye and wit what would “ take,” and on what he would “ make,” and how he should conceal little “dodges ” from his “daddy,” when the door opened and Mr. Butterfield walked in. Jake ran forward and embraced him, only taking time to stick his pencil behind his ear ; but in spite of the supporting arm, Mr. Butterfield sank on the nearest seat.

“ Jacob ! ” he exclaimed. “ Pickles again, — a whole row of them. And olives ! And Sultana raisins ! And preserves in glass ! The whole side of the sto’ — Get me a glass of water. Quick, Jacob, and— put something in it.”

A happy evening that was, and Jacob, who loved the sound of his own tongue, and naturally was full of honest admiration for the admirable results of his talents, chirped and chattered away for hours, and showed every white tooth in his head as he threw it back to laugh, and made himself vastly entertaining as he opened his budget to show how it had all come about.

“ I had n t thought to see pickles from Belfast again on my shelves, my boy, while I lived, much less fruit in glass. And them raisins ! It’s just wonderful, Jake. I don’t see how you do it, for the life of me, and taking things so easy, too ! You are a good boy, Jake, and deserve well of Butterfield’s. You ought to have been born here, I declare,” was Uncle Joseph’s comment, — with which praise Jake was quite content. He would not have been so well pleased if he had seen the old man later, when, unable to sleep, he got up, took his lamp and luxuriated in another look at the shelves, then rubbed his chin, and said to the bunch of Sultana raisins in his hand, “ I would n’t have chose him a Jew. But it’s lucky for Butterfield’s, I do reckon.”

Jacob had a struggle of it, sometimes, to keep the business going according to his ideas. But a merry heart is a good member of any firm, and goes not only all the day, but for many a year. When Fouché complained of the discontent of Paris, Napoleon curtly advised him to “ give them more fireworks.” Jacob likewise took to fireworks when business flagged, and recognized the fact that Slumborough was dull, and needed an occasional sensation ; also that it could, and did, and always would enjoy and appreciate shocks from the world’s great electric battery. The town abounded in spinsters and widows and girls, and the reportorial capacity of a woman’s tongue cannot be overrated. Jacob, ever polite, plucky, and pleasant, saw that excitement was “ a long felt want ” of all country towns, and undertook to supply it, as he would have supplied anything for which there was any demand from a match to a mummy. He divined, too, by instinct, the most universal of passions in the human breast — a passion for getting something for nothing. With these two levers, it became an easy task, as soon as they were properly adjusted, to lift Butterfield’s up to any level desired. He added a soda-fountain ; he added an oyster saloon that soon blossomed into a restaurant; he added a bakery and a confectionery department. The store was always bulging out in fresh directions. In five years he sent his Phœnix crackers to South America, Mexico, and Cuba. He sold Phœnix Bi jou Yeast in a dozen States. He provided nearly all the hotels of the five neighboring cities with Phœnix butter. In a little while no lady in Slumborough felt that the day had begun until she had seen what was going on at Butterfield’s; and once at the windows she was irresistibly drawn within doors by a gift, a bargain, a novelty. Money flowed in to the till in a way that quite frightened and scandalized Mr. Butterfield.

“Are you running a sto’ or are you running a circus, Jacob ? That’s what I want to know,” he would ask. And Jake would laugh, and say it was “ a theatre.” Miss Bradley’s loan was repaid with interest. Lecky was perfectly crushed by such a rival. Moses, Solomons & Co. willingly let Jacob have all the money he wanted, and asked him to their respective homes. Slumborough became for the summer visitor and in the commercial world just a synonym for Butterfield’s.

A great deal of comment was naturally roused in the community, first and last, by the success of Jacob. Mr. Mordaunt remarked to Mr. Bradley one day on the street: “ I have always said that slavery as practiced in Virginia was a source of justifiable emolument to the upper class, and a good thing for the negroes. They fared as well as any laboring class in the world. But as a source of revenue, take all Africa, Bradley, and give me a dozen Israelites. If one turned them out every morning on ’Change, and emptied their pockets every night, one would soon have enough to live like a gentleman again, and need never give money another thought. It is that Jewish strain in the lad coming out, you may depend upon it! I am credibly informed that he comes of that race.”

At last a great day dawned for Mr. Butterfield, a great day for Jacob. For the business had burst all its bounds, so to speak. There was money laid by in the bank, where Jake was always called “ Mr. Butterfield,” most respectfully, now, and it was decided to rebuild. In a year there was a new Butterfield’s, indeed ! It had a front like the bank, and ran up six stories, and back indefinitely. It was all built of pressed brick, and tiles, and plate-glass ! It had a lifesize Phœnix over the door, as big as a condor. It had electric lights, and elevators, and bells, and punches, and tubes, and pipes. It had a gorgeous office that might have been that of the governor of the State. It was as full of clerks as it could hold, and a good deal fuller, often, of customers, to be Hibernian ; for on field-days there was always a large crowd before the door unable to get in. It was no longer necessary, when business was hopelessly dull, for Jake to light a few matches and papers in the front of the store overnight, and do just the right amount of scorching and blackening, and have a “ sacrifice sale ” next day, and clear seventy-five dollars, with a laugh in his sleeve that was worth as much more.

The counters at Butterfield’s were all of natural woods now, and the showcases of plate-glass mounted in nickel, which Mr. Bortswick, the Baptist minister in Slumborough, said was “ a wicked waste of the precious metals of heaven.” Jake was perfectly radiant and triumphant when he gazed about him and thought of what he had accomplished, and of all the way from the shanty with the lime-barrel, the apple-basket, and the fagots of kindling to this. He reflected that he was not yet thirty-two ; he looked down at his fashionable trousers ; he looked across with a warmer and better feeling at his beloved “ daddy,” “pappy,” “Uncle Jo,” as he variously called Mr. Butterfield, “ dressed as good as any gentleman in Slumborough ” and Carrying a gold-headed cane, his own gift at Christmas ; he thought of their rooms which he had lately furnished in a high-chromo style that would have killed an æsthete outright, but in which were represented all the comforts and luxuries that either of them had ever coveted in the old days of poverty; and his cup was full. He had no regrets. He determined to marry soon. Not Rachel Schmidt, though she was very pretty, which was nice, and would have money, which was certainly no objection, though Mr. Schmidt had taken a good deal of notice of him lately, and had always been kind and had lent him money in several of his straits, without security too. No, Jacob could not get his own consent to marry a Jewess; he never owned to himself that he was a Jew, not even in the dark, in the middle of the night. He disliked the race particularly, though most unreasonably. He would marry Nanny Nicodemus, and give away twenty-five “ bridal tea-sets,” sweet affairs of six pieces in white-and-gold with rosebuds on a clear ground, and get back all the expenses of his wedding and a nice little sum “ to boot.” No wonder Jacob’s face was bright as he walked down the grand entrance with his arm around Mr. Butterfield’s neck, and only clouded for a moment when a lazy clerk got in the way. He pushed him aside, saying, “ Don’t you see my father coming ? ” He was on the easiest terms, as a rule, with his employes, though he was always master. But he demanded that the most exaggerated respect should be shown his adopted father.

Mr. Butterfield, too, often looked about him at the miracles wrought by Jacob. It was all wonderful to him, very wonderful. Jacob still appeared to him a mere boy. How had he done it ? “ It’s as easy as turning his hand over for him,” he mused. He enjoyed the increased respect that his changed position had brought him. He was grateful to Jake for all his love and thought and care. He admired his industry, and marveled at his enterprise : But this grand store, this hive, this place of perpetual sensations and fireworks and brag and blind, of traps, excitements, continual changes, continual displacements, of noise and hurry and general hurrah! What was it, after all ? He remembered a long room with a low ceiling, as quiet as a church, where nobody was ever in haste, and a voice was rarely raised. He remembered a green stone jug that had been in the window for fifty years, and that he would no more have sold than he would have sold his own father. He remembered leisurely patrons, quietly and respectfully served. Patrons do I say ? Friends rather of a lifetime, whom it would be shameful to deceive, who always asked after his health and were interested in the well-being of the family, and with whom his father had discussed the politics of the country and the news of the neighborhood. Not a greedy mob, eager to buy and be gone, and to save a nickel, without so much as a “ goodmorning,” with an appetite for novelties that never was satisfied, and with death or a bailiff always at their heels apparently. The old man remembered the world before the flood, in short, as he sat near the new gilt register, wiping his face with the red bandanna which he would not give up, not even to please Jacob. “Jacob says it’s business,” he thought sadly, his mind and eye and heart wearied by the blaze and glare and glitter that surrounded him, and all his soul protesting against the group of clerks off duty at the back of the premises, engaged in horse - play, and smoking cigarettes with their heels up well above their heads.

It was Miss Mordaunt who formulated his disjointed though ardent impressions. They met one day in front of the store, where she had been stopped by Jacob, whom she had never altogether liked. He had run after her to give her a receipt for a bill paid. She shook her head and pushed his hand away, but he said, “You must take it; it’s a rule of the house,” and finally stuck it in the flap of her reticule laughingly and went indoors again. Miss Mordaunt pettishly took it out, tore it up, and threw down the pieces. “ I never took a receipt from you in all my life, Mr. Butterfield,” she said, “and I never will — there ! ”

“ No, of course not,” replied Mr. Butterfield. “ That’s right, Miss Augusta. I ’d have known better than to offer it. It’s that Jacob of mine. He will have his own way. I hope you will be so kind as to excuse his faults. He’s made a fine place of it, has n’t he, now ? ”

They both looked up at the gilt Phœnix above them ; at the huge shop windows with Phœnixes in every material that was ever known, from gold to gingerbread ; at the blue-label hams of the Phœnix brand hanging on pegs ; at the rows of bottled ale with red Phœnix labels ; at the boxes of soap of the green Phœnix brand.

“ You have got a mighty fine establishment here,” she said, “ mighty fine ! But it is n’t Butterfield’s. Oh dear, no, it is n’t Butterfield’s ! ”

It was not, it never would be again, and Mr. Butterfield knew it. Jacob had done wonders, but he could not call back again the day that was past. Their eyes met and filled with tears, that past was so clear to them both. Mr. Butterfield stood watching her for some moments as she picked her way home along the muddy sidewalk with her delicate, catlike grace of movement. He looked back at the store, and a picture in the window caught his eye, a caricature of the President, wretchedly vulgar, familiarly labeled, set there to please “the garlicbreathed many.”

“ She’s right. It ain’t Butterfield’s,” he thought, and never in the deepest depths of poverty and misfortune had he felt a keener pang than now pierced his heart on the height of “ Fortune’s crowning slope : ” “ Butterfield’s is dead, and I might as well be too.” From that day and hour the old man visibly relaxed his hold on life. In vain did Jake send him here, and send him there ; in vain did he try to interest him in what was going on at the store, or in his plans for the future of the business. That idol was dethroned forever, and lying prone in the dust.

So was the poor high priest of the Butterfield religion, a year from that date. The old man called Jake to his bedside as he lay dying in the smart chromo room. “ Go down — that picture — take it out of the window. The chief magistrate of the nation — take it out, or I can’t die in peace,” he panted.

Jacob hastened to obey, and coming back knelt down by him, saying, “ That’s all right. I took it out. I 'll do anything for you, daddy, anything.” Joseph received his kiss, took his hand, turned over on his side, and with a longdrawn patient sigh went out of the great business of life, quietly honoring the very last draft upon Butterfield’s.

Frances Courtenay Baylor.